EXCHANGE INTERFACE

I made foccacia. It was good.

We also drew our hockey game on Sunday! 1-1!

(We won for the first time a couple of weeks back and it was Very Good.)

I ended up playing in the defensive line for the entire game - we had one experienced defence, and one not-so-experienced, and I had experience and could defend (sort of). We had players out right left and centre - holidays, mostly, but a few injuries too. This isn't unusual at this time of year, but it's just a little rough! So I did defence, which took some reconfiguring of my brain. (At one point the coach asked me "do you mind going into defence" to which I retorted, "I mind, but I can play defence if we need it".)

We yoinked the coach's daughter, who is a first-grade player, to come play for us in the defensive line and without her we surely would not have kept the score level. But the other team had players from the metro-level competition (whose lowest grades are equivalent to our top grades in our little suburban comp) so I don't feel too badly about it. :)

I did keep forgetting to stay back and a couple of times was up rather further than I should have been. Luckily the goalie is a longtime friend (she's usually one of our centre defence players) and kept calling me back when I kept running up to the attacking quarter! She tore her lateral a couple of weeks ago and is resting it. We have another week off, so hopefully she rests it even further.

Anyway, without me in the attacking line, we weren't quite as strong in the forwards/strikers, but with some nice passing around in the circle, one of our most experienced players tapped a goal in, to much rejoicing. We need more of those plays anyway - we're not going to get shots on goal, we need angled shots to the side and across the goal to get it in.

If we get enough people at the next training, I'm going to ask if we can abscond with our team, and have us practice the bits of our game that need the most work, which is mostly passing to each other while on the run, short attacking passes in the circle, defence not getting in the way of the goalie, and sending and scoring from the post.

I've spoken about how this is a tricksy year for hockey in a post earlier this year. But I am enjoying some of the games, even when we're getting beaten. And we are improving.

But it can still be frustrating to see players who aren't ready for this grade (and aren't improving) struggle in the face of it.