All Feet on Dek

Yeah, for some reason, they spell deck hockey without the "c."

Anyhoo… I had my first practice on Saturday for the upcoming Pittsburgh Sports League Spring Season, and I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the results.

First off, the teammates I met were all swell individuals. We had a guy wearing a "66" jersey, and wouldn't you know it, he was kinda good. I'm hoping that after two or three more practices, I'll have come along far enough to wear a "29" or a "4" jersey. I definitely made it publicly known that I want to be the Phil Bourque or Troy Loney of our squad…

We played a bunch of chuckleheads that were already warming up on the deck (I'm calling it that because it was concrete and not the patented "dek" created by Mylec). We were beating them 8-3 when I finally had to leave.

As for an honest assessment of my personal performance (having not played since I was in junior high)… pleasant surprise but plenty of room for improvement. I played mostly defense, but after pinching in to keep the ball in the zone, I switched to right wing to compensate for the guy who shifted back to the point. I took advantage of that lone offensive opportunity to roof a rebound and give us a 4-0 lead. Hopefully the coach was watching.

I never played much defense as a kid (who among us really did?), so I was a little shady on my assignments. Chief among my concerns were screening my goaltender, picking the correct passing lanes, and not getting hit in the nuts… I'd like to think I did pretty well on all three counts (and especially well on the third).

I finished the game with a +/- rating of +3, so all in all, not too shabby. I'd still rather play forward, though, allowing me to light up the scoreboard and have access to all that dek-hockey-groupie tail…

(Fitness note to those of you who care—you know who you are, you H&M bitches): I'm plenty sore, but that's to be expected. Another solid week or two of practices and some extra-curricular running *sigh* should see an end to that. Problem areas: left shoulder and groin, despite significant stretching before and after.