More time in the pool

I still really like the pool. I think I'm spending to much time in there. We got some of the neighbors together yesterday and went into the pool. After one of them (who shall remain nameless) said that it was to cold we went down to his house to go swimming in an in-ground pool. The nextdoor neighbors wanted to go swimming in our pool and they didn't say anything about it. So here we go heading down the street and their dad follows us down there. After talking back and forth we decided to let them swim in the neighbors pool with us. I really like this weather it's nice and hot. Perfect pool weather. After we came home from that I went to go pick my mom up from school with my brother. I got to drive home. When we got back I was really itching to go swimming again. So I said to my self, "Self, why not"? So I went swimming again. That was my fourth time of the day. For today, I have to get some schoolwork done before I head down to the beach for a few days (Tuesday to Thursday). I have hockey practice on Thursday at 6:15. The season will start next week. Should be a good one!


-AJ

Life...not hockey

This will be my first post in a long time. This one will also not be about hockey which will be my first one like that in a long time. Yes I know...I have a problem. Anyways onto catching up for this year. School has been going fine and I'm still doing well. I am not going to update since January in this post, because not to much has happened since then. I did get my permit finally though and I'm driving my mother crazy (note that I did not say my mother, Crazy) asking her to let me drive everywhere and coming up with places to go just so I could drive. I will just update on yesterday for this post. Yesterday was the first day that our new above ground pool was actually full (we got it on friday). So I was able to go swimming a few times (twice by myself) before I went to my Aunt Faith's house. When we got there, we went inside and I grabbed a handful of Peanut m n' ms so I could eat them when I went outside. Turns out I didn't get to much time to eat them, because the younger kids wanted me to play with them. So I did. We ate dinner, talked some more, and then we headed home for the night. Yep that was my day, so I will try to post another post tommorow about today.


-AJ

Penalty Minutes

Just wanted to point out a stat that I'm pretty proud of . I have not had a single penalty in 3 years (9 seasons if you do the math). The last penalty I had was for covering the puck in the crease when a player on the other team faked out our goalie just to be stopped by my stick. This past season I was the only player in the top 5 in scoring with 0 penalty minutes.


-AJ

1\20-1\22 2008

I couldn't think of a creative title, so that is what I came up with. Sunday we went to Church and afterwards went to lunch. That night we played some Bubble Boy table hockey until 11:00 or so at night. The next day (monday 1\21) I woke up to the smell of Pancakes and Sausage. Soon after breakfast we headed down to the rink where we were able to get a good 2 hours of playing time in before it started to rain. Today nothing special has happened so far. I still need to do some chores and stuff. I also need to clean the house up for company tommorow when the Red Wings take on the Ducks. But before that game its Wings vs. Kings tonight. Should be a good one!



-AJ

So much to say, so little time to say it

Wow, I didn't realize it had been over a month since I updated this blog, so much to catch up on, lets see how I do. The Season ended off great for our team, after being 1-3-0 when we named our captain, we quickly moved to 3-4-1 at the end of the season. My last two games of the season were a couple of my best. Lets start with game 6. I started the game with a quick 2 goals heading into the second period. I got one in that period. A little bit of useless information is that my best two periods are always my 1st and 3rd periods. So headed into the 3rd I already had a hat trick, so what more can you do? I ended up scoring a goal and notching one assist early in the period. I wasn't paying to much attention to the scoreboard until I had that assist and when I looked up we were up 10-3. Its always nice to be up by that much. So being down by 7 what does the other team do? That's right, they pull their goalie. I was able to knock the puck off the stick of the eventual leading scorer and bank it off both posts and into the net for my 6th point of the game (5 goals and 1 assist). We ended up winning the game by a final score of 12-4. Going into game #8 we were obviously the underdog playing the 7-0 undefeated team in the division. I was able to get one assist in the game. Down 5-4 heading into the last few minutes we were all almost out of hope. So we were lucky enough to put another one up on the board and tie it 5-5. We were going to do a shootout, but the other team did not want to, so onto overtime it is. We spent almost all of overtime in their zone only to come away with a tie. 5-5 was the final score, but at least we soiled their perfect record. So if you do the math, 8 games in a season and we just finished game #8 you will arrive at the conclusion that it was now playoff time! We were playing the same team we beat 12-4 in the first round of the playoffs. So to start the game off they scored almost instantly. Towards the end of the 1st I had yet another quick two goals. Fast forward to the end of the game, because I can't remember to much more of the game. We won 10-7, but the score does not show how much we dominated. I walked away from the game with 5 goals and 2 assists. Probably my best playoff game ever! So we made it to the championship game against a very good team. This team was very smart and had great puck control. We jumped off to an early lead with an assist from guess who? Dissapointingly, that luck ran out quickly, we lost the game 8-2 and I had 2 assists. My best playoffs as far as I can remember notching 5 goals and 4 assists for a total of 9 points.

But what did I get on the season?

Now today hits. For those of you that don't know, we are no longer attending Calvary Chapel of Fullerton, because it is to much of a hassle to get down there on a Sunday morning and when we get back it is already afternoon. I will miss the fun times I had there with all of the youth leaders.

Anyways, we are now attending Village Bible Church in Garden Grove, so we had a new members class today. That started at 8:00 A.M. I had Hockey closing ceremonies at 10:00 so we had my assistant coach pick me up and take me there, because my parents had to be at the Church until 12:00 P.M. for the meeting. I am going to have to do the rest at another time with the Youth Pastor.

Okay, onto closing ceremonies. We get there and its Big Gay Soccer Day(Soccer Tournament) at the park, so there was absolutely no parking. We were luck enough to find a spot. When we got there I was placed on cone patrol, so I had to put cones wherever there was an empty spot. I was told to cheat a little bit and put cones in places where it said no parking and even next to a few parking spots where there was not a marked spot (ironically thats one of the spots where we parked). So when people left the lot we placed a cone in the spot they had just left and when there was no movement we went up to the front of the lot. When at the front of the lot we asked people what they were there for. It went sort of like this.

Are you here for Soccer?

-Yes

Sorry the lot is full

And when they'd say now, then we'd pick up some cones and let them park there. Lots of people were greatful.......well at least the ones that were there for hockey were.

So onto the cermony itself. We finally got a trophy with the Village Idiots Franchise as it has come to be known. So that's always nice. But before they anounced the trophies or raffle prizes they put up the scoring chart! I ran over to go check it and the scorers were as follows

1. #27 20's and the 9 -28 points
2. #10 Bloodline-our team - 25 points
3. #55 I cant remember their team name-23 points
4T #19 I cant -22 points
4T #14 ME!!! - 22 points with 12 goals and 10 assists!!!

So there you have it, my most assists in a single season in quite some time. A top 5 finish in scoring is never bad. Including the playoffs I had 17 goals and 14 assists for 31 points. I know you don't care, but as far as my rough estimation goes (excluding playoffs of course). I currently have 295 career goals, 5 more for the mile stone.

And ontop of that I won the grandprize in the raffle! A $50 shaft that my dad was going to buy for me, but I had him buy the neighbors used iPod instead. The used iPod broke and thanks to Apple Care became a Brand New 30 Gig iPod!!! Thanks Apple Care!

We also had an allstar game today that I got to play in. I had 2 goals and 4 assists in that. Those are also always fun. I can't wait until next season, it should be fun. I will try to update this blog more then once a month from now on, sorry about that.


Sorry for the longgggggggg read.


-AJ

Phew, thats a relief....or is it?

Last you saw I was on route for 10 points. Ewwww. Well the good news is after 5 games I am already there. Game 4 gave our team a 1 goal loss, which I feel like I gave up. We pulled the goalie and I was in deep next to their goalie. Their guy came around the net with the puck and as I went to chase him down and take the puck I fell on my face. He was 2 feet away from me, within reaching distance. So we lost that one and that puts us at 1-3. I had 1 goal and 1 assist in that game which is frusturating to me only scoring 2 points a game. That would put me at 3 goals and 3 assists on the season. Anyways onto game 5. Right off the bat they scored to take the 1-0 lead. We scored soon thereafter. The game was tied at 1-1 with 4 minutes to go. Soon they scored to take the lead 2-1. With 2 minutes to go I got placed out there with our newly named captain. He hustled into the corner and passed the puck right on my tape. I gently moved my stick forward and the puck found the back of the net. Sweet that made it 2-2. With about 1 minute left I won the faceoff and the exact same thing happened again, except this time it was on the other side of the net. We were up 3-2 going into the intermission. One of our guys scored to give us the 4-2 lead then they got 3 and we were down 5-4 at the 2nd intermission. I had 2 goals and no assists, on route for another dissapointing 2 point game. We were down 7-4 with about 5 minutes left and after a time out we came out strong I won the faceoff and tapped it ahead to one of our guys who had 2 goals earlier in the game. That gave him the hat trick with 3 goals. I broke my 2 points a game streak and I had 2 goals and 1 assist. I got placed out there for the goalie when we pulled him. I tried to deke one of their guys and I turned it over, he had a wide open shot at the net. It felt like game 4 all over again. I turned around with a bit of anger and lifted his stick to give me the puck. I slap shotted it home to give our team a chance down 7-6 with 1 minute left. Quickly, I gained possesion after the faceoff and had a wide open path to the net. Ill switch it over to the play by play announcer now, " AJ comes in AJ shoots, it hits the post, thats the game" Game over we lost 7-6, but the good news for me is that it puts me at 10 points 5 games in, not exactly the dream season, but I have 6 goals and 4 assists and 0 penalty minutes. Thats it for now.

-AJ

P.S. If I have time tommorow Ill write about something other then hockey....should be hard.

Games 2 and 3 go in the books

Last you heard we were undefeated at 1-0. That didn't last. We lost game 2 6-1 and as you can tell I dont want to talk about it. We had absolutely no offense whatsoever. We played the same team again for game 3 last night and being 1-1 we needed to make some serious changes. So to start the game off one of the new guys we were given this season scored his first goal of the year. Horay. Anyways, that lead didn't last and we were quickly down 2-1. With a late 1st period goal the game was tied up at 2-2. This was probably the hardest I've tried\skated in a game in the longest time, maybe even ever. So I was sitting there with nothing to show for it. They scored right away to take the lead back 3-2. Then we scored and the game was all tied up again at 3-3. I won the faceoff, but accidentaly gave it away. Following the new thing Im trying called "Skating" I forechecked and stole the puck. Around the net I came skating backwards and wrist shotted it for my 2nd goal of the year. It was probably my nicest one of the year. That gave us our 2nd lead of the game at 4-3. Shortly after this goal I tried the same thing again. I forechecked and stole the puck. The guy I stole it from was trying to block my path to the goal. I put the puck between my legs and passed it back. That was probably the best pass I made all season. It went right on the kids tape and he wrapped it around to give us the 5-3 lead. As usual that didn't last and we were down 6-5 at the end of the 2nd. They took the lead 8-5 and we needed a goal and fast. With 3 minutes remaining one of the kids on my team pulled the Michigan put us within 2. The score was 8-6 and we pulled the goalie. After multiple chances from me we were still down 2. I passed it to the point and the puck went back to our zone right on the tape of one of their guys. That was it, we lost 9-6. Here is the stats for this season for our team and myself.

GP W-L Points Goals Against Goals For Differential Goals Against Average
3 1 2 2 19 13 -6 6.333

And for myself

Games Played Goals Assists Points On Route for
3 2 2 4 5 goals 5 assists and10 points (Yuck!)


Here's to a better game tommorow!


-AJ