1st Sledge Hockey Game

This past Sunday I played in my very first sledge hockey game. I was super excited but kind of nervous. I've only had 5 practices, in my entire life, and wasn't sure how well I'd do in a game. I felt like I'd been doing well at our practices and have been keeping up with everyone else, who have been doing it longer, but I wasn't sure how well what I'd learned would translate into an actual game.

No matter the outcome of the game it would always be kind of special as it was my first. A couple of my friends, who love to go above and beyond the average support of any friend, managed to make it even better by coming to watch and cheer me on. It was an away game so 3 of my girl friends hopped on a bus for an hour to get there. A 4th friend of ours, who lives there, picked them up from the bus station and brought them to the arena. My parents also made the hour and a half trip from home, coming from the opposite direction. I felt pretty special having 6 people there cheering me on. Complete with bright green signs. It did make me a little more nervous knowing they were there though. No one had ever seen me play before and I didn't want to embarrass myself. I'm very aware that sometime how we feel or think we look like doing something is far from how we actually look doing it. But non of them had seen sledge hockey being played before, other than a couple videos I showed them online, so I was excited for them to see the game in general and to have a better sense of how it's played.

We did win by the way! 9-8 YAY!!! Going into the game everyone kept saying how good the other team was. I kept thinking "oh great, my first game and they're a really tough team". But in the end, it made for a more exciting win. We definitely had one really great player on our team but the other team had a few. Enough that they could have at least one or two really good players out on each line. Our goalie was amazing though. As a team we fought for that win but our goalie is really what kept us in the game. And it doesn't actually matter but as a side note, I was the only girl playing on our team.

Personally for me, I have 3 plays/things that stand out as what I'm most proud of from the game. One being the 2 on 1 I a was part of in the first period. The best player on our team got control of the puck and I was able to take off down the other side of the ice and keep up with him. I was in perfect scoring position. Unfortunately, he didn't pass to me. He did score though, so I can't be too annoyed.

I'm also proud of myself for winning all but one of the face-offs I took. At least 5. I think the most impressive part about this was that I'd never done one before. I hadn't even been shown how. I had been playing left wing but we changed up our lines quite a bit throughout the game and so occasionally I would play center. When one of our coaches called out the next line and I was playing center I realised I better figure out how to do a face-off and quick. The guy next to me had been playing for a while so I asked him for some pointers. That 30 second conversation is all I had to go on.

Lastly, but certainly not least as it was probably the most valuable contribution I made towards winning the game. With less than 3 minutes left in the game our best player got a penalty. We were only up by one goal and now down a man. The other team was deep in our end and I managed to ice the puck. Without an icing call of course because we were short handed. The only thing I could think of in the split second before shooting the puck down to the other end was "oh my gosh don't mess this up". I was worried I'd fan on the puck completely or the guy who was on me would steal the puck away or maybe if I did shoot the puck down the ice it wouldn't have the power and wouldn't get very far. The last couple minutes of the game were pretty intense but we just had to hold onto that one goal lead a little longer, I didn't want to screw it up. There was no need to worry though, I was able to send the puck to the other end and we were able to run out the clock in their end.

I was thoroughly exhausted following the game. Especially seeing I had played the day before as well. It's hard sometimes when I need my arms to walk. It was totally worth it though. I had so much fun.

Here is a video clip from the game. And a second video that shows I have the best friends/cheerleaders EVER!!! They even cheer for me between plays.