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Hiiiiii. It's been, like. . . a month? I fail. Before I was all sucked up into the Olympics and then it was the Paralympics and now it's a combo of sled hockey, curling, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ontd_extreme-type stuff although to a lesser extent than before.
Actually, I have _extreme to thank for my more intense interest in sled hockey. I really, really enjoyed watching it during the Games. Sled hockey, by the way, is hockey played with the player in a little sled thing that has two blades on the bottom, and they have two shorter sticks. One side is regular, and the other side has a pick on it like a figure skate that the players use to propel themselves across the ice. Same rules and speed and intensity as stand up hockey. Lots of checking, etc!
I like watching stand-up hockey, but I really like watching sled hockey. The two-stick thing is awesome. You can pass it back and forth to yourself under the sled and dribble and just do a lot of interesting puck handling things. Plus, I don't know, I feel like maybe it has a slightly different pacing than stand up hockey? Not slower or faster, though, so I'm not sure what I mean. A different rhythm, maybe, in terms of movement from player to player, team to team, and one end of the ice to the other. (I'm sure there's a technical hockey term for that last one. I'm still a total newbie, but I have learned how to read hockey stats for the most part! Kinda!)
Anyway, I definitely enjoyed watching it during the Paralympics, but that probably would have pretty much been it, except I decided I needed to put together a post about it for ontd_extreme. It's mostly a snowboarding/short track speedskating community, but a few weeks ago people were showing interest in learning about some other sports. (Unfortunately, it took me too long to put the entry together - it is not at all easy to find information about sled hockey, sadly - and the comm had changed a bit by the time I finally posted it but oh well!) I decided to focus on Team USA because they won gold and the community has more Americans than any other nationality.
So I decided to start off focusing on a couple members of the team so the comm could feel a connection and get interested in individuals, since that's how we work. Well, it might not have worked on the comm, but it sure as hell worked for me! Having researched and learned about all these guys, I'm now totally invested and a huge fan. It makes a massive different for me, I need to be interested in individuals in order to fully enjoy something. I like TV shows if I like the characters, etc. So having learned all about the people on the team and read a lot about them, I got even more into the sport.
It helps that they're all so young. The average age of the team is actually pretty much exactly my age - 23.8 years old. However, one member was born in 1966 so actually a lot of the other guys are a few years younger than me. 4 born in 90-92, but still - 8 were born in between 1989 and 1985! (I was born in 1986, for the record.) So that's cool. Actually I plan on spiffing up my intro post and posting it here, because I want to update it with more links just for my own convenience, and I might as well post it for my friends! However, I will link to one video - the sled hockey gold medal celebration is one of my absolute favorite celebrations that I've seen in Vancouver 2010. There's so many of them, and they're all so young, so the video is all them being hugged by their parents and families and friends and it is the cutest thing!
Although I'm still a little more interested in reading articles and stuff than actually watching the games, but that's because I NEED to be able to multi-task, whereas when I watch the games on paralympicsport.tv I kind of need to make them full screen or else I can't see enough. So then I can't do anything else while I watch it and I fail at that - I always watch TV with my laptop open, I'm crazy. So the fact that I'm watching as much of the actual games as I am really shows how much I love it. You can't always make out the numbers because of the video quality, but usually I can and it's so exciting to know who has the puck and to care about them and how they do individually, not just as a team or a country.
This is also a major appeal of curling, my other new, passionate love affair. You really know all the players, get to see them, get to hear them chit chat on the ice. I feel very, like. . . Yankees fan-ish? Because my two favorite teams are the teams who won the Olympics and the Worlds this year. However! I am not just switching my love to teams that do well. In fact, I am just shallow! Team Kevin Martin and Team Kevin Koe (both skipped by bald men named Kevin out of the Saville Centre in Edmonton, at least I'm consistent) are two of the cutest teams in curling. I loff them.
So in addition to all the sled hockey research and viewing, I've also been watching some curling matches. Which take 2.5 to 3 hours.
And that is why I haven't been around much. My social life has taken a bit of a hit as well, actually! I need to pull myself together. XD However, this week I have managed to accomplish something around my house every night so at least I'm exerting that much effort. Monday I cooked, Tuesday I cleaned my bathroom, and yesterday I did laundry. This is a big accomplishment for me, sadly - I've been crazy lazy.
Anyway, previously one of the only types of nerdy that I didn't indulge in was the sports type where you know all sorts of statistics and stuff. So much for that, I guess! Now all I've got is my merely average level of computer ability and the fact that I don't roleplay. XD
If you read all the stuff about sled hockey and were like "I want to know more!" or just "i'm confused", fear not, hopefully soon I will be updating and sharing my awesome sled hockey intro post. :D
ETA: I forgot. I also went to Montreal for four days this past month. I should write about that sometimes, there was some happenings.
ETA2: By the way, the Buffalo area and upstate NY in general seems to be a bit of a hotbed for sled hockey. There's some stuff happening in New Jersey, but nothing seems to be really public transportation accessible from the city. I have never been more jealous of my beloved former roommate's hometown. She's always trying to get me to visit her tiny Buffalo suburb - she might be in luck!
ontd_extreme-type stuff although to a lesser extent than before.Actually, I have _extreme to thank for my more intense interest in sled hockey. I really, really enjoyed watching it during the Games. Sled hockey, by the way, is hockey played with the player in a little sled thing that has two blades on the bottom, and they have two shorter sticks. One side is regular, and the other side has a pick on it like a figure skate that the players use to propel themselves across the ice. Same rules and speed and intensity as stand up hockey. Lots of checking, etc!
I like watching stand-up hockey, but I really like watching sled hockey. The two-stick thing is awesome. You can pass it back and forth to yourself under the sled and dribble and just do a lot of interesting puck handling things. Plus, I don't know, I feel like maybe it has a slightly different pacing than stand up hockey? Not slower or faster, though, so I'm not sure what I mean. A different rhythm, maybe, in terms of movement from player to player, team to team, and one end of the ice to the other. (I'm sure there's a technical hockey term for that last one. I'm still a total newbie, but I have learned how to read hockey stats for the most part! Kinda!)
Anyway, I definitely enjoyed watching it during the Paralympics, but that probably would have pretty much been it, except I decided I needed to put together a post about it for ontd_extreme. It's mostly a snowboarding/short track speedskating community, but a few weeks ago people were showing interest in learning about some other sports. (Unfortunately, it took me too long to put the entry together - it is not at all easy to find information about sled hockey, sadly - and the comm had changed a bit by the time I finally posted it but oh well!) I decided to focus on Team USA because they won gold and the community has more Americans than any other nationality.
So I decided to start off focusing on a couple members of the team so the comm could feel a connection and get interested in individuals, since that's how we work. Well, it might not have worked on the comm, but it sure as hell worked for me! Having researched and learned about all these guys, I'm now totally invested and a huge fan. It makes a massive different for me, I need to be interested in individuals in order to fully enjoy something. I like TV shows if I like the characters, etc. So having learned all about the people on the team and read a lot about them, I got even more into the sport.
It helps that they're all so young. The average age of the team is actually pretty much exactly my age - 23.8 years old. However, one member was born in 1966 so actually a lot of the other guys are a few years younger than me. 4 born in 90-92, but still - 8 were born in between 1989 and 1985! (I was born in 1986, for the record.) So that's cool. Actually I plan on spiffing up my intro post and posting it here, because I want to update it with more links just for my own convenience, and I might as well post it for my friends! However, I will link to one video - the sled hockey gold medal celebration is one of my absolute favorite celebrations that I've seen in Vancouver 2010. There's so many of them, and they're all so young, so the video is all them being hugged by their parents and families and friends and it is the cutest thing!
Although I'm still a little more interested in reading articles and stuff than actually watching the games, but that's because I NEED to be able to multi-task, whereas when I watch the games on paralympicsport.tv I kind of need to make them full screen or else I can't see enough. So then I can't do anything else while I watch it and I fail at that - I always watch TV with my laptop open, I'm crazy. So the fact that I'm watching as much of the actual games as I am really shows how much I love it. You can't always make out the numbers because of the video quality, but usually I can and it's so exciting to know who has the puck and to care about them and how they do individually, not just as a team or a country.
This is also a major appeal of curling, my other new, passionate love affair. You really know all the players, get to see them, get to hear them chit chat on the ice. I feel very, like. . . Yankees fan-ish? Because my two favorite teams are the teams who won the Olympics and the Worlds this year. However! I am not just switching my love to teams that do well. In fact, I am just shallow! Team Kevin Martin and Team Kevin Koe (both skipped by bald men named Kevin out of the Saville Centre in Edmonton, at least I'm consistent) are two of the cutest teams in curling. I loff them.
So in addition to all the sled hockey research and viewing, I've also been watching some curling matches. Which take 2.5 to 3 hours.
And that is why I haven't been around much. My social life has taken a bit of a hit as well, actually! I need to pull myself together. XD However, this week I have managed to accomplish something around my house every night so at least I'm exerting that much effort. Monday I cooked, Tuesday I cleaned my bathroom, and yesterday I did laundry. This is a big accomplishment for me, sadly - I've been crazy lazy.
Anyway, previously one of the only types of nerdy that I didn't indulge in was the sports type where you know all sorts of statistics and stuff. So much for that, I guess! Now all I've got is my merely average level of computer ability and the fact that I don't roleplay. XD
If you read all the stuff about sled hockey and were like "I want to know more!" or just "i'm confused", fear not, hopefully soon I will be updating and sharing my awesome sled hockey intro post. :D
ETA: I forgot. I also went to Montreal for four days this past month. I should write about that sometimes, there was some happenings.
ETA2: By the way, the Buffalo area and upstate NY in general seems to be a bit of a hotbed for sled hockey. There's some stuff happening in New Jersey, but nothing seems to be really public transportation accessible from the city. I have never been more jealous of my beloved former roommate's hometown. She's always trying to get me to visit her tiny Buffalo suburb - she might be in luck!
