I'm not sure if anyone else here goes to Basingstoke rink. On Tuesday evening the flash storms caused flooding of the kitchen, and took down some of the electrics including the lockers. A kitchen staff member was complaining of a soggy bottom.  All we heard while on ice was rumbling on the roof. Anyway, the staff coped very well, rerouting power to the lockers from a live socket, and allowing us skaters access to our car keys and wallets.  I suspect they had a lot of hard work mopping up the mess, and bringing it all back to life. Looking on the bright side, they had hordes of youngsters on ice that night, bringing in much needed income.

They seem to have more than their fair share of troubles. A week earlier an ice machine broke down in mid cut, leaving half the ice unfinished. And a few weeks before than an ice machine broke its drive shaft, and had to be coned off on ice while they waited for the engineer to come down from Birmingham. Given that some of the ice was cordoned off for learners, we ended up with 1/3 of the rink.  Still, the ice has been very good of late, and we should be thankful that we have a rink.  There are rumours of a new rink in the Milestones building, we can but hope.

Another session last night, and a good one. Lots of good drills. The skating with puck around cones was tough, and I made a total mess of it. That's one skill to work on, not sure how since public sessions do not allow sticks and pucks. I guess it might be possible to take on some small cones in the week when almost no-one is on the ice. The scrimmages were good, I did some interceptions and decent passes. A couple of times I made a mistake such as passing forwards from the end, and several team members explained why it was not a good move, and how to do better, which is really useful. At one point I lost my balance, did a nice little dance, and fell flat on my backside. Ah well. Slowly but surely, although my puck control needs huge work. 

Post LTP update time!

After a 3 week break, it was back on the ice last night for LTP.  In the interim I have worked on stops (coming along nicely), basic mohawks, forwards - backwards turns, and a bit of edgework.

Got off to a great start, laps around the rink to warm up, and decided to try one of my much improved stops.....only to find myself catching an edge on the freshly cut ice, stumbling, and flying / sliding shoulders first into the boards.

From that point on, my stops felt like they had gone backwards by two months.  My skates felt ok, not too tight or loose, but I just had no edge control.  My performance on the drills was lacklustre at best, my shots on goal during the drills were laughably slow and without power, my stick handling was all over the place.  Just couldn't get it together.

Was a very frustrating session.  Even on the scrimmage game in the second half of the session I struggled to read the game, didn't seem to make myself useful at all, and felt like I was just out on the rink having a 'bit of a skate around' a bit detached from the game, almost like a spectator on the ice, despite trying to place myself in useful positions.  On the odd occasions that I did get the puck, it was so unexpected that I either threw my balance a little, or ended up just deflecting it.

Maybe I was just having an off day, or was over-tired, but whilst it was an enjoyable session, I felt more like the comic relief than a potential player.

Oh well, it can only progress from here, surely?

I'm deciding whether to get some off ice skates. And I've seen you can get some off ice skates for around £200 with the wheels all in line (basically inline skates) or you can get quad skates. And I was wondering what the difference between the two are. As I'm doing field moves at the moment and is wanting to progress onto other levels and possibly do synchro. Which ones are best for me?

Cross rolls are definitely worth mastering, they will work wonders with your outside edges. Try them slowly with a wide curve and fast with tight curves. Backwards cross rolls are another one for you to try.  A friend can do them, along with many other tricks including the penguin stop, one of my favourites which I cannot even begin to attempt.