I just signed up to take Hockey 101 for a second ten-week session. It’s expected you’ll take the class two or three times before moving on to Hockey 102. You must be able to do a quick lap around the ice under control, skate backwards, and perform a hockey stop on at least one side before you “graduate” Hockey 101. In my case, I may need to take a LOT of Hockey 101 sessions.
While I think I am improving, I have a long way to go. I don’t really look forward to class. The first several weeks, my stomach was in knots before class. I didn’t want to go to hockey class. Hockey class is scary with giant guys dressed in all black like ninjas! Hockey class hurts! Hockey class is exhausting! Hockey class has a scary instructor that tells us to skate backwards! I don’t move at all when I’m facing backwards! I want to stay home and play with nice fluffy yarn!
By now, what I feel before class is not so much “fear” as it is a bit of “dread”. I know it’s entirely possible I’ll spend most of the hour lying on the ice unable to get up. I try to listen to the instructor. Sometimes I’m still on the other end of the ice, trying to complete the last drill, and I can’t hear him. But if I can hear him, I listen.
I don’t understand all the drills. In one drill, the instructor told us to skate down the ice, go down on one knee, get back up, then back down on the other knee, and back up again. I went down on both knees and my butt. Why do I need to know how to do that anyway?
When we change lines in scrimmage, I am able to go over the boards without falling (most of the time) now. I can kind of skate backwards – slowly and clumsily. I get “stuck” a lot and have to really concentrate to get going again – but at least I’m not just standing there with my back to my classmates. I fall less often during stopping drills. My passing leaves a lot to be desired, and everyone avoids being my partner for passing drills. However, it seems everyone would like to be my partner for the “chasing” drills. I never come close to catching them, and they always catch me easily.
I had a good week once. One classmate even tapped me on the butt with his stick and said “good job”. That was once. Another week I nearly hit a classmate in the face with my stick and I missed most of scrimmage because I fell and couldn’t get up. During scrimmage last week, I saw a teammate look at me… and I yelled “don’t pass to me! don’t pass to me!” but he passed the puck to me. It bounced off my skate and almost went right into our net. It didn’t go in the net, but it did go right to an opponent who scored.
Still, I’m ready to give it another ten weeks. In fact, I not only signed up to repeat Hockey 101 but I found another ice arena that offered adult hockey lessons and signed up there as well. They call their classes ‘It’s Never Too Late’ hockey. We’ll see, they haven’t met me yet. They may change their minds and decide, in some cases, it is just too late.
Submitted for publication in the Greeley Citizen
