Roller derby... and hockey

So it's been a LONG time since I posted. And I've had some ups and downs. For the second half of December I HATED derby and was gritting my teeth through every practice. In January, because it was January, I was so depressed I couldn't drag myself out of the house to even go. But by February I was back in love and impulsively decided to try out for travel team. And I made it!! I played in my first travel team bout in March and it went pretty well.

Also in February, I discovered ice hockey. I talked about how that happened over in my non-skating journal, but the gist is that a lot of my derby friends like hockey and my local ECHL team was in danger of leaving, so I went to a game and I LOVED IT. And then I went to a bunch more games, and listened to the rest on the radio or followed whoever was live-tweeting -- at one point we had a bout at the same time as a game and I obsessively checked my twitter before and after and even in the locker room during intermission. I may have even cried a little when they lost during the first round of playoffs on Saturday.

I also went to a women's college hockey game in March (which was fun, but kind of weird, because I felt like I was the only person there who wasn't either a student or related to a player). And I've watched a ridiculous number of NHL games on TV -- mostly Pens, but also Montreal, Carolina, Chicago... I HAVE to like the Penguins, I've been informed by my friends, because they are the greatest hockey team ever, but I am allowed to like other teams for shallow reasons like cute goalies, as long as don't like the Caps. (I secretly like the Caps. A lot. Don't tell my teammates!)

When I joined roller derby, I was planning to quit way before it actually came to playing a game. I didn't like any sports and I just wasn't a sporty person! The idea of doing anything remotely sport-related, watching or playing, gave me hives. I'd never played any sport in my life and had flunked gym class four times in school. My plan was to go to practice for a few weeks, learn to skate a little better, and then quit before it even came to contact, much less scrimmage. Obviously, that didn't happen, but I didn't even like roller derby as a sport until maybe last November. (Mostly because I'd never watched a roller derby bout that I wasn't playing in!) Until a few months ago, I was putting up with playing bouts in order to attend practices.

Learning about and watching professional hockey makes me think about roller derby really differently, and I definitely want to write about that some time... But not right now or I may never finish and post this.

Also, definitely looking forward to the outdoor skating season. Yay spring!!