Saturday afternoon I went into the Ice Arena with my 'new' Bauers. I'd re-laced them into their original laces (a tratditional, stretchable, cotton fibre lace as opposed to the waxed laces I'd put on) in an effort to try and make them a bit softer on my feet than they have been.
An hour went by really quickly, spent either chatting to a few acquaintances and friends while doing slow circuits, or buzzing around between and through the assembled mass of blue booted beginners and reminding myself to not push it too hard as I've hardly skated on the ice for months. It took about half an hour to start finding my edges again. By the end had worked up quite a sweat and had at least made a good effort at all the usual basic moves.
Great fun, I do love skating for its own sake! Will step it up a bit next time, and I'll keep with the trad laces as my feet were getting pretty comfortable at long last.
*
An hour after the social session ended, the ice would be in use again for the first of back to back AIHL clashes over the weekend between the local Adelaide Adrenaline and visiting Canberra Braves. The winner of the series would go clear ahead of the other into potential playoff position, nine games from the end of regular season.
There were less spectators than when the Melbourne Ice had been here the week before, but I thought the game was more entertaining. Perhaps mainly because the Adrenaline got off to 5-1 in the first period, 10-3 in the second, final score was 11-7. And there were a lot of incipient fights, and a bench clearer at the end that saw the game whistled off with 8 seconds still on the clock in the final period.
But the most enjoyable part of it was the skill displays of various of the Adrenaline players, who are starting to develop their individual characters in my eyes. Good to watch.
Good to catch up with a few of my fellow vikings who were down for a rare opportunity to see the Adrenaline (Div II clashes with it on Saturdays, Div I on Sundays, both are presently having a two week break).
*
One of the vikings I met mentioned in passing that the World Championships are presently running in Finland, that Australia is doing well, that it is being live streamed. So, when I got home I remembered eventually to check it out. And I caught about the last half of Australia's gold medal game in Division I, playing against Croatia. Croatia won 4-3, the game winning goal going in about eight seconds into Overtime.
Glad to have watched it.
What a day!
Ice 25
No comments:
Post a Comment