#sheep rambles

Lil bit of a vent! >m>💦

Heres your treat kibby :3

so i checked out a new rink (as one does), and the open skate ended up being a few older guys who like to shoot pucks around and stuff. they bring out a net and those cool bumper pass things and some cones and pucks, and so i was like puck!! puck!! puck!! and was kicking around a puck in the corner having the time of my life, and this one guy was like "hey, do you want to try my stick?" and i was like omg yes pls

so then i tried his stick and i was like this is so cool and so he went found me a stick from the lost and founds (wayy too short like it was definitely made for kids) and!! it was amazing!!

dudebro chatted with me about stickhandling and taught me how to pass - so cool!! like i can't say how excited i was!! these men were so friendly and so nice and inclusive and i loved it!! like it was apparently a pretty tightly-knit group without many newcomers and they were so welcoming!

i've been on the fence about trying out playng hockey because it's such a big investment to get all the gear to even try having a puck and stick in hand (all the rinks ive been to require full equipment to even be on the ice with a puck so ive never gotten the chance before). But! now i have gotten a taste of the wonders of hockey!!!

and now a few things i noticed as a complete newbie stickhandler:

it is very hard to even do a crossover while still keeping control of a puck. like you think, "oh i can do crossovers with my eyes closed, this will be easy." No. No it will not. my hand-eye coordination is absolute shit so it was a struggle to do any type of sharp turn without losing the puck entirely despite my pretty decent skating skills

it is also not easy to just kick a puck around. pucks are wild little beasts that just want to go everytery where you are not. my respect and awe of players who use thier skates to bounce the puck onto their stick has increased tenfold

two (2) guys asked me very seriously how i hold the shovel when i shovel snow. do you know how hard it is to visualize your own grip on a snow shovel out of hte blue? i have shoveled snow. i have shoveled snow Recently. and yet i completely blanked like idk man i just shovel it. Anyways, this is apparently a the way you determine if you are a righty or lefty for stickhandling (i think i am a righty but idk)

i did not know that sticks had a curve on the blade.. i mean objectively i knew that different sticks were different but i never made the connection until i was staring at a bunch of sticks up close

you don't have to know jack shit about what you are doing!! i had an absolute blast just shoving pucks around! you won't see me doing any sort of wild puck handling moves (or even skating very fast with a puck lol), BUT you will see me having an absolute blast!!