Jul

13

San Diego Gulls vs. Armed Forces

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My coach is fundraising, so here’s a plug on my blog to support that effort :)

The San Diego Gulls alumni are getting together again for a match against the US Armed Forces. Admission is $5 (cheap, isn’t it?) Next best thing to driving to Anaheim for a NHL Ducks game. Plus, I remember the Gulls getting into lots of fights when they played the Fresno Falcons some time ago, way before I got into hockey. Should be fun!

SD Gulls vs Armed Forces

Jun

21

Lindros P88 composite blade

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I broke my blade at practice 2 weeks ago and was shopping around today for a new blade, finally settling on a Lindros P88 right hand composite blade. My team captain happened to be at the pro shop, helping me pick and gave me a crash course on the “science” behind picking a blade (wow, I didn’t know that there were _that_ variables). Mostly, I just pick a stick whose flex is in the 70’s range, with a decent blade curvature that I can see myself living with, and a stick with some cool hockey player’s name on it.

I thought the famous player’s name on the hockey stick is just to make it look cool, some marketing ploy. Today, I realized that those names actually mean something about the stick/blade that would actually affect my handling! Anyway, so I looked up Eric Lindros, and turns out .. he is quite a cool guy.

He checks (and fights) really well. In this video clip, he evens knocks the other guy down during a face-off! :D

His jersey number is 88; is that why the blade is a P88? I’m guessing 88 is probably _not_ the Morse code short hand for “love and kisses“. Ham radio operators usually sign off with “73″, which is a short for “best regards”. Random trivia for you :) who else mixes wireless radio transmissions+Morse code with hockey?

Lindros P88 composite blade

As a side rant, I had a match today .. and twice I had someone knock me over on ice and say, “Sorry man, you alright?”. Come on, it’s friggin ice hockey–not ice ballerina. No need to be polite. It wasn’t even a hard hit. This isn’t a “polite” sport (not to be confused with un-sportsmen-like conduct). Apologizing for little things like that annoys me more than it makes me happy. I got sent to the penalty box for 2 minutes, for “uhh, number 7, .. minor roughing”. Apparently I hit someone’s face on the ice while trying to get up from a pileup on ice. I didn’t notice. Okay, so I did apologize for that one .. but the minor stuff, please don’t apologize — I can so handle being pushed around.

Jun

7

Breaktrough at hockey practice yesterday

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Can you guess which stick I used at hockey practice yesterday?

Breaktrough at hockey practice yesterday

And of course, my stick just has to break on the one day that I didn’t bring a backup stick with me.

Feb

16

Fastest sport on 2 feet

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I maintain that ice hockey is about the fastest sport known to mankind on two feet!

Maybe that’s why I love ice hockey — you don’t get speeding tickets from going too fast! :D

Thanks Ian.

Jul

23

When 1 + 1 = < 2

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When people say 1 + 1 = 3 (or greater), they talk about synergy.

synergy (noun): the working together of two things (muscles or drugs for example) to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects

Today, I learned that the reverse is also true. It’s possible for 1 + 1 to result in less than the expected 2. In a best 2 out of 3 shootout with team Flesh Wound, my team (Storm) lost the first two games. In the first game (we lost 0-5), we were the most shorthanded we have ever been, with something like 7 or 8 players only, and missing some of our best players too. Before today’s game (the second game), I was all excited and was confident we could take them. Why? Because we had our best players show up, and we had almost twice as many players. So I figured, if we lost 0-5 the first time, we’re going to win this time, or tie the game at the very least.

How wrong I was. We lost 1-10. So just to analyze the situation from a purely statistical point of view, my explanation to this is — in the first game, despite having less players and less skilled players, we worked together like a well oiled-machine. In our second game however, with the increased strength in numbers and more skilled players, we failed to work together like a tightly-knit group. The increased headcount required increased effort in working together — which we did not. Not only did we fail to capitalize on our advantage, we created a vulnerability in the way we played.

I won’t lie that I’m totally bummed out. Yes, I was emotionally invested, and I set myself up for the disappointment. But if you play like you’re going to lose, you’re probably going to lose anyway. So I played like we were going to win, even if that means setting myself up for a disappointment. It’s important to acknowledge my disappointment, so that I can now let it dissipate.

Just to extrapolate the lesson learned to building a team at work, it’s kind of like having super-star employees on your team. If they don’t play well with each other and each do their own thing, not only will that zero-out any possibility of synergy (meaning, 1 + 1 = >3), but that may even cause negative synergy (1 + 1 = >2).

Does anyone know the antonym for synergy? Negative synergy?

Jun

30

My hockey game pictures - Storm vs. Flesh Wound

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Here are some pictures from my hockey game against Flesh Wound last Sunday:

(Click on pictures for larger plus Flickr annotations)

Me going in for the kill! (dark blue number #7):
Going in for the kill!!

Locker room picture:
The Storm, team picture #1

This video clip is from a previous game, against the Rangers: