Let's Body Check Cancer Hockey Tournament - Friday, April 8th to Sunday, April 10th, 2022

 I could barely sleep Thursday night.

Having no idea how this was going to go

I wasn't a particularly productive employee during my workday on Friday: just a bundle of nerves, desperately hoping I wouldn't be a massive liability to my team...whose performance was uncertain at best, as we'd never played together. The company had participated in the Let's Body Check Cancer tournament in 2019 (the last time it was held), but only 3 members of that team were returning for the 2022 edition. 

At least most of my coworkers have the advantage of youth - I'm the only one over 40.
My equipment is older than half of my team.

My anxiety about how things would go was not improved when it turned out one of our players had come down with some sort of infection that had him coughing his lungs out and bowing out of the tournament, and one of our few female players had broken her skate blade when it was dropped while loading her gear into her dad's truck. With only 2 other women skaters on the team, that was a bit worrying: the co-ed tournament requires you to have a minimum of 2 women on the ice at all times, which is part of why my team was grateful to have me as a female goaltender. I'd be out there for the whole game, so we'd only need to have 1 other female on the ice, but that meant Sarah and Deanna (who was brought in just a few days before the start of the tournament, and our only non-Nicoya player) would have to be careful about only subbing off for one another. We only had 10 skaters total - 2 lines - for Friday!

Our first game was at 6:30pm, so we left the house just after 5, partly in hopes that me being in public would stop the random screaming I'd been doing at Tank. The first struggle was just carrying all my crap into the rink - I swear that bag has somehow gained weight in the last 20 years - up the stinkin' stairs to the front doors!

Tanker did offer to carry it for me, but I wasn't going to be that guy..

As it turns out, I arrived as the tournament staff were still getting set up, so we wandered into the bar area to wait for others to show up. I did some very nervous stretching while I waited, and greeted my teammates as they showed up. Once Sarah - my coworker who'd organized our team - arrived, it was time to hand out jerseys and our tournament swag.

The company bought these for the tourney 3 years ago - there was even a goalie cut one for me!

We each got a tournament t-shirt with all the team names on the back, plus a custom Sniper Skin with the tournament logo (one goalie-sized one per team)

Then it was down to the dressing room - yes, down a set of stairs after having to climb one to get into the place - to try to actually get all my gear on for the first time in a dozen years, and see if I could make it onto the ice without falling on my face..

Our first opponent would the the Jagr Bombs, whose jerseys were awesome!

I only screwed up once while getting dressed - put my hockey pants on before my hockey socks, which I discovered when my bare legs felt awfully breezy when I pulled up my pants - and made my way out of the dressing room for a little more last-minute stretching before the zamboni finished flooding the ice and disappeared out the far door. This was it: go time!

I managed to step out onto the ice without falling, which I counted as a good start. I skated over and grabbed the net, then pushed it into position at the near end of the ice. 

Which - fortunately - turned out to be the correct end, as I hadn't checked!

The photo above shows me grabbing one of the pegs to secure the net - basically a steel cylinder with a (not terribly sharp) spike on the bottom.

These things

You stab the spike into the ice, then lift the (hollow) post of the net and slip it over the cylinder. I slipped off my trapper, grabbed the netting, and completely failed to lift the post more than an inch. I'd forgotten the damn things weigh upwards of 80lbs, and whipped off my blocker so I could use both hands. Whose brilliant idea was it to have the goalie throw down some deadlifting before the game?

One post secured, one to go.

A bit of skating and stretching - hey, it turns out I can still do crossovers in my pads! - rough up my crease and try to get a feel for my angles again, then time to feel the puck a little.

I mean, at least some of them stayed out..

It was probably only the second warmup shot that I took: I shot out my left pad, and felt something go pop in my left hip. Did...did I just mess myself up before the first game even began? I tried to just dismiss it from my mind. The only thing that matters in goaltending is the next shot. A short memory is your best friend. Track the puck, manage your angles, let the defense worry about the pass, and throw any part of you that you're able between the puck and the net. Simple, right?

While wearing a sofa and sweating like you're on the surface of the sun

Puck drop, and I finally get my first look at the team in front of me. As it turns out, there's a lot more skill and speed in my coworkers than I'd been led to believe! I stopped the first shot that came my way, and we got the first goal of the game. I actually kept the few pucks that made it to the net on the right side of the goal line through the first 10min stop-time period, but one smacked off my left thigh and bounced through an impossibly tiny hole between it and the post during the second. That was frustrating, but Team Nico potted another goal or two to keep us ahead. A hard shot came in from the point, hitting my knee while I was down in butterfly - that one smarted, not only because my decades-old thigh boards aren't terribly protective, but because it managed to dribble through my 5-hole into the net. 

Insult to injury, that.

Still ahead going into the 3rd thanks to my team keeping most of the action in the offensive zone, I gave up a couple more goals: one just over my glove (which was not fitting well as I'd forgotten to take off my wedding rings before the game), and one that just had me sliding the wrong way down on the ice. 

I only faced about 8 shots the entire game, and allowed 4 goals.
The NHL will not be calling me any time soon!

Tank says I looked and moved better as the game went on - and I actually pulled off a poke check! - but I know I struggled to stop any shooters with any real skill, and was absolutely abysmal at tracking and controlling rebounds. The rust was REAL! Fortunately my colleagues got 6 goals past the Jagr Bombs, and were very kind when commenting on my play afterwards.

Game 1: 6-4 win

After all that, I had to climb another set of stairs with all my bag full of soaking wet gear to get up to the bar for some post-game conviviality.

A couple of our other coworkers had come out to spectate, and stayed around for a post-game drink

My left hip - thankfully - held up ok, but my lower back, neck, and left shoulder (most likely from my failed attempt to hoist the net one-handed) were really stiff and sore after the game. No big deal, except there were 2 more games on Saturday, plus another on Sunday! No-one stayed very late on Friday, so we got home by around 9:30 so I could unpack my gear, shower, eat, and stretch.

Oh, and discover a souvenir from that second goal.

I meant to get to bed early, but there was a really awesome lacrosse game on - the Halifax Thunderbirds vs the Calgary Roughnecks in some fantastic NLL action - so it was gone midnight by the time I turned in for another very restless night. I was just too amped from the game, and stressed for the rest of them: I worried a lot about how my body would feel in the morning after so many years off the ice.

This whole thing sounded better on paper.

Up around 8am, I packed up my bag, made a bowl of oatmeal, and slurped back Tanker's excellent coffee on the way to the rink. On arriving and hitting the dressing room, I realized I'd forgotten my team jersey at home, where I'd hung it up to dry out! Fortunately goalies aren't required to wear the same jersey as the rest of the team, and I had some extras in my bag, so it wouldn't cause problems.

I just felt like an idiot.

Game 2 was against the Cancer Fighters at 10am, and I actually managed to get all my gear on in the right order on the first try! I'd thrown an X of kinesiology tape on my lower back to try to hold things together, and just had to hope my body would move and respond without too much awkwardness. 

I had a team counting on me not to let them down!

Fortunately, I actually felt a little more solid this game: I was moving more intuitively on the ice, and my rebound control had gone from completely absent to merely poor. This game had a little faster pace, but there were no real stand-out shooters like there had been on the Jagr Bombs. The play got a little dirtier, though: the tournament explicitly states there are to be no slapshots, but one came in from the point. I stopped it easily with my blocker and wasn't fussed about it, but the referee scolded the player for it immediately. There was another instance when one of their players came cruising through the crease after the whistle: had I not been well into my net at the time, he'd have taken me out, which may have been his intention. Hard to believe people would pull that sort of thing in an all-inclusive, co-ed charity tournament, but here we are.

Things were going ok, mostly. I pulled off another poke check on a shooter charging the net, but popped the inside of my right knee as I did so - I hoped that wouldn't become an issue as the game (and the tournament) went on, but it didn't seem too troublesome. I did just get plain beat on a shot in the first period - once again sliding the wrong way when the shooter deked - but Team Nico had already potted a couple of goals so we went into the second period ahead 2-1. By less than halfway through the second, my coworkers had doubled our scoring, partly thanks to the Cancer Fighters taking a penalty.

Once again, I wasn't getting a lot of work.

With another goal before the end of the period, tournament rules dictated that the third would be running time as there was a 4 (or more) goal differential. We got one more early on, then another!

The company CFO - the head of my department - came to this game to spectate

Then I had a bit of bad luck: the puck hit my shoulder and bounced straight up, and as I turned to look it hit me in the back of my shoulder and bounced into the net.

Fortunately that was it for scoring on our net, and I was a little proud of a couple of stops I'd made, including trapping the puck against the post with my skate firmly planted so it couldn't squeak in. My old goalie coaches would have been proud! And of course the amazing play of my colleagues can't be overstated: they kept the opposing team's shots down to 10 or so, and most of the action at the far end of the ice.

Game 2: 6-2 win

The team dispersed pretty quickly after this game, with only a handful staying for an hour or so afterward. I was in the curious position of having a few hours of time before the second game of the day, and tried to spend them wisely by doing things to promote recovery.

Like stretching, eating some nutritious food, and hanging out with my legs up the wall.

I also made sure I got my heckin' jersey back into my bag!

Game 3 was at 6pm, against Puck Cancer.

"Hatrick Swayzees" made me laugh

This team would prove to have yet more speed and skill than the other two we'd faced so far, and I had friends coming to watch so I wanted to perform as well as I possibly could, for them and for my teammates! 

I'd got the hang of popping the net on by now, too

I was feeling decently loose from playing earlier in the day and some stretching plus a short, easy walk in between games. I'd tried to nap, but was totally unsuccessful: sleep was just not happening with my anxiety turned up to 11.

Drop the puck and LET'S FREAKIN' GOOOOOOOO

Fortunately, this proved to be my most comfortable game yet. I mean, I popped my right knee again (this time getting beat by a shooter) so that hurt, as did the shot that found the weak spot in the padding of my chest protector on my right upper arm, and I even took a shot right off the cage of my mask (for which the shooter apologized, and which made me very happy I'd bought a new one for this tournament!), but I actually started to feel like I had some clue of what I was doing.

I even got a very loud "F@#K" out of a guy who was sure he'd got one past me, only to find I'd caught it with my pad

Heck, I even got my glove hand working for me at last - I'd made a couple of stops with the wrist pad, but it had taken a bit for me to figure out that the bit you catch with isn't actually where your hand is, which isn't the most intuitive thing. I kind of wonder if the guys might not have had a little discussion about this, as quite a number of the warmup shots were high on the glove side - maybe they figured practice was what I needed?

It seemed to work - who doesn't love a little left-handed larceny?

They did get a couple past me on my blocker side, both of which were just straight, non-screened or -deflected shots. I'm not sure if my blocker is a bit lazy, or if I wasn't properly positioned to cover the angle on that side? Either way, it was something I noted to try to work on...but I was now 3 for 3 with successful poke checks!

Shooters never expect the poke

Puck Cancer took a penalty for something or other - I think I heard it was for tripping - and once again Team Nico's offense took advantage. 6-2 going into the 3rd meant we were back on running time instead of stop time again. Things got a little chippy, too: I'd hear from other teams later that they thought these guys were the dirtiest players in the Gretzky division.

Robbie taking some exception to a Puck Cancer player

I only let 3 past me this game (the 2 blocker side, and one on which I just got beat by a deke) while facing the most shots so far (maybe a dozen?). I got a bit tetchy at one point when a 4th goal was put up on the board by the timekeepers, but it was removed again. We were back to stop time for a minute, but then Team Nico got a 7th goal past Puck Cancer's goalie with 2:15 to go. We were able to run out the clock, giving us a perfect 3-0 record for the round-robin portion of the tournament.

My form might be terrible, but my team was generous with praise afterward!

Game 3: 7-3 win

Somehow, we were the only team to win all of our round-robin games, and (despite my rusty performance) had the lowest goals against in the divison.

I mean, it's tough for the other team to score goals from their own end, which is where my teammates mostly kept them.

One last game to go: the final for gold in our division. We had no idea who we'd be playing (though I suspected from the standings that it would be "3-Way"), but at least we finally knew when on Sunday we'd be on the ice. It was the latest possible start - 12:15pm (as opposed to 10:15am or 11am for the consolation and bronze medal games respectively) - but my teammates and I still didn't linger long after our win. Home to shower, eat, and stretch, and once again fail to sleep well.

Oh, and with another rad new bruise!

You'd think the 4th game - as I'd suspected, against 3-Way (who are actually named for a neat summer event that takes place at the same venue as this tournament: co-ed teams compete in hockey, baseball, and volleyball all in one weekend) - would have seen me feeling the most comfortable yet, but that was unfortunately not the case. It was a case of bad timing, as I'm sure some women can understand: I woke up with that horrible sensation that my body was someone else's poorly-treated rental return, with hormone-induced soreness and stiffness piling on top of the damage of the last 2 days.

There's not enough tape in the world to make things work right at that point in my cycle

No time to worry about all that, though: I packed all my gear (including my jersey), scarfed back some oatmeal, and once again sipped coffee as we headed to the rink for 11am so I could do the horrible climb up the outside stairs one last time. 

This would be our first game on the South rink, as all of our round-robin games had been on the North rink, so a new dressing room. I arrived to find it open, and got to work kitting myself up. For the first time in the tournament I wasn't changing in the same room as our opponents: there was only 1 women's changeroom for each rink, so we'd mostly been sharing with the people we'd be playing against. This time it was another team in there, who were actually playing on the North rink but were in the South rink dressing room.

I also wasn't too impressed to get myself all ready to go, only to find that they were only starting the flood (despite the last game having finished more than 10 minutes prior, as evidenced by even more women coming into the now-crowded changeroom). 

Doesn't matter - get it done and drop the puck!

I still felt really awkward on the ice, and it seemed like the rest of our team had lost a half step from the previous games' exertions as well - we were a little slower moving and less coordinated, which was a problem as we were definitely facing our toughest opponents yet. 

Yeah, I made the save...and almost fell the heck over!

This is the first game in which we were playing in the far end of the ice, so I couldn't see the scoreboard or clock. I'm told there were some timing issues: the clock didn't start with the play, and the board showed period 3 for the entire game. Those were rather secondary to my own issues, though - this was the first game in which we allowed the first goal, and I just wasn't moving well at all.

It was definitely not 0-0 in the actual 3rd period

My teammates got one back, and then we went up 2-1. I faced more shots than ever - though still only maybe 15 or so - and actually did come up with a few saves, even with multiple rebound attempts.

I was still awful at tracking the puck when it came off me, though

The save of the tournament definitely goes to Michael, though, who literally stole the puck off the goal line after it had escaped me.

I mean he has my back at the office - I shouldn't be surprised he has my back on the ice!

3-Way got a pretty soft 5-hole goal on me, but Team Nico rallied and popped in another, then another. One sneaked in between my glove and my pad, despite me feeling it hit my glove - even Clayton and the ref commented that it seemed like I had it, but to no avail. My teammates got another one, but I was still having 5-hole problems.

I should have poke checked him!

It felt like I just forgot how to play in the last game.

What certainly wasn't helping was that we had no time whatsoever between the second and third period: I was able to skate over to the other end, but the refs were already blowing the whistle to drop the puck. I wasn't able to get even a sip of water, and I'd had nothing during the second. I might not have been working all that hard due to the amount of time the puck spent in the far end, but just standing there in goalie equipment has your sweating like crazy, and I was THIRSTY. They got one more goal past my blocker side while badly screened, but as usual the offense and defense stepped up, and scored more goals than they had in any game yet. 

Game 4 (finals): 8-4 win - Gold in Gretzky Division

WOOOOOOOO!

Post-game handshakes with our opponents - sportsmanship counts!

While I wasn't very pleased with how I'd played in the final game, my coworkers were all very kind about saying I'd done well - as long as they were happy, I was happy! I might have tweaked my left hip again, and my right knee was quite sore (not to mention the bruises), but I was mostly unscathed and delighted to have been able to make a modest contribution to the team's success. 

Team captain Sarah - far left - with the tournament organizers at the award ceremony afterward

I was neither as good in the net as I'd hoped, nor as bad as I had feared, and I hadn't maimed myself horribly - my knee and hip are still sore, but the hip had issues beforehand and the knee doesn't hurt while running. It was great fun to get out on the ice again, and what's even better is that we were able to far exceed our fundraising goals: individually, as a team, and as a tournament!

I'm so grateful to all of you who donated!

Hopefully the research funded by this tournament will save thousands of lives!

We definitely bettered our performance at the last edition of this tournament: in 2019, Team Nico only won a single game out of 4, so this is far exceeded anyone's expectations. We even got some pretty sweet laser-etched Thermoflask water bottles as prizes for our division victory.

This ought to outlast the bruises

If you're on the fence about participating in this tournament, I can't say enough good things about the organization. They've made every effort to make it as accommodating as possible for every skill level, and ensure a fun time for everyone. I'll definitely be back next year, hopefully with a little more practice under my belt in between!

Hockey is way too much fun to go more than a decade between games

Oh, and for point of interest (because I got curious): the major pieces of my equipment - blocker, glove, pads, and chest protector - are all from the mid-90's, and generally heavier than their modern equivalents. I decided today to find out exactly how much extra weight I pile onto my body before trying to contort myself in an effort to stop 6oz of vulcanized rubber from flying past me.

The control - me in a shirt, shorts, and slippers:

My bathroom scale says 151.4lbs

Full equipment, minus a jersey and my stick (I'm holding my skates, and my blocker is under my arm):

That's 187.2lbs - a 35.8lb difference

And with all that, I still got bruises. If I actually start to play regularly again, it might just be time to find some kit made in this century.

Happy Easter everyone!