Breakfast Club: Week Seven with Laura
Have you ever had your mind wound-up around so many issues that you can't sleep? Last night was one of those. Among other things, I was mulling over what to write today. You see, Kirk and I traded emails yesterday. Have you noticed the blog has been a bit gender imbalanced lately? Yeah. It was supposed to be the boy's turn to write, but boy emailed girl and said (a) he's sick, and (b) his job is a nightmare right now, and so (c) between the intersection of those two factors, there was a high likelihood that he was going to miss this morning's skate. So girl assured boy that she would blog again, tag you're it, many hands make light the load, rah rah rah, we're all one big team, of course I'll do it because you'd do it if the tables were turned ...
So back to my sleepless last night. Besides trying to plot how I would embarrass Kirk in this morning's blog, I also had a sudden moment of awe and appreciation for our Wednesday instructors, Scott and Lyle (I'm not sure who's covering the Tuesdays this session). Not that I don't daily stand in awe of our instructors' abilities (ooh, it's getting deep in here) but I was suddenly overcome by true and heartfelt appreciation last night around 3:45 am. You see, I gave up pretending to sleep around 1:15 am, got up to work on the spreadsheet from HE double hockey sticks that was weighing on my conscience, and finished around 3:30 am. Staggering back off to bed, realizing that I'd be getting up again in about 60 minutes to go to hockey practice, I pondered that I had the luxury of not really needing to do that if I didn't want to. True, I had promised Kirk that he could beg off this week, seeing as he's feeble with the flu and overworked, and so if I didn't show I'd be re-nigging on my promise to blog. But frankly I may only be writing for me and Kirk anyway, and so who knows if anybody would really care that no one blogged today. I could have chosen to reset my alarm for a more decent wake-up time than 4:45 am, and life would have gone on just fine without me if I had skipped hockey this morning. But Scott and Lyle don't have that option. It's kind of like being the bus driver for the school, ain't it boys? If you spend a sleepless night or you wake up feverish, you don't have the option of resetting that alarm and snoozing through the practice. If you don't show, who's gonna be able to cover for you with no notice? If one of us skating fools fails to show, the class goes on. But if our instructors fail to show, well, we have no class at all. So whoo hoo, hats off to you, sincerely, for making the effort to show every week to teach us skating fools.
But maybe that's the motivation -- they unwaveringly show to teach us each week, because the skating fools will always give them something to smile about!?
Like this morning; plenty of Kodak moments to smile about. Let's take the two-on-0 with the one-on-one return loop that we did as the first major drill. How hard can a two-on-0 be? Pretty hard if you can't actually pass it to your partner. Likewise, it's difficult if, on the one-on-one return loop, you manage to trip over the paint as you cross the lines. But let's not dwell on the comic relief; let's talk about what we did right. Like avoiding to take out any of our classmates, a.k.a. the human pylons, during our pre-drill deking warm-up. Skate down the lane, bust a move at each pseudo-pylon, and take a nice warm-up shot on our goalies. On any given week, we usually can count on at least one skater-to-person-pylon collision. But we were accident free today! The workplace safety dudes should have been proud.
Same goes for the shooting drill. Catch the pass from the corner, and quick release your shot at the goalie. I don't think any of the bystanders took a wrist shot to the nether regions today. Usually, we can count on at least one wild wrist shot tagging an inattentive bystander during a drill like that. But today, even though there were still some errant wrist shots, the bystanders were alert and I believe we avoided having anyone hit in the zone-of-death (a.k.a. off to the side of the net) by a puck.
These may seem like little victories, but a big part of hockey is making sure you're paying attention 100% of the time. Not just those times where you've got the puck, or are actively trying to gain the puck. But all of the time. Because you never know when your time may be coming. You may be thinking you've got time to la-dee-da, and then BAM someone gets you when you're not looking. Life's like that, too, huh? Here you are, looking forward to having a relaxing morning of playing hockey, and doggoned if things like pesky little viruses and that mind-numbing job don't get in the way of your having fun.
So, rest up, Kirk. Come back healthy, and do it soon, please. Because we need someone for Lyle to pick on during the drills. None of the rest of us are quite such a suitable target for persecution as you, my dear boy. And if you can't manage to come back because you miss me ever so much, Kirk, then do it for Lyle. Because Lyle's dragging his bum out of bed every week to be there for you, Kirk.
Keep your head up, and your eyes on the goal.
So back to my sleepless last night. Besides trying to plot how I would embarrass Kirk in this morning's blog, I also had a sudden moment of awe and appreciation for our Wednesday instructors, Scott and Lyle (I'm not sure who's covering the Tuesdays this session). Not that I don't daily stand in awe of our instructors' abilities (ooh, it's getting deep in here) but I was suddenly overcome by true and heartfelt appreciation last night around 3:45 am. You see, I gave up pretending to sleep around 1:15 am, got up to work on the spreadsheet from HE double hockey sticks that was weighing on my conscience, and finished around 3:30 am. Staggering back off to bed, realizing that I'd be getting up again in about 60 minutes to go to hockey practice, I pondered that I had the luxury of not really needing to do that if I didn't want to. True, I had promised Kirk that he could beg off this week, seeing as he's feeble with the flu and overworked, and so if I didn't show I'd be re-nigging on my promise to blog. But frankly I may only be writing for me and Kirk anyway, and so who knows if anybody would really care that no one blogged today. I could have chosen to reset my alarm for a more decent wake-up time than 4:45 am, and life would have gone on just fine without me if I had skipped hockey this morning. But Scott and Lyle don't have that option. It's kind of like being the bus driver for the school, ain't it boys? If you spend a sleepless night or you wake up feverish, you don't have the option of resetting that alarm and snoozing through the practice. If you don't show, who's gonna be able to cover for you with no notice? If one of us skating fools fails to show, the class goes on. But if our instructors fail to show, well, we have no class at all. So whoo hoo, hats off to you, sincerely, for making the effort to show every week to teach us skating fools.
But maybe that's the motivation -- they unwaveringly show to teach us each week, because the skating fools will always give them something to smile about!?
Like this morning; plenty of Kodak moments to smile about. Let's take the two-on-0 with the one-on-one return loop that we did as the first major drill. How hard can a two-on-0 be? Pretty hard if you can't actually pass it to your partner. Likewise, it's difficult if, on the one-on-one return loop, you manage to trip over the paint as you cross the lines. But let's not dwell on the comic relief; let's talk about what we did right. Like avoiding to take out any of our classmates, a.k.a. the human pylons, during our pre-drill deking warm-up. Skate down the lane, bust a move at each pseudo-pylon, and take a nice warm-up shot on our goalies. On any given week, we usually can count on at least one skater-to-person-pylon collision. But we were accident free today! The workplace safety dudes should have been proud.
Same goes for the shooting drill. Catch the pass from the corner, and quick release your shot at the goalie. I don't think any of the bystanders took a wrist shot to the nether regions today. Usually, we can count on at least one wild wrist shot tagging an inattentive bystander during a drill like that. But today, even though there were still some errant wrist shots, the bystanders were alert and I believe we avoided having anyone hit in the zone-of-death (a.k.a. off to the side of the net) by a puck.
These may seem like little victories, but a big part of hockey is making sure you're paying attention 100% of the time. Not just those times where you've got the puck, or are actively trying to gain the puck. But all of the time. Because you never know when your time may be coming. You may be thinking you've got time to la-dee-da, and then BAM someone gets you when you're not looking. Life's like that, too, huh? Here you are, looking forward to having a relaxing morning of playing hockey, and doggoned if things like pesky little viruses and that mind-numbing job don't get in the way of your having fun.
So, rest up, Kirk. Come back healthy, and do it soon, please. Because we need someone for Lyle to pick on during the drills. None of the rest of us are quite such a suitable target for persecution as you, my dear boy. And if you can't manage to come back because you miss me ever so much, Kirk, then do it for Lyle. Because Lyle's dragging his bum out of bed every week to be there for you, Kirk.
Keep your head up, and your eyes on the goal.
posted by Suburban Hockey @ 11:09 AM
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