Hockey...

The hockey season has well and truly started now. I'm in the seconds team again, but, due to the way the pitch gets divided out during practice, get to train with both the firsts and the seconds, depending on who is using the goal at the time.

Our first match was technically last weekend, but the opposing team defaulted (i.e. they weren't able to get enough people together to make up a team), and so we won 5-0 without having to go out into the cold and the rain.

This week was much better for playing hockey - blue skies, with enough of a breeze to stop it being too hot, without that biting icy wind which I know will come later in the season. This was a good thing, as I was playing twice, once for the firsts (standing in for their goalie, who was away), and once for the seconds. It's very nerve-wracking to be asked a couple of days before a match whether you are able to play, and I'm just very glad that there was enough time between games that I wasn't going directly from one to the other.

Both games were good in their own way - the firsts game we drew 2-2, which was a bit frustrating as we had been dominating for most of the game 2-0, but two very quick goals off of two penalty corners put us level pegging. I did save a few others, so the scoreline could have been a lot worse. The seconds game we won 1-0, but the match was much more even with neither side really having overall control. I'm very pleased, though, we have two very good players at the back, and so for that game, I didn't have to actually do a huge amount apart from tell them where to go!

Overall, though, a good start to the season - I hope that we'll only improve as we get to gel as a team; we have a number of new players this year, so it will take a while to get used to everyone's playing styles.