This week in ice sports

I had another busy week, just the way I like it!

• Saturday: Figure skating practice, including skills lesson. I had a decent skate and my bracket turns might be getting a teensy bit better. They are seriously hard. And I haven't even learned the backward ones yet! Otherwise my test routines have not really improved all that much. Why? Uhm, lack of practice. You bet.
• Saturday: Hockey game! We played a team with a lot of beginners so I tried to focus on taking my time to make a smart decision with the puck instead of panicking and throwing it away.
• Sunday: Another hockey game, usually I don't play 2 days in a row but they moved one of our games that would have overlapped with the Stanley Cup (how nice!). This time we played a much better team and as usual we were short-handed so this game was a little more ugly. One good moment for me was when I got a half-decent backhand shot on goal from the high slot. Another one was when I did a cool stop-and-turn-around move to lose a check and got away a nice pass.
• Monday: More hockey! Usually I figure skate on Mondays but there was no ice this week, and my team is always shorthanded so I played for the 3rd time in a little over 2 days. These 3 games were like a 'Goldilocks Series'. The first opponent was 'too easy'. The second opponent was 'too hard'. But the third opponent on Monday was 'just right'. We lost 1-0 because I screened my own goalie. Oops!
• Tuesday: Personal training. Sweat was rolling down my nose. Also, my husband has a sudden interest in hockey so we went to public skating and looked in on some games to see if there is a beginner's division for men. I wore my hockey skates and tried to do some backspins. On the first one I fell on my butt because I apparently rely on my toepicks waaay too much. After that I tried to balance more on the ball of my foot the whole time, but the best I could manage was to not fall down. On the bright side, I have pretty decent twizzles in my hockey skates, which I attribute to the lack of toepick. Then I tried a forward spin and fell again. Crap! Kurt Browning can do an Axel in hockey skates.
• Thursday: I found a store that was open late today and ran out there after work to pick up a couple of street hockey pucks. I bought the 'Green Biscuit' puck and the 'Proshot' puck. I also grabbed another stick for home use only. I wanted to try them outside on the road but it started pouring rain as soon as I got home (!). I found a piece of cardboard and put it down on the carpet in the spare room and practiced a little stickhandling, probably for 30 or 40 minutes. I definitely need a bigger piece of something slippery to practice on indoors. My forearms are already sore and that was just a couple of hours ago!
  

It's Deja Vu all over again

Well, the Stanley Cup final is all done and it ended in similar fashion to the one in 1994 - a Game 7 loss followed by a riot. Blech! In fact the Canucks came closer in 1994 when the game was a 3-2 nailbiter (including 2 goals from Captain Trevor Linden) instead of a 4-0 groanfest. Other than that observation, I don't feel too much need to comment on it because you can find plenty of that elsewhere on the internet. However for me there were some personal differences between the 1994 loss and the 2011 loss.

• In 1994 I was only 13, this time I am 30 so I was able to handle it a bit better
• Probably for the same reason, while it was exciting, I don't think I got as emotionally drawn into it except in those Game 7's.
  
• This time I live in the area, so I made the most of it by attending one game, watching one game outside in the sunshine downtown, and attending one of the away game viewing 'parties'. I now have 2 towels sporting '2011 Playoffs Final'.
  

In terms of the fans, I thought expectations were higher this time. In 1994 the Canucks were never supposed to make it to the final and while they won the first game they dropped the next three games rather decisively. Their come-from-behind wins in Games 5 and 6 were downright sensational. When they won Game 6 at home it was euphoric. The crowd went absolutely bananas and there were fireworks. One guy jumped the boards and slid across the ice on his knees, arm outstretched. The party went into the streets. In my opinion, it is still the best moment in Canuck history.

When the Canucks won Game 5 at home this year, it was also wonderful, but somehow less exhilarating and I didn't get that same feeling that everyone was going bananas now that they were only 1 win away. Instead there seemed more of a feeling of relief, like why did that take so long? Haven't they won yet? And the sense of dread, that going back to Boston would mean another bad loss (which it did).

The Canucks gave us an incredible season this year and it was both fun and stressful at the same time. Until the end, it seemed as though they could pull out a dramatic game-tying or game-winning goal when they needed it most, and it was wonderfully entertaining.

The fact that they have come so close and lost twice is of course a disappointment for me, but I feel a new motivation now. When it was all said and done and Zdeno Chara was hoisting the Cup instead of Henrik Sedin, I turned to my husband and said, "If the Canucks can't win the Stanley Cup, I am just going to have to win the damn thing myself!"

Go Canucks Go!

Ok so they are not as snazzy as some of the ones I have found on the web, but I made some Stanley Cupcakes today to cheer on my Vancouver Canucks, who are going to Game 7 tomorrow. They are certainly good enough to win it, and when you think of how many players are due to score by now, I hope they can all get their games back at once tomorrow!