Have you ever noticed the pregame rituals that go on in sports. If you haven't noticed and you are a regular fan, watch your team and your favorite player from game to game. You will be amazed at the things players do to get ready for games. Sometimes it is a subtle movement, a first throw, pass or shot. Or you may not catch the rituals players repeat game after game because they happen behind the scenes, but ask any player or trainer and they could tell you many different habits players have used over the years.
Here are some of the ones I remember...
One player I played with would get to the rink early before games and answer fan mail, which usually consisted of player cards. Then, when was finished his mail he would start working on his sticks. Part of this would involve retaping his sticks. After taking the old tape off, he would stick the tape on a pillar in the middle of the room. One time the first year I played there, I noticed this tape sticking to the wall and as anyone who didn't realize what was happening would do, I grabbed the tape off the wall and preceded to throw it in the trash. The player came running over and asked where the tape on the wall had gone in a panic. I told him what happened and he started untaping his stick. He stuck the tape on the wall agin and began to retape his stick. The same player would flip pucks to fans throughout the warmup and toward the end he had routine with about 5 pucks he flipped to certain areas. One night as I skated around and off the ice, I was almost bowled over by a frantic player charging into the room demanding that someone get some more pucks for the ice. During the warmup, pucks have deflected into the stands at a faster rate than normal, causing a problem. There weren't enough pucks for my teaamate to flip at the end of the warmup! Total chaos!
A certain goalie, who possessed a wicked temper, always fired a puck at the end of warmup into the empty net at the far end before leaving the ice. So, as you could imagine, as more and more players fouind out about this, someone was going to try and stop this. And so, one night, as the goalie lined up his shot and fired, a player rushed back on the ice and stpped the shot and then fired it back down to the other net. This infuriated the goalie and almost resulted in fist-a-cuffs.
Of course, I had my habits and when they got disrupted, I blamed that on a bad game. As the years went by, I realized that I could still perform well if my daily routine was off a little. But I always managed to try and stay on schedule when I got to the rink.
I haven't followed our players much since I'm not in the room like I used to be. Bruno always did a baseball swing on the backup goalies pads before each period. One night, as our goalie tandem revolving door was happening, one of the new goalies just walked out to the bench and left Bruno hanging. We, the coaches rushed out to the bench and grabbed the goalie snd informed him of his duties.
This is not happening in our sport alone. It goes on in every sport. Keep an eye out for thse little habits at your next game...
Having grown up on skates, and made aliving skating, I tried my hand a "skating" on skis, a technique made popular in Scandinavia. Now , it has become popular especially in the colder areas of the states. And, as far as a tough workout, there are none better. As I strapped on my skiswith excitement, I really expected this to be a piece of cake, and then proceeded to cross my pole in front of my ski and fell flat on my face. OK. I get one mulligan. My neighbor, JB and his son, Aiden, started off gracefully and as I followed, if you can picture a new born fawn walking across a frozen pond, well... you get the picture. So, after an hour of plodding through the woods, I was gassed. Give it a try. I'm sure it can be fun... Weino

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