Crashing in on the game

An interesting thing occurred to me this weekend after a stick and puck session at the rink. To give a bit of a back story, there was a little tyke out there just shooting pucks, probably about 6 years old. He had cut in front of me, clipping my toe and fell to the ice. I stopped and made sure he was okay before skating off (and took some ribbing from some of my buddies for taking out a little kid), but when after the session while waiting for hubby and my youngest to come out of the locker rooms a grandfather with a young boy and his mother kept looking over at me. I inwardly groaned thinking I was about to get an earful for making little timmy fall as the mother approached me.

Then she asks, "Is IHL (instructional hockey league) the same as hockey dynamics in the types of drills they do?" I blinked twice when I realized she was interesting in hockey, not telling me off...and happily answered her as to how IHL was like. She said she had been told that she had to know how to do forwards and backwards crossovers as well as a few other abilities before she could join IHL.

I told her that because of my ankle surgeries that I was still unable to do either type of crossover, but that IHL was really the only place I could at least try to practice them in full gear which is slightly different than trying them without all the garb. I also mentioned that a lot of guys could skate fast and do crossovers but couldn't stop to save their life- whereas I had a strong hockey stop at least. (My son and I like to spray each other with snow doing hockey stops). I also mentioned that now was a good time for her to start because a lot of guys had just started and a couple of them could barely stand up straight on their skates. -Meaning that she wouldn't be the best or the worst in the group if she at least knew how to skate.

At about that time a guy who had just attended for the first time last week walks over and I told him what the lady had just said to me and made a comment to him (that I thought he would support so as to encourage this new lady to come to IHL next week) about how some people are really new and it wasn't required to know how to do forward and backwards crossovers (which I knew he didn't have down either), but instead of concurring he says "Oh yeah, you really should know how to do those before coming, I've been skating for 8 mos."!!??

Now, I know of two other guys attending IHL, as well as this guy who are very wobbly and new at the game as well as skating. They were all encouraging each other to come to IHL as well as a few others who had not attended yet, but a female shows and interest and instead of being encouraging, this guy is acting as if he is an old pro! I was incredibly annoyed! If it had been a man asking about IHL I have to say (and this just sickens me to even put a voice to this thought) that he would have told the guy "hey, as long as you can skate for a solid hour come join us!" I just glared at the man and turned to the girl and said "Look, I can't do crossovers but I can at least stop which half these guys can't even do that- don't worry about it, just come out and join us we would love to have you!"

Luckily not all the guys are like this one or I would never have started back to playing hockey. I've been out of the game for 20 years and after just 3 mos back on the ice I still have a long way to go, but it has been a blast scrimmaging and getting back into the game. The ones I like the most are those who treat you the same as the other guys- if you are in the way you get the shoulder and get plowed into just as an equal. My body sure protests the next morning with all the aches and pains, but with the pain I have to smile knowing I have a group of friends that treat me as an equal. There are 3 of us girls who play and all 3 of us appreciate being treated as such more than any of us can say. That just proves there are really great guys out there, who value women as individuals and don't consider the fact that us being female is a limitation in any facet. I just wish there were more of them out there.