BluepoofBikes Motorcycle Adventures

Burninating the Eva Bash!

Yesterday was Eva Bash, a fun mini-tournament that Eva of the Big Fat Flying Pigs put on to raise money for the AIDS LifeCycle ride.

There were four teams in the tourney; all local to the Bay Area: the Burninators, the Black List, the Bucktooth Angry Dolphins, and of course the Big Fat Flying Pigs.    So many people that I knew! :D

Peter also had a game yesterday -- the Team Danger game that was rescheduled from last Monday -- but in a different city, so I was on my own for getting to the rink.  Bwa ha ha.

Heather passes out team bandanas before the first game...I chose a cute one with frogs all over it.  I wore it in both games and it seemed to serve me well!

Game 1: Burninators vs Black List: 2-2.

Our first game was at 4:15pm against the Black List.  I played center with Jean and Jen Schwartz.  It was my first time playing center in at least a couple of months, so I was a bit rusty....and exhausted after a couple of end-to-end runs!  Being sick for six weeks apparently takes a bit of endurance outta ya...who'd'a'thunk it?

I think I might have actually knocked over Nora in this game....whether it was me or gravity, we both went down in front of the Burninators net.  I narrowly avoided being smoooooshed and Nora laughed at me that it would be my own fault if she landed on me.  ;)

We spent the whole game being even-steven for shots on goal. I think the Black List finally eked out a couple more SOG than we had, but we finished the game tied, 2-2.  

Between-games goofing off

There were four games in the tournament; we had game 1 and game 4.  That left a couple of hours in-between the games for general mayhem.  Most of us stuck around the rink and chatted, tried to find some food, and watched NHL playoff games.

Kim (who was on the Black List and thus only had a one-game break) demonstrates the height of must-dress-quickly hockey fashion:

The Big Fat Flying Pigs team mascot and...I think the pig is actually an MP3 player:

Our locker room, complete with Trogdor and his thatched-roof cottage.  Amazingly, women's locker rooms generally don't smell that bad, even during tournaments.  Boys, don't you ever wash your gear??

The Sharks game started about 20 minutes before we had to go back to the locker room and get dressed for our second game.  That was enough time to see Joe Thornton's goal, though! Welcome to the playoffs, Joe, nice to finally see you.

Game 2: Burninators vs Bucktooth Angry Dolphins: 4-2.

Our first time beating the Dolphins! Hooray!  :D 

Playing the Dolphins is always really fun.  I know almost everyone on the team and they're good, strong players.   Luckily for me, a couple of them are even on the Drunken Pirates, my normal NCWHL team! :)

I played left wing for this game, with Jean on right wing and Becky on center.  Becky is all kinds of awesome to play with; she can play any position quickly, smartly, and damn well.  My hero!  

I had my best play of the tournament at the end of game 2; Becky brought it into the zone and passed to me; I deked around a defenseman then brought the puck way over to the righthand side of the net to get around the other D.  I had a wide open backhand shot, which the goalie was able to get, but it was a decent shot on goal, at least!

Liz commented after the game that she saw our line doing some nice things; hopefully that means we'll play together again.  That was a fun line.  

After-game revelries.

After our game, everyone got dressed and reconvened in the sports bar for raffles, food, and Sharks-watching.

Lots of cool raffle prizes -- I won an iPhone cover. :)

Andrea wasn't sure what to make of winning a funny beefcake guys-in-funny-drag calendar....

Jennie and Graham scored the women's golf clubs:

Sharon's going to have to take up scrapbooking now...we expect a beautiful montage of our next Burninators game!!

Fortunately Tracy's new purse matches her Dolphins orange tracksuit.  Whew.

Liz and Cara hang out and represent our team during the raffle:

We all hung out until Marleau's game winning goal in overtime, when the entire bar went totally batshit and yelling and screaming and cheering.  Sharks in 7! ;)

A great mini-tournament for a great cause with great people.  Thanks, Eva, and everyone else! 

San Jose Burninators vs San Jose Bucktooth Angry Dolphins: 3-3

Man, this tourney is taking forever for me to write up!  OK, this is the last game.  Promise! Then I can start writing about *other* hockey games. ;)

I was so glad to end the tourney against the Dolphins since it's always so much more fun to play against people you know.  They were a really strong team in this incarnation, beating us 2-0 in our pre-tournament scrimmage, and my personal goal was just to hold my own.

Once again my line was absolutely awesome, with Sharon and Murty scoring 2 of our 3 goals.  Once again I had no points at all for the game, but I choose to believe that my incredible and inspirational positioning set up the plays that let them score. *cough*.  ;)

Light the lamp, Burninators!

Our tie in this game can clearly be attributed to Lucinda's, Sharyn's, and my matching patriotic headgear.

And that was the Vacaville tourney.  Points-wise, we tied with the Dolphins for 3rd place, but using the goal differentiator as a tie-breaker, well....you did notice we lost 0-9 on Sunday morning, right? ;)

The Seals and the North Stars played for the championship (I hear the Seals won, 1-0), but Cheddah and I chose to head home instead of staying to watch -- the weather was terrible and neither of us wanted to be stuck in traffic in the storm.

I don't know when the Burninators are playing next but I hope it's not too long!

San Jose Burninators vs Oakland Lady Seals II: 0-9

Oops, I totally forgot to blog after our games yesterday! My bad.

As you can tell from the score, this game was a total blowout.  The weirdest thing, though? We had a great time.

I've had Big Major Losses before that just weren't any fun at all -- maybe the other team was just running up the score, or being unnecessarily physical, or condescending, or any number of things.  The Seals, though? They were just an amazingly good team with amazingly good players.  It'd be like us playing the Sharks or something...oh, Joe Pavelski just scored on me again? Bummer. ;)

Not terribly surprisingly, we spent a lot of time in our own defensive zone, which was really useful for me as a wing.  They cycled a lot, both with their offensive triangle and with their side triangles (center, right wing, right D, for example) and I learned a lot about where to be and who to be on the lookout for.

Rather than get psyched about goals, we cheered when we got a good play, or a good pokecheck, or a good deke.  The bench yelled just as loudly when we got the puck safely into the neutral zone as we normally would for winning a game. ;)

Everyone was smiling and cheery by the end and the after-game handshake was full of laughter and jokes.  "Single-Digit Cara" kept them from getting 10 goals and we figured that was victory enough. :D

San Jose Burninators vs Vacaville Lady North Stars: 0-2

I don't know if they're actually from Vacaville, but I'm pretty sure this is the North Stars' home rink.

Anyway, we played a great game but still lost 2-0. The North Stars are a good team (they tied the Oakland Seals 1-1 this morning) and they had great offense in particular. Cara did a phenomenal job -- the shot count must have been huge.

Sharon, Murty, and I played well together again. We had a few great shots and plays but nothing went in the net. Ah well! I had a pretty good game personally and I really got to apply some of the Robby Glantz skills. I had two breakaways in particular that had potential -- promising for the future!

I brought my new Yamuna ball to this tourney and thank goodness. I don't know how I played hockey before this thing. I'm lying on the hotel floor now, typing this on my sidekick while rolling out my quads on the ball. Ow ow ow, yay yay yay.

San Jose Burninators vs San Jose Black List: 4-2

Happy Valentine's Day!  We're spending the holiday in the romantic town of Vacaville, CA, at the Capital Crown Tournament to raise money for autism awareness/research.

Our first game was this morning against our buddies on the Black List.

I was playing left wing with Sharon (center) and Murty (right wing) and our line was en feugo. I didn't have any points in this game but I was +4 so I can't complain!

Playing with Sharon and Murty is so much fun. I've gotten some good plays and I'm really hoping to get a point out of it by the end of the tourney. They're giving me great advice (keep my feet moving; look for the pass into the center if I'm coming into the zone and a D is closing in on me).

Our locker room has a large drawing of a, um, male part on the wall and we've decided it gives us good luck. We'll see whether our luck holds for game #2 this afternoon!

San Jose Burninators vs Houston Harpies: 1-0

We're the 2009 Las Vegas Women's Hockey Classic Wynn Division champions!!

Today's game was awesome. I think it was the best game I've ever played. I skated hard to the puck, fought hard in the corners, made smart passes, got some good pokes in. This game gave me a little glimpse of "what could be" if I keep working and practicing. Me like.

Overall, our team did awesome. Everyone had at least one great moment and the win reflected that. Their goalie was doing really well (in fact, she won the division all-tournament goalie award) so our low score wasn't from lack of effort by our forwards!

The Harpies were really a fun team to play -- aggressive without being rough, poised, and overall cheerful. I was talking to one of them after the game and she said their team is made up of skaters from all over the country: Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas, Massachusetts, etc. They gel together really well for only seeing each other at tournaments!

Many photos and some overall tournament commentary to come. :)

San Jose Burninators vs LA Hot Flashes: 5-0

This was the most fun game, IMO -- the other team was cheerful and friendly.

It was a bit of a bummer victory though, as the Hot Flashes' goalie was suffering from food poisoning and spent a bit of the 2nd period off the ice completely.

We were about to flag down Liz, the Black List goalie, when the Hot Flashes goalie returned to the game. We played the third period with running time at their request -- we felt so bad for her. I hope she's feeling better soon. :(

I personally had a pretty useless game -- I was trying some new things and generally failing. I had two very nice passes right to the other team, and one spectacular fall complete with throwing my stick. It was rated about a 7 overall by our fans in the bleachers -- the advice was to incorporate shrieking like a little girl if I want to raise my score to an 8. ;)

Our next -- and final -- game is the championship game tomorrow at 9:45am.

San Jose Burninators vs Phoenix WHOA Smokin' Aces: 3-2 OT

This morning's game was really cool for me as it was the first time I've played D against a team that really cycled. Fortunately we knew this ahead of time as we watched some of WHOA's game last night, so Viv was able to give me some tips before the game.

Andrea and I played a good D line again -- we were on the ice for the other goals but at least one of them was a great example of cycling. I know I did absolutely everything that I knew how to do and they just beat me. That's OK.

On the other hand, I had some good pokes and I kept the offensive to the corners a few times. I had one good one-timer shot from the point (for some reason their wings were leaving Andrea and I wide open -- we were always open at point) but it went right to the goalie. Doh!

We were 2-2 at the end of the 3rd, sending us into overtime. Viv had a fantastic breakaway less than a minute into OT and managed a gorgeous roofshot. Yay!

And so the Burninators remain undefeated. No game until tomorrow night at 7pm, so we're hanging out watching the Dolphins game and drinking free Vegas beer.

San Jose Burninators vs Houston Harpies: 2-1

The first game of the tournament and our first win!

Andrea and I played a good line together. We were on the ice for the opposing goal...which was a crazy weird deflection off of our own center's stick. Oops!

I had one good pass right up to Jodi's tape while she was skating up ice, and one good cross-ice pass to Viv. I had lots of almost good passes to Viv, but I need to angle the pass off the boards more (I'm left D and she's left wing). As it was, I was passing past her and icing it more often than not. But I think we'll get that down for the next game.

We're staying at the Staybridge Suites off the strip, and it rocks! The rooms (suites) are huge, with full kitchens, huge bathrooms, etc. I'll definitely be staying there on future motorcycle trips.

Viv, Jena, and I are now off to the store for beer and hot pockets. Livin' it up in Vegas!

Next game is tomorrow, 11:30am.

Weekend hockey update

Burninating the peasants.

Saturday afternoon found the Burninators and the Dolphins invading Ice Oasis for a pre-Vegas scrimmage.

It wasn't a very good game, scorewise -- well, not for us, anyway! The Dolphins dolphinated us 4-2.  But it was a lot of fun and I got to skate with people that I never have before.

I played D with Andrea and we did pretty well.  Only one goal happened during our shift and it was a pretty one by Tracy.  She did a nice wraparound and got it past both of us.  I should have taken an extra step to get farther between her and the goal -- lesson learned!

My very first Burninator showing:

Overall, I think a lot of people on the team were disappointed with the scrimmage, but I believe a lot of that had to do with it being essentially a brand new team. A lot of the "normal" Burninators are out of the Vegas tournament (hence my inclusion) and none of us newbies had played together before. 

Puck Ewes vs Puck Bunnies: 1-1

Last night, we had an NCWHL game against the Puck Bunnies, which we tied 1-1. 

I joked that at least I wasn't on the ice when the goal against was scored....but I wasn't on the ice because I was in the penalty box.  Oops. 

It was an overall fun game, though it felt really slow compared to the Burninator scrimmage.  Being at Belmont didn't help that feeling -- we've played at Fremont almost exclusively lately and Belmont felt like such a little pond rink!