Let's Body Check Cancer Hockey Tournament - Apr 21-23, 2023

 After a year of anticipation - with some actual practice beforehand this time - it was here again!

..and I was slightly terrified..

I was so very nervous in the days before we hit the ice for the 2023 edition of the Let's Body Check Cancer hockey tournament. While I've actually been playing pretty regularly since February, I still don't feel like I've got myself anywhere back to a consistent, decent form, and I was anxious not to let my coworkers (plus an employee's sister, a couple of returning folks who had left the company but came back to play, and Tanker) down. 

Trixie helped me pack

It didn't help that our first game wasn't until 9pm on Friday evening: that sure gives you a lot of time to have an existential crisis. Nonetheless, we made our way to the rink for about 7:45pm and got ourselves checked in, then picked up our team kit: t-shirts, Sniper Skin stick grips, and stickers, all with the tournament logo on them, plus some purple hockey tape.

Our swag got dropped off in the car - I had enough gear to deal with already

I was so very nervous getting on the ice for game 1 vs BrokerLink (a platinum sponsor of the tournament), especially since we had some added pressure in the stands: we knew that Tank's parents were flying in from Calgary for the tournament - and to spend some time with their son during the week of his 50th birthday - but we had no idea that his sister and our nephew were coming as well! They turned up at the rink all together just before our first game, making things very emotional for Tank. 

What a great surprise!

I ended up playing ok - we actually carried a 1-0 lead into the second period, but then it seemed like the other team woke up, and we eventually lost 5-3. I definitely let in a couple of goals I'd like to have back, but certainly faced more shots than I had in any game last year. It felt like we'd been moved up a division for this year, and we had a very short bench - also missing a player for Friday, as she had a class. Nothing for it but to try again Saturday morning!

Our schedule was a little...compressed..this year

We were back on the ice about 12hrs after we'd left it, while the rain continued to pour outside. We faced off against Moves Like Jagr, and if I'm not mistaken I think they actually got one past me first...but then I managed to shut the door, while Team Nico - now at full strength - proceeded to pour 7 pucks into their net. It was amazing what one more skater on the bench did for us!

One of the stipulations of the co-ed tournament is that 2 females must be on the ice at all times - I'm out there for the full game, but it's always easiest if we have more than 2 others on the bench!
Thanks to (L-R) Lindsey for coming out with her brother, Blake; Sarah for coming to play while on maternity leave, and Suzana for coming back to play after moving on with her career last year!

Unfortunately we were back down to only 9 skaters - not quite 2 full lines, and only 2 females apart from me - for our second game on Saturday. Lindsey was taken down by a migraine when she got home, and was unable to play. We also faced a very strong team with a deep bench: they included the family who started this tournament in 2015, and the young man whose childhood cancer diagnosis had been the catalyst for its inception had just turned 18 and was on the ice with them! Unfortunately - despite playing my strongest game so far - we found ourselves outmatched, and lost 5-3 in a really fast, exciting contest.

Our friend Rhonda came to watch the afternoon game, too, and got this pretty sweet photo of me actually looking semi-competent!

The standings were slightly less flattering

We met up with Tank's best friend and his family for a birthday dinner Saturday night, complete with a birthday cake and the hockey-themed birthday card I'd made for him.

I'm so grateful we got to celebrate together!

We knew we would not be in contention for anything with 2 losses in 3 games, but had to wait until the final round-robin bouts were over before finding out the time for our final game on Sunday. Fortunately it wasn't until 11:15am, so we were able to get some sleep to help us recover. I'm so happy we didn't have to play a third game on Saturday: my left hip/groin was complaining loudly about me having gone down awkwardly (to try to stop a puck that was blocked before it even hit the net, no less), and it was all I could do just to lift my bag full of sweaty goalie gear onto my shoulder to get it out to the car after 2 games!

As 3rd place in Pool A we'd play 3rd place in Pool B in the Crosby Division
(We'd been in the Gretzky Division last year, which was the beginner division)

Thankfully, some massage gun work and stretching on Saturday night had taken care of most of the soreness, but I definitely tried to get a good warm-up in before game 4. Unfortunately, while Lindsey was feeling better and back on the bench, Suzana had woken up with a sore, swollen knee, so we were down a skater again and faced with a team that seemed to have the maximum 16 players.

I also had a shaky start, letting in 2 pretty soft goals in the first period, and the Pylons just seemed to have a nearly impenetrable defence. I let in 2 more goals in the second, and while I managed to shut them out in the third period, Team Nico was unable to get on the board. We finished with a 4-0 loss, and an overall record of 1-3. 

..but we had a lot of fun along the way!

Even better, Team Nico raised almost $2,900 for the Canadian Cancer Society, and the tournament as a whole brought in $170,000!

And now half a million since the start of the tournament

While it might have been nice to win a little more, it was great just to be out on the ice and participating in such a fantastic event. I'm not hanging up the pads just yet, either - we've signed up for a little bit of weekly shinny starting next month through late July, and have been playing pickup hockey most weekends lately. Who knows - maybe with some more regular practice, I can help Team Nico to another division victory next year?

In the meantime, I took some of the terrible footage I shot with a cheap action camera (that I've since returned since the viewfinder and the actual video were about 20 degrees off from each other both vertically and horizontally) and cut together some highlights. If you've got 4 minutes to watch some amateurish editing and bush league hockey, give it a look!

On a personal level, though, the best part was that Tank got to spend some great time with his family for his birthday. I couldn't ask for a bigger win than that!

We even got to watch the Oilers take down the Kings together!