Well, actually, not really. I played well in our first game against the WIHO (Hong Kong Women's Ice Hockey Organization Select) team. Our team is a bit like the Bad News Bears or (perhaps more appropriately and in context) The Mighty Ducks. None of our players (with the exception of Jen---my maid of honor who is in HK for the first time in 8 years and me) have played on full sized ice before or in a tournament. It's also the first time that our team has ever played together in a game. The other women are all cool---we have a couple of girls from an inline hockey team. I don't think they've played ice hockey before with the exception of our 3 practices.
The score was 0-2 at the end of the first period. I thought we lost 0-7 but when I checked the tournament website it was actually 0-8. There were maybe one or two goals that weren't so hot. I was also screened on two of the goals. But the rest were really good. WIHO had very strong positioning and passed well. I saw a huge improvement from the time I last played with a Hong Kong women's team 8 years ago. In fact, that would have probably been the team I played with in the last tournament. A few of the faces were the same but there were also a lot of new women.
MegaBox is AWESOME except for the amount of people that were there. There were police road blocks (and sidewalk blocks for that matter) to limit the amount of people entering at one time. Fortunately we were able to jump the queue and take a cargo lift that is reserved for players. The rink is not totally finished---there weren't any proper locker rooms ready and the snack bar was inoperational. I had my skates sharpened (I honestly think they were duller afterwards) and I'll have to get them fixed tomorrow before our next game. The skate sharpening machine only arrived yesterday and they were having trouble sharpening goalie skates. The guy who has a clue was unfortunately playing in the game following ours so I'll have to try and catch him tomorrow.
This picture just about sums up what went wrong in our game. Where are the blue shirts that my team was wearing? Three players from the opposing team and me!!! I had a great time, though. Lots of fun. And it was GREAT to see Jen again.
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