23 January game recap vs Ice Pirates

Score: 6-0
Opposition: Boy were we way over-matched. The opposing team skated way faster than us, had some great puck-handlers, and even cycled against us. It was hard enough to get the puck out of our own zone, much less get shots on net.
Team performance: We played pretty well. It seems like that when we play teams that are better than us, there's less pressure, so we play better. Not a good habit. We need to play at the same level, no matter how good or bad our opponents are. Melissa's line has some good breakouts. And for the first time, our coach played in a game with us! She was a bit rusty at first, but got better as time went on.

My performance: I played pretty well. My linemates were Denise and Mary. Like my previous game, I drank a lot of water in the three days preceding. Everyone keeps telling me how important it is to be hydrated and maybe it helped me. I'll try to keep it up. In a game like this where we had no hope of winning, I played defense most of the time and try to make the most of the limited offensive opportunities. Generally, I felt pretty energetic and kept my shifts short, getting off the ice whenever possible... because chances to get off weren't going to come often during a game like this.

I found myself diving several times to knock the puck away (including one spectacular crash feet first into the boards). I tried my best to do good stick work (lifting sticks, poke-checking). Stickwork is one of the strengths of my game (in my humble opinion, I think I'm one of the best on the team), but even I had trouble which tells you how good the Ice Pirates were at stickhandling. I had a nice, brief charge up the middle of the ice where I took the puck near the defensive blue line and fended off 1-2 people, but somehow lost the puck after that. Also, I executed a nice line change. In one of our rare offensive attacks, I got the puck on my stick, dumped the puck hard around the net, and got off. Overall, I did a good job of staying on my point. It was a little tricky since the Ice Pirates cycled but I think I manged to keep track of them. Once I even picked off a pass between the points. That defenseman must have been overconfident. She didn't even check that I was there! My only gaffe was in the last few minutes of the game. I had burned up gas driving to the net on an attack and just couldn't keep up with my point. She pinched in and one-timed a pass to score. I was a little pissed and threw my stick. Oh well.