The majority of my week revolves around hockey. Hockey practice, intramural league games, and (of course) NHL On Demand. One would think that someone who is fairly involved in the sport of hockey would be a really good ice-skater but that is not the case. To be fair, I wouldn’t consider myself to be fairly involved in hockey, I’m more fairly involved in my boyfriend… who eats, drinks, breathes, thinks, and dreams hockey. I follow him to his games and practices, sit peacefully as he hoots at the television screen, and cheer alongside him at NHL events. And after months (years?) of him (and his hockey team) peer pressuring me to learn the sport, I’ve relented.
Of course, there are a few obstacles that I have to overcome before I can call myself a hockey player. There is, of course, the fact that I am, in no way, athletic. I’m pretty damn clumsy to be honest (thank goodness hockey has lots and lots of padding). In middle school I tried playing volleyball, I was the player that only got to play if enough people showed up sick and even then, only if we were far enough ahead in points. I stink at sports!
There is also the fact that I can’t skate. I tried roller skating once in my adult life with tragic consequences. So you can understand how I might feel about ice skating: no way, no how! I can dance, but I can’t dance with skates strapped to me. This, of course, would be one of the most important obstacles that I’ll have to learn to overcome if I’m going to be a hockey player.
Today is the day that I threw caution to the wind, strapped on those shiny knife-boots, and gave myself up to the mercy of the ice. Okay… that’s a little exaggerated. With plenty of fear and anxiety in my heart, I let my boyfriend draaaagggg me to public skate at the rink. He then had to tie the skates onto my feet (I apparently had not tied them tight enough) and chauffeur me onto the ice.
It was like the scene from “Bambi” but less graceful and cute. Luckily, I only fell once on the ice but I fell about 50 zillion times onto my boyfriend.
I’ll have to say, though, that I think I did well. By the end of the hour I was holding on less tightly and actually managing to get some strides in (as opposed to letting my boyfriend drag me along). At the end we had a conversation that went:
BF: You did really well!
Me: I did??
BF: Yeah. When’s the last time you ice skated?
Me: blank stare um, never.
BF: What! Never!?
Me: I’m from Florida. We don’t do that ice shit down there.
BF: WOW! Then for never being on ice before you did freakin’ amazing!!
Yay! I’m pretty stoked (scared) for more skating and I’m pretty proud that I finally got up the guts to do it. Oh, and very thankful that I had such a great, kind, patient, understanding teacher.
