My buddy has played his entire life, his brother was an injury away from going to the NHL. He makes me feel like Bambi for sure when we go together to open skate.
Your me about a week and a half ago or so. I'm pretty excited about starting to learn how to stop and slow down since that was the one thing holding me back from being able to get speed when the rink is busy. I would of felt bad if I would have plowed through one of those fearless five year olds that are out there making me look bad during the weekend and night skates. The best advice I can give is to go to one of the noon skates during the week if you can. At the Ice Haus there is never more than 6 people on mon. or wed. Oh, and I had the arches thing happening too. I went and got new skates right after the first time I skated. It only took about 3 sessions to break em' in, but at first I was cursing the clerk who I was sure had lied to me when he told me I needed to get skates a size small. Now though I'm skating up to two hours at a time with no pain at all.Slick, I don't have the complete balance-thingy down yet, but I'm not on the boards. Simply put, I still wobble every now and again. I can turn and get a decent speed going. It kills my insteps, though (the arches of my feet). I don't know if that is normal, I hear that it will get better once I get my own skates and break them in. Not sure how to stop, but I am getting better at the other things. Can't wait to learn to skate backwards.
The more I learn about it the more I wonder why it isn't more popular. It's so intriguing. The gold medal game this morning was awesome if you got a chance to watch it. I can't wait to get out and play. I have another friend who took it up a couple of years ago, never tried to learn to skate first and get this- he just went out and started playing. He said his first shift he tried to hop the boards and fell flat on his back. Funny stuff. Everyone stopped playing and started laughing
We're thinking of starting a "D-League" team at the end of this year if you are interested. We're aiming for the first season following college football season's end. I want to be proficient before I start playing. I'll probably play some Drop-Ins for a while once I get comfortable with skating and then the Stick-and-Pucks. I'm going to try to sponsor the team (around half of the jersey costs) through my company.
Now here's some advice for you- don't give anyone advice on anything but swimming until you are 25.
We went on Saturday night... bad choice. There was about 100 people on the ice, maybe more. It was tough. There was some Chinese figure skater showing off in the middle. That kind of freaked me out because he came out of no where on some jump twist crap and landed on my shoulders. He said something about loving me a long time. I saw a few of those kids that we skating around like they were tough shit. One smiled at me as he skated past and called me a polar bear on blades. I checked him into the boards. When he was bleeding on the ice he said "You went to ONU, right?" That kind of made me feel bad.
I played before. But gave the sport up. Here is a pic of me...
Nah but really, I have played. It is not a easy sport by any means. Your going to take alot of hits and at first your not going to like it because your not used to it.
If you ever played football, I compare that to the level of hitting. Just a little above that.
If you did play football and didn't like it, then I suggest you stay away from any type of hockey.
