This week we've had two days of practice in which we really worked on our systems and special teams. Our focus right now is on Stevens Point. We've had quite the regional rivalry with their team over the time I've been here. Stevens Point is a team that definitely knows how to play against us and works really hard. Tonight I know they will give us a good game.
Since I haven't talked much about what happens on game days, I figured today I'd give a little run through of how a typical game day goes for us in D-III. On the day of the game, we generally get up in the morning and dress up in nicer interview-ish clothing. (We apply the cliche "look good, play good," you see.) Usually we have a normal routine of classes until around 3:30, which is when we have a team meal in the cafeteria. That gives us a good three hours to digest until game time. Typically on our team, many of us eat things like cereal, a bagel, pasta, or a salad. We try not to eat anything that will make us feel full for long.
After meal, we have about an hour and a half of downtime to rest, read, or do whatever. Some people like to go to the rink. I prefer to have alone time to just do my own thing for a while. We are usually at the rink and dressed for warm-ups around 5:30. We spend some time doing static off-ice stretching and an active warm-up before we actually take on-ice warm-ups. Many times we have a quick information session before we get our equipment on to talk in-depth about the team we are about to play. We go over what to expect from them and remind ourselves of the goals we have for that game. After that, we put on loud music in the locker room and get our equipment on to go out and play.
Apart from hockey, it has been freezing and snowy conditions the first few days of this week. A few of my friends and I took advantage of this and bundled up to go "traying." Gustavus sits atop a hill in St. Peter and overlooks the Minnesota River Valley, which means we have lots of fun sliding hills. Students use the trays from the cafeteria as sleds and take to the hills of Gustavus. My friends and I always like to take advantage of the good snowfalls and hit the hills for some good traying action. The snow was deep last night so we had to take turns creating sledding lanes. After we finished that, we made a nice jump and tried launching ourselves into the air off of the tray. It ended up being quite fun, however cold.
I know my team is so excited for the Point game tonight. This week we were ranked #1 in the country which is sort of surprising as we practically jumped from #6 to #1 overnight. With that being said, we really don't want to worry about rankings because when it's all said and done, rankings aren't the most important thing at this point in the season. We know we just need to keep getting better every game from here on out. And along with that, we also are aware that we need to show up and play to our ability every game because now we have an even bigger target on our back.
Since I haven't talked much about what happens on game days, I figured today I'd give a little run through of how a typical game day goes for us in D-III. On the day of the game, we generally get up in the morning and dress up in nicer interview-ish clothing. (We apply the cliche "look good, play good," you see.) Usually we have a normal routine of classes until around 3:30, which is when we have a team meal in the cafeteria. That gives us a good three hours to digest until game time. Typically on our team, many of us eat things like cereal, a bagel, pasta, or a salad. We try not to eat anything that will make us feel full for long.
After meal, we have about an hour and a half of downtime to rest, read, or do whatever. Some people like to go to the rink. I prefer to have alone time to just do my own thing for a while. We are usually at the rink and dressed for warm-ups around 5:30. We spend some time doing static off-ice stretching and an active warm-up before we actually take on-ice warm-ups. Many times we have a quick information session before we get our equipment on to talk in-depth about the team we are about to play. We go over what to expect from them and remind ourselves of the goals we have for that game. After that, we put on loud music in the locker room and get our equipment on to go out and play.
Apart from hockey, it has been freezing and snowy conditions the first few days of this week. A few of my friends and I took advantage of this and bundled up to go "traying." Gustavus sits atop a hill in St. Peter and overlooks the Minnesota River Valley, which means we have lots of fun sliding hills. Students use the trays from the cafeteria as sleds and take to the hills of Gustavus. My friends and I always like to take advantage of the good snowfalls and hit the hills for some good traying action. The snow was deep last night so we had to take turns creating sledding lanes. After we finished that, we made a nice jump and tried launching ourselves into the air off of the tray. It ended up being quite fun, however cold.
I know my team is so excited for the Point game tonight. This week we were ranked #1 in the country which is sort of surprising as we practically jumped from #6 to #1 overnight. With that being said, we really don't want to worry about rankings because when it's all said and done, rankings aren't the most important thing at this point in the season. We know we just need to keep getting better every game from here on out. And along with that, we also are aware that we need to show up and play to our ability every game because now we have an even bigger target on our back.
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