Luongo and Crosby cement the all-time gold medal record (14) and continue our dominance in the sport! All I can hear out my window now is the frenzied cheers and honking horns of proud Canadians.

Congrats to our fierce Canadian athletes. Go Canada Go!

Also, congratulation to the USA for their metal count and amazing performance on the ice. In all honesty I was very worried for todays game.

The big news from tonight’s game isn’t the win however. We had some goal tender issues and played the first 4 minutes of the game with 6 players and no goalie. Thankfully we were able to do a pretty good job on both the scoring and defensive fronts and the score was a respectable 2 to 2 when the goalie finally took the ice. The rest of the game was played with the inexperienced backup tender and thankfully due to great defensive play only 2 further goals were scored; surprisingly, to all involved, none of them were bad goals either. Oh ya and did I mention that I was that backup goal tender?

My first ever experience goal tending. I have to say that it was a lot of fun, I really enjoy the game of hockey no matter where I play but I wasn’t sure if this would also be true of goal. I have much more respect now for the position as it was a lot harder than I expected it to be. Staying in your crease and knowing where the posts are is really difficult. The equipment is also very heavy and it is exhausting just picking it up and putting it down during the course of the game. Holding the stick was also a challenge since your grip is totally different, it is essentially impossible to stick handle and shoot without a very steep learning curve and a ton of practice. Anyway, through some combination of luck, flailing, and luck I managed to do a fairly respectable job but for sure it didn’t look pretty. I’m glad no one was taping the game that’s for sure.

One more item completed on the check list of life. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future instalments of “What random thing did Adam do today…”

Awsome first period, strong second period, awful third period, and beauty in OT.

Let’s hope our ladies have the same outcome next week.

1. find random interesting topic serendipitously (generally while away from a computer)
2. think over the idea to expand it and test its viability for becoming a post
3. sit at the computer and turn idea to prose (if I do say so myself; god the ego)
4. relentlessly edit content for form and style
5. post

So as you can see there are a number of weak links in the chain that delay blogging despite my best intentions. Thankfully with work and exercise the chain is shorter: find time, do it. I’ve mentioned before that I started playing hockey again. Our winter season is now over and we have to wait a month or so before the summer season kicks off. We ended up doing quite well in league play, finishing fifth out of around thirty teams. Unfortunately, we were put out first round in the playoffs by a team that had a fair number of extremely strong players. We played well, kept ourselves in it and I was proud of our effort.

This season of hockey has shown me two truths about myself. The first is that I am badly out of shape when it comes to short burst stamina. This problem essentially puts me out of the game after the first period. I am trying to work on it by doing sprints in a nearby field but getting myself out of the house is problematic. The second truth is that my hockey skills are very rusty. I am currently playing defense which I was quite good at in high school about ten years ago. Time has taken its toll and my skills are all equally weakened from stick handling to skating and from heads up play to knowing my position. Campus Recreation is offering a hockey skills course this summer and I am planning on taking it. The first course is focused on individual skills and the second (running in the fall) will focus on team skills. I am planning on taking both and hopefully will bring my play up so as to not let my team down in the seasons to come.

The title of this post mentioned an expansion of activities and I will get to that presently. I’ve covered the topic of Parkour several times on this blog and now that it is summer again I will be joining my friends in and around campus once more. However, squash is actually the latest thing that I wanted to mention. A few weeks back a friend lost his partner to an ankle injury which he happened to bring up one day to me. I used to play a bit at Brock but hadn’t in quite a while — even though I have my own racquet and balls — so I offered to partner with him until his regular guy healed. I love squash, so once I started again it was all over. I was recounting how much I love squash at the office and found two more partners. Sergey who I’ve now played five or six times and Mike Iley who I’ll be playing for the first time next week.

This summer is shaping up to be a very active one. I am hopeful that this will be what I need to push my weight loss past its current stall and take me down to my target of two-hundred pounds. What are your summer exercise plans?

After tonights game it looks like I am destined to be our teams goon. I swear that it is not because I am trying to be, honest! Body contact is not allowed in the league and is cause for a penalty when it occurs. The campus rec league is made up of players of all shapes, sizes, ages and skill levels. I am a big guy. You do the math.

Tonight I received three penalties: Body Contact, Tripping, and Body Contact. The tripping was definitely a good call, I was being lazy. However, those contact penalties were a joke and the ref knew it. The problem is that I am solid on my skates so if I come in for the puck against a smaller player chances are they are going to fall, and they did. Some of these players could come at me standing still and they would fall, and I would go to the box.

I am taking this as I sign that I need to work on my finesse.

So far the Screaming Donkeys are 3-0. I scored a goal in my first game last week so I am pretty happy. Our goalie, Sean Jackson, is playing amazing and the group of guys are really great. Soon we will be receiving our new shirts too, they are going to be nice.

At least a few times each winter I think back to playing hockey and am reminded anew how much I miss it. This year, just before Christmas break, I found out that a few current and former staff members play hockey in the UW Campus Rec program. I was immediately interested. Thankfully, they asked if I wanted to join up so I’ve been waiting anxiously for my first game. The teams first game was the same night that I had tickets for The Hour so I had to miss it but the guys pulled off a win. We are called The Screaming Donkeys.

Today I went to Canadian Tire and had my skates sharpened. I also bought stick tape and a new helmet since mine was old and a little broken. You can see it pictured above and clicking it will show you my hockey bag as exciting as that may or, more likely, may-not be. I have a feeling that I am going to make a fool of myself since I am really out of shape and my equipment is a bit snug but I’m looking forward to it anyway. Wish me luck :o)