A shutout!

And it was mine!

Of course, there are a few qualifications to that statement: it was just a scrimmage, and my offense and defense were really on the ball. Nonetheless, I made some good saves, and I felt really attentive all night.

My favorite save was on a breakaway, with the skater coming straight at me down the slot. I skated forward to challenge then decided to do something special. I quickly increased my forward speed, dove forward, and poke-checked the puck well away from the startled skater. It was awesome!

I am really enjoying the whole hockey experience. This represents the first time that I’ve participated in a team sport in an organized league in many years. Sure, I lettered in band and math team (11^th at State!) in high school, but while those were challenging team activities, they weren’t really sports. No, I must dig deeper into my history to find my last athletic team.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but my intuition leads me to guesstimate eight years of age. My parents convinced (forced?) me to play soccer. I don’t remember much about the experience; in fact, I can’t recall ever playing any games. I am reasonably certain that the local YMCA ran the soccer program, and I’m reasonably sure that our team uniforms (really just t-shirts) were purple.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember an event that must have been from a game. I remember getting a penalty (or something) for touching the ball with my hands, but I complained because the ball had taken a weird bounce and brushed my hand. The ref would hear none of it.

The only other thing I remember about the soccer league was that we played our games at dry outdoor hockey rinks around my community. Grass grows in those rinks during the summer, and the boards usually prevent the ball from wandering off, so it served us well. Kind of like box lacrosse, I suppose.

Before that, I apparently played t-ball on a team. My only memory about that is the color of our jerseys: yellow.

Yup, besides those single seasons of t-ball and soccer, I’ve never been on an organized athletic team. Fourteen years later, that changed, and I couldn’t be happier about it.