Day: December 9, 2003

Last night, I asked the question to some of the people at the rink if I was being to critical. The rink owner asked if I was talking about myself. What I meant was my team, but him asking that question entered my mind.

Am I too critical of myself?

Last night and into today I have thought about that. Lets look at the facts. I am a beginner/intermediate goaltender. Any shot that isn’t a deflection, redirection, odd man rush, or breakaway I feel I should stop all the time. If I don’t stop it, then I cast doubts on my ability after the game. Sometimes, during the games, I tend to get down on myself a little. However, I can also say I have done better at not doing that in the last year. I am succeeding in keeping myself in a positive mindset through the entire game. It doesn’t matter how many “bad” goals I give up. I emphasize the word “bad” because it is subjective. A bad goal to me may not necessarily be a bad goal to others. Staying positive is a main key to goaltending. Goaltending is mostly mental. If you believe you can stop the next shot or make the next save, you have half the battle won right there.

So to answer that question…yes, I guess I am a little to critical of myself. However, I feel that part of that drives me to do better.

Monday 12/8/03 – White Tigers vrs Carpe Poon

There are times my team, the White Tigers, show flashes of brilliance. However, there were a couple team letdowns at really bad times in a 10-4 loss. The score just wasn’t indicitive of how the game was played. The first three goals I gave up weren’t weak ones. It was a two goal game at the midway point and we were hanging in there pretty well. Then, the other team got 3 quick goals in the span of a couple minutes. One of them was a weak backhand that I misplayed and it hit the far post and went in. Another one was a deflection off my own defenseman. Anyway, 6-1 was the score, and I called the timeout. I explained to my team that I have seen them play so much better. They came back and scored 3 to make it a two goal game once again. Then we had a couple bad bounces go our way and the game just got out of hand.

Overall, I felt ok with my performance. I had a couple bad bounces go my way through the game. Two shots hit my own defenseman and went in. I had one shot hit my pads when I dove over to make a save, and it landed behind me and trickled into the net. On top of that, my defensemen didn’t step up and take the shooter as well as they have in the past. I am not upset with my team though so don’t get me wrong. Here is a team that has a challenge just competing in this league. The challenges just keep coming. Next week, we have the top undefeated team, the Fury. The Stickheads….minus me. If we can make a game of it, I will be greatly impressed.

Since I have talked about it before, I won’t mention the fact that I still am a little pissed off about the Stickheads “disolving” and then coming back minus me and a few other people. Especially since I was the goalie for over a year and backstopped that team to 6 winning seasons and 3 championships.

Great, now that I have thought about it, I am a little irritated. Time to change the mood.

I have been working on a new section on my website that will list my championship accomplishments. I really wanted to record this in the past and now is as good a time as any. I have almost got all the pictures together and I have the championship memories already recorded. I think about my accomplishments in this sport often. Maybe it is because I wasn’t the best athelete in high school or college. Now that I am able to contribute, I want to remember these things.