[It's taken me eight days to finish this post, and another eventful weekend has passed which I also want to post about]
I spent a very enjoyable Friday evening down at the Ice Rink and over at the Hintons’ for tea. First time skating in almost two years, so I was quite surprised that I was able to move around as easily as I did and not fall over. Most of the Cubs and Scouts were not so lucky however, and one in particular…
It was a ‘meet and greet’ type thing with the Solent Devils, and a recruitment drive of sorts - for the kids teams (who are desperately short of players) and to get a few more spectators down to the Devils games. For me (and for most of the Cubs & Scouts probably) it was an opportunity for a free skate, as I’m too old for the kids teams and already go to the Devils’ games. I hadn’t been skating for almost two years prior to that, so it was good to get back out on the ice, especially as I had lessons that Sunday - thought it prudent to at least remember how to move around a bit, albeit clumsily.
So we get quite a lot of the Cubs and Scouts turning up to this one - more than I expected. There was a competition among the players, as the one who had the most guests turn up and mention their name at the door won a prize. Harry blitzed it with over twenty - the nearest rival got seven guests. So Harry won a goody bag.
The thing I hate about Ice Rinks, or maybe Gosport is singularly bad at this one, is the hire skates - they are always blunt to the point of being dangerous. The last time I wore a pair I concussed myself when the skate slipped out sideways from underneath me. I don’t think they ever bother sharpening them. It surprises me, as there is a world of difference between a sharp pair of skates and a blunt pair, and when kids first try the sport, if they are falling over all the time because the skates are crap, and they see other skaters (who own their own skates) whizzing around like demons on ice, many must get disheartened.
Or maybe its a fiendishly clever way of weeding out the lightweights before they get too into it - if they can fall over a lot, but still get up and want more, then maybe they are more suited to the game?
I doubt that’s the reason! Sam actually got so p*ssed off with the house skates, that he bought a pair of his own half way through the session. He agreed that the difference is immense.
The Cubs and Scouts were out in force, to differing degrees of success and enthusiasm, and I had a busy night going from kid to kid seeing if they are ok. The Devils did a good job in helping some of the less confident ones around the ice, and they put on a demo half way through - we cleared the ice and they went at top speed for a few laps and then had a race against some of the younger hockey players. When they did their laps, they were so fast that they created a strong draft inside the rink, not unlike the draft you get on the underground when a train is approaching! It was very impressive.
We spent the whole two hours skating round, with a break for a cuppa half way through. Honestly though, I could do that all day, just skate around, and around, and around………and around, and….you get the idea! Don’t have a clue why, but I just love it - always have.
Near the end of the evening, I get off the ice for a quick break, to see Chip (one of my Scouts) sitting on the seats nursing a hurt arm. Another parent I didn’t know had found him an ice pack (thank you whoever you were!). When I approached him, she asked me “are you his dad?”, to which I replied “no, I’m his Scout Leader”. We spoke for a few seconds about Chip’s arm, which was only mildly swollen, but very painful (going by the expression on his face), and as she left, she said “it must be very cool for the Scouts to have Jack Sparrow as their leader!”
Now, while I appreciate that I look nothing like Johnny Depp, and the comment was spurred solely by virtue fo the faact that I was wearing a red bandanna, it is still a nice thing to have said to you!
I made sure Chip was OK, and as Ollie was sitting with him, I said I was going to go for a couple more laps before the session finished. Thing was, once I got back on the ice, every thirty seconds I heard a “Dave! Dave!” or “Chil! Chil!”, and had to go over and speak to someone, so it was only at the end of the evening, when I was standing outside having a smoke and waiting for Rob to get out of the loo, that I suddenly thought “where’s Chip?”, and going back inside there was no sign of him. I felt very guilty that I had forgotten him, especially as he was distressed.
I’d feel even more guilty the next day, but I’ll come to that.
After the skating, I dropped off Rob, Paul, Pauls mate Harley, and Adam, then went round to the Hintons for tea. I had finally gotten photos of all the players, and it was time to compile the calendar ready for printing. We spent a while cutting out photos, sorting them out, choosing the best one of each player, and grouping them into months to stick on the appropriate page. In between that we had a nice beef bourgignon, and they were struggling to find a dessert that I could actually eat (what with my intolerance for dairy), so they made a fruit jelly (bless ‘em!). And very nice it was too. Overall a very pleasant evening - I felt very at ease there, which is odd, because I usually feel a bit on edge when visiting people’s houses for the first time.
Saturday morning, I bit the bullet and went to get my hair cut. Now that the tan line across my forehead, caused by wearing those damned do-rags all summer long, has faded, I felt brave enough to book an appointment at Headmasters in town. This was after being ordered to by Mike at work of course.
All they did was basically cut all the split ends off, take it back above shoulder length, and layer it a little, but I was actually quite pleased with the result. I’ve since cooled to it a little, as it is prone to misbehave, even when I apply the grooming cream (which cost as much as the actual haircut), but overall I think it is an improvement.
I have been inundated with compliments ranging from the odd “hmmmmm” of mellow approval, to “oh my god, that is SOOOOO much better!!!”, so I guess its ok.
The rest of Saturday, and a large chunk of Sunday were taken up with getting the Ice Hockey photos on the web. I’m using this photo album creator called ‘JAlbum’ which seems really good, now that I have got the hang of it (in a very basic kind of way), and am creating menu pages in Dreamweaver. I had intended to write these pages in HTML code, learning it as I did it, but I have not had the time to devote to learning it properly, and while I am happy for the pages to be quite basic (less is more and all that), I do actually want them to look half decent, so I plumped for Dreamweaver. Which is still quite challenging to do - I’ve had to mess around with links on images, site structure, proper navigation, tables, loads of stuff. Good fun though - its very much a ‘problem - solution - new problem - solution’ type process, and fortunately all the problems (so far) have been relatively easy to solve.
So the Ice Hockey pics that I’ve been going on about are nearly up for all to see.
This long and absorbing process was interrupted by an early night Saturday, brought on by the impending first ice skating lesson at 7am on Sunday morning. I actually made it too, picking up Sam at quarter to, and getting to the rink for 7 on the dot. I should have been there a little earlier, as it takes a while to lace up the ol’ skates.
The lesson was great though, and I learned more about skating in that hour than I knew up the that date. Discovering that there is a world of difference between the inside and outside edge, and the use of the ‘flat’ between to stop yourself (I can now snowplough stop - coooooooool!), and the fact that you have to look where you want to go to actually turn smothly in that direction - just like when riding a motorbike! Of course, I am fighting this constant battle to not look at my feet all the time I am skating, which is a big big flaw in my technique. Me and Sam have decided that we need to go down to the rink between lessons to practise what we learned that lesson, so that we actually progress week to week. We’re going down Friday morning - I persuaded my boss to let me sneak out of work for a couple of hours.
But the most amazing thing - I actually went backwards on the ice! Under my own steam!!! And on purpose!!!!!!! I’m well chuffed.
That was the first of almost seven hours spent in the ice rink on Sunday. I was back up at 4 to photograph the Tiger Sharks game (that’s the Under 10’s, for those that aren’t paying attention!). They got slaughtered by Guildford unfortunately, but Guildford have an Elite League team, and a lot more resources at their disposal, not to mention a much bigger team to pick from (I’m guessing, since they would have more followers of the game), so it was not a massive surprise. It was a bit off that most of Guildford’s goals were scored by a player in their third line though, who skated circles round our lot.
For those who do not know, the Under 10s play a line system, whereby, the first line (the ‘line’, by the way, is the team within the team - five players that play together until they are relieved by the next line, so they can take a break, so intense is the game of ice hockey)….
….ok, where the hell was I?
Oh yeah, the First Line is supposed to be all the best players, those who are almost of an age to go up to Under 12s (or in our case, already do, as we’re short of players), the Second Line is for the intermediates, and the Third Line is for the beginners, which can mean really young kids in some cases. Guildford had at least one player in their Third Line, who were clearly better than most of their Second Line and even some of their First Line. I lost count of the number of face offs where this little Guildford Third Liner took the puck, zig zagged around our whole team, and deftly beat the keeper for a goal - over and over again he did it. And he had some complete twat of a father who spent the whole game shouting his mouth off - you could tell quite quickly that this was a guy who had failed magnificently as a sportsman when he was younger, and was not going to let his son suffer the same fate. He must be a barrel of laughs to live with!
I’d ran off another 1,400 photos by the end of the game, but could not go home and look aat them, because there was a Devils game on straight after. They were playing top of the table Invicta (from Gillingham), unbeaten so far this season according to the program.
What a game! Great hockey, great fights, and a great result - we won 5-4.
Or was it 6-5? Sod it!