Official 2011-12 2p2ers playing hockey thread

[sylar]

g10,

find a learn to play hockey class. they usually do 8-10 sessions over the course of a month, and put together a team afterwards and send it off to the lowest league/division.

http://www.hna.com/leagues/custom_pa...296&pageID=570

there's also this, http://www.hockeydetroit.net/ and the lowest is C+, which is like 6-18 month experience level for most people who can skate.

[sylar]

geddy, do you always wear full gear in stuck'n'puck?

[GREEAR10]

I found a roller hockey rink like 2 mins from my house. Gonna try to get a few pickup games going next week. Obv won't help me in learning how to skate but im sure it won't hurt in the stick handling department along with greatly helping my endurance.

[prohornblower]

Yeah try to go to local rink stick&pucks (may cost like $10/hr) but you can get out there and mess around with.... a stick.... and some pucks. And there are usually other guys there messing around taking shots and stuff.

Definitely try to find a class that teaches how to skate for hockey. If you are good on roller blades it shouldn't take long to easily get to Novice ice hockey level skate ability. Having never played ice hockey in my life, I did this about 5 years ago and with probably <20 hours on ice I got to where I needed to be. Of course I'd roller-bladed plenty and was decent on ice skates (could skate for an hour and the o/u on times I would fall would definitely be .5).

Anyway you'll learn basic stick-handling and keeping your head up while you skate and control the puck. You'll also do circle and figure 8 drills around center ice and the face-off circles. Also backwards figure 8s. Speed drills from one end to the other. And passing drills with the other guys learning. You'll improve a ton really quickly though. The only thing that took me a while to learn was the hockey stop, and that's because nobody was explaining it correctly and I only learned how to do it by observing my brother. Once I realized you are supposed to thrust your ankle OUT (keep the blade perpendicular to the ice), I got it right away. Skate blade slides across the ice, doesn't slice through it. And once you learn the hockey stop, playing hockey gets a LOT funner. Changing lines in a hurry is easy, speeding into the corner without worrying about how the **** you're gonna stop is no problem, trying to negate an icing, etc. It will just open your game up a ton.

Last time I played was the night before my 30th birthday. Novice league, we had SIX skaters show up. Other team had eight. I typically played RW but for that game I played D since only 1 other guy was capable. Played the best game of my life up until that point. Didn't take a single shift off the first period and scored 2 goals and we ended the first period up 3-1. Ended up losing 5-4 and I think I took 2 breaks the entire game. lol. Was funny looking over at our bench seeing 1 dude resting the entire game.

Anyway that night I went out and drank a lot of beer and by 2am I had a 104 fever. Next day (birthday) find out I got bronchitis and strep, and end up having to get a 7-day I.V. treatment of antibiotics + steroid at a total cost of $1,200. Lost a lot of weight and strength but got better. Anyway season ended while I was sick and I never played again since and that was 2.5 years ago. Really sucks, since I had taken a big step during that game. I realized how much better I was on D than on wing and just had a lot of fun shutting them down. I will hopefully play again soon!

My little brother is really good and was just asked to play in the best amateur league in the city (invitation only). I think he played 1 game so far and got an assist on their only goal. He said he had what he thought was an open net wrist shot goal that the goalie just slid over and snagged like nothing. Some dude on the bench told him that guy was playing in College a year or two ago somewhere up north.

I've gotten to play with him in the regular C league which was a blast. We had a game where we assisted eachothers goal which was neat. I've played a few fun novice games in the Toyota Center in Houston which was really fun! Pretty cool getting to dress in the Rockets locker rooms and stuff. The drop from the boards to the ice is higher though. First time I went on for a shift I nearly busted my ass. lol. I've got some pics somewhere.

[swede554]

that's cool phb. you should def start up again. and post those pics. actually, i think this thread will be a lot better if people posted lots of pics/video. video of you playing, practicing, pics showing off your gear, whatever.

skates i'm currently using

[prohornblower]

Swede,
A pic in the Toyota Center, with the Houston Aeros logo seen at center ice behind me. You can see I'm rocking the very novice-like full cage helmet. Arena was much warmer than any other rink I've played at. It's not a big deal to play there. The league I played in had a set-up with the arena that allowed us to play a game there every few months. Basically anyone who wanted to play would just pay and go and you'd be on a hodgepodge team just for that 1 game. It's just I'm pretty sure the only pics of me playing were from these games. A friend of mine sat in the stands and snapped a ****load of pics. This was back in 2008.

[hotwings18]

I always wear the full cage esp after the first time i ever wore a visor someone split my lip open going into the corner...

[swede554]

+1 for full cage. my helmet.

[DevinLake]

I don't wear a full cage, but they are definitely getting more common with every season.

[Geddy Lee]

Originally Posted by sylar

geddy, do you always wear full gear in stuck'n'puck?

More or less, yeah. I know a lot of my buddies hate wearing shouldies, but mine are so small anyways, there's no point in not wearing them. And to be perfectly honest, it feels weird playing without them.

[GREEAR10]

Just got back from shooting around for 30mins...im completely gased, and suck more than i thought.

[DevinLake]

I had my third game of the season last night. We got smoked. The scoreboard read 9-4. It may have been worse, sometimes the scorekeeper is nice and stops putting up goals. We were actually up 4-3 at one point. The other team has a lot more skill than us though and really should be in Div 1 instead of Div 2 with us. Also, I'm starting to suspect that our goalie sucks.

When it was 7-4 they were still skating hard, and got away with some slashing that I took as evidence that slashing was allowed. So, I spent the rest of the game slashing anyone that came near me or was still skating hard to juice the score. No penalties.

[sylar]

bump!

got word that i didn't get into that other league i tried out for.

trying to figure out the commitment to both of my teams this season. my old team hasn't really pulled any of their **** together, the roster is largely a question mark. of course, it doesn't help that the league is supposed to start this weekend but none of the games are posted yet. my new team's roster is almost set. looks like i'll be a winger in div-6 again, which is what i want. no more blueline bs.

played in the new team's scrimmage last night. had two full benches (13 skaters/team), a mix of div-7/6/5/4 players, played 90 minutes with no breaks. played 3rd line rw. had a few chances camping out in front of the net, but didn't get it in. won a bunch of races to the puck (most people don't skate well). got chewed a bit after the game by the 1st line rw for overskating my line changes, which only happened twice i think, but in reality the 2nd line routinely took 3-4 minute shifts, so whatevs. yelled out, "DRIVE THE PLAY" to one guy. no 2p2 regs in my game, so noone got it.

i had my new fbv blades, and i must say my edges have never been better, but they dig in a bit too much. didn't feel slow on the strides though. might have to increase that hollow next sharpening. first action for my new bentley stick on the ice. i didn't notice it before, but it's definitely much heavier than my other sticks. really need to cut it down.

[DevinLake]

I'm sore today!

Played my first game of my monday night league on monday night. 11pm start which resulted in 7 skaters for us. We lost 5-2 to a team that is better than us to begin with. Not a bad effort, but I was exhausted.

Played again last night. 4th game for my other league. We dominated the other team pretty much the entire game. They could not get out of their dzone cleanly. As a dman it was very easy to step up on their passes as they were never coming out 3 forwards at a time and never had more than one option at moving the puck forward. That said, we lost 4-3. They probably had a 50% shooting percent and their goalie played very well. We are now getting a new goalie!

[sylar]

just using this lame excuse to bump the thread.

i enjoyed reading this, and it's definitely an underrated topic for beer leagues.
http://coachnielsen.wordpress.com/20...ring-a-game-2/

As a coach you need to set boundaries of what you feel is the appropriate length of a shift and how to exit the ice without putting your team in jeopardy. A few points to consider

A shift should be 40 to 60 seconds
You should change when entering the offensive zone, NOT when returning to the defensive zone.
On a “Dump and Change” the far side wing and defenseman should hold their ground to make sure the opponent doesn’t have the ability to breakout up the far side. Once they know that the puck is deep and not coming right back out they should finish the change.
Officials will give a team a 10 foot cushion near the bench when changing. Take advantage of that and have the players entering the ice over the boards as the players exiting the ice reach that 10 foot line. Keep in mind that this is best when the puck is deep in the opponents end, not when the puck is in the neutral zone and able to be knocked over toward your bench.
When changing lines with the puck near your bench make sure your entering player waits for the exiting player to get to the boards or you could get a “Too Many Men” penalty.