The Plan

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy." An old saying, attributed to many different generals who probably all said it at various times.  I've got a plan on how this is all going to work. Who knows how it will all end up working out, but it's nice to have a baseline to plan around.

The Rinks at Anaheim offers an 8-week Adult Intro to Hockey Skating class, and I had my first class tonight.  The follow-up to that class is Adult Intro to Hockey Skills, which is another 8-week class where they introduce sticks and pucks and all that jazz.  That session would run through Jan. 30.

That should set me up to play in the spring session of the rec leagues they run at the rink, starting with the Rookie League, designed for people who have just finished the two sets of classes.  Then I'll spend the summer in Copper, the follow-up to rookie, and then finally I hope to move on to Bronze, the lowest of the regular rec leagues, where I'd like to plant my flag for awhile before settling into the 35-and-over leagues that I'll be eligible for in a mere two years (eww).

As mentioned in the previous post, I think I'm going to need my own pair of skates right away. I'm not sure if I want to buy a cheap pair to get me through the 15 remaining weeks of classes, or go straight to a nicer pair that I hope to last me well into regular play.

When I learned to play chess, it was tactics that was the absolute key to getting from rank beginner to strong amateur status. The parallel in hockey seems to be skating.  Fancy moves and powerful shots are fun and all, but being able to skate well and stay in position seems to be what sets improving players apart.  So I plan to really focus on these skating classes, and hit as many public skate times as I can in the meantime. At least one a week, two when I can.

After that, I've got until the end of the two sets of classes to do two things: Get myself into playing shape and acquire all the equipment.

I'm not in terrible shape. I do regular weightlifting and spent most of last year on a pretty epic cardio program that had me exercise biking 40-60 miles a day.  But I could definitely stand to lose 20 pounds, maybe 30 if I wanted to be particularly cut. I also want to focus on building some extra lower-leg strength to help with all that skating.

The equipment should be a fun hunt.  It's not cheap, and that's definitely a theme for this hobby.  Each set of lessons for an 8-week period cost $100.  I'm going to drop at least $200 on skates, maybe more. Once you get into league play, it's $500 for a four-month season that covers 16 games.

But outside of skates, you are encouraged to look for bargains and buy used on the rest of the equipment.  I need a helmet and cage, stick, shoulder pads, gloves, hockey pants, shin pads, jock and mouthguard.  Plus some miscellaneous stuff like stick tape.  I'm hoping I can get all that for $250 total, which would require some serious bargain hunting, but I've got a few months to do keep an eye out, and that makes it a fun challenge.  I'm not sure if it will work in my favor or not that I'm only 5-7.  That means that the most common sizes for adults are going to be big for me, but maybe that means there won't be as much competition for used stuff in my size.