Holy Crap! My first regular season of inline hockey is already over!   Hard to believe that the playoffs are already here.  It seems like just yesterday that I made the somewhat rash decision to join a team at the last minute and actually DO IT.

    Many people never thought I would actually be capable of doing something like this.  Mostly referring to the fact that I have serious issues joining things like this on my own, as I much prefer to have friends with me.  What can I say, I love playing hockey, so why not get off my ass and join a league. I think it was a wonderful decision.

    I'm not going to lie.  The first two weeks were confusing as hell.  I am very slow at picking up the basic procedure that almost everyone knows.  Things like what the hell to do in warm-ups, where to sit on the bench, when to change up etc.   All the stuff I was supposed to know, but didn't having only ever played street hockey. Well, once I figured all of that wonderful stuff out some other things became quite apparent.

    My skating skills leave much to be desired.  Granted, I can skate quite well when compared to the average person, and when on asphalt.  I never really had any difficulty with any of the basic procedures in the past.  Well, let me tell you, I absolutely suck compared to the rest of the players.  Skating on sport-court is a completely different animal than asphalt.  The level of grip is so different than what I was used to.  I also discovered that I have some major problems performing a hockey stop.  I can stop in almost every other fashion, but the hockey stop is very important in hockey (Guess that's why they named it what they did)

    It is amazing how much progress you can make week-to-week.  Every week I get a little better, and make fewer stupid mistakes.  Unfortunately, with inexperience comes a slew of mistakes to be made.  My teammates are always ready to tell me when I do something stupid, or get out of position. There is only so much progress one can make, all I can do is keep at it.  Needless to say I am much better than I was back in January, but there is still a long way to go.

    I would really like to believe that I will become good at this sport, but only time will tell.  Regardless, as long as the team will have me, I will keep playing.  I just hope that I can convince some of my friends to sign up  and play.  I know they will have a blast.

Oh well, time to get going,

Kevin