The Beer Leaguer
The podcast for the discerning beer league hockey player. We cover all things adult recreational hockey from folks that never played professionally, but just want to have fun and get a little better every game.
The Beer Leaguer
Things I wish I told my younger self
On this episode I look back on some things I wish I could tell myself as I started in beer league hockey.
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If I could go back and give myself some advice before I started playing hockey as an adult, what would I say to myself? That's what this episode of The Beer Leaguer podcast is all about, things I wish I knew, or that I could go back and tell myself before I started playing beer league hockey. So a little background, so this all kind of makes sense about me. I was playing competitive roller hockey from my late teens to my mid twenties with some occasional ice hockey in there. By my late twenties, I was pretty much done with hockey, kind of burned out on it. Then again, at age 31, I started again in ice. I joined the beginner program for the league that I'm in, and have stayed with it ever since. I went back to 31 year old me, had never really played ice hockey in any kind of formal setting outside of some pickup games. This is the kind of stuff that I wish that I would have had somebody tell me. First thing, try being other handed. In the US, if you guys haven't noticed this, in the US, there's a ton of right handed hockey players, whereas in Canada, there's a ton of left handed hockey players. But if you look at everything else, it's kind of what you'd expect, where there's way more right handed than left handed pretty much in the rest of the world. But for hockey, it's kind of reversed and messed up, except in Canada. And I've heard a lot of different things about why this is, but the one that makes the most sense to me is it's really based on baseball. If you think about it with baseball, for right handed people, when you're holding a baseball bat, your dominant hand, which is your right hand if you're right handed, is the further hand away from the base of the bat. That's where that is, because that's kind of exhibiting the control and everything that you need. Whereas for hockey, right handed hockey is, it's the opposite, is you want your dominant hand on the end of the stick, not away from it. So that's actually left handed, not right handed. I hope that makes sense. So that's something I would have told myself way earlier on, is try being left handed. At this point, I'm so used to doing everything right handed in hockey, that trying to do anything left handed feels really weird and really wrong. But honestly makes way, way more sense. So I wish that I would have tried just flipping around a couple of times, see if that actually works. I think that's a good thing for anybody starting off with hockey. I know with real little kids, they kind of have straight blades and stuff, and they do tell them, kind of let them figure out which way is more comfortable for hitting a puck that's righty or lefty. I think with goalies, it's totally different because you have a catcher and everything. But for any kind of skaters, I think it's good to try both ways, especially as adults, especially if you're in the US, and you're kind of conditioned from all the other sports, how you're supposed to do stuff. Try both ways, try it out. See if one way makes a little bit more sense before you really get into buying your sticks, because the only difference is your stick. All your other equipment stays the same, really, for right or lefty, so I would try that out. So it's something definitely, I would say, to younger me right away. Another thing is, I said, why aren't you starting earlier? I was a little bit afraid to take beginner classes because I thought, hey, people are gonna know how to skate. I'm a terrible ice skater because I'd only super sporadically done it. I didn't know how to stop on ice skates or anything like that. And I didn't know people that were doing it. I didn't know people that played hockey, that played ice hockey at the time. So I really didn't get into it, but I am so glad that I did, and I wish I had done it sooner because I met a bunch of people. You've heard people on these podcasts that are from this, and people that I've been friends with now for the majority of this 14 years, I guess it's been since I went through these beginner classes. So I told myself, go earlier, try it out earlier. There's no reason to wait on it. So that's another big piece of advice I can just give to people that are interested in hockey is, go give it a try, especially if there is beginner classes and stuff to do. Go give it a go. What do you have to lose with it? A couple of nights? So what? All right. Now, talking about gear, because this is always a big thing. I think for people starting out as adults is, what do you do with gear? How does this all work? What do you have to get? What is important to get, not important to get? Everything with it. When I was playing roller and starting in ice, for me, there was no place near me to go buy gear. I lived kind of in a hockey wasteland when I was really into roller hockey. That's part of the reason I didn't get into ice, is it was kind of like a specialty sport around me that wasn't really too many. There was really places around here to buy stuff, which I could easily get to, which really prevented that. It was really catalogs and really terribly done online stores. At the time, stores online really weren't great, weren't like they are now, where you have huge catalogs of stuff. It was basically just a catalog online. You know, it's all it was. It wasn't anything extra like, oh, here's extra pictures or videos about stuff, or anything like that. It was really just looking at a catalog on your computer. So that was not great as a way to be able to kind of find stuff. And that kind of hindered me too with things. But if that had not been the case, what I would have told myself was just go buy some used stuff. There's a lot of places around now that do have used hockey equipment, and there's nothing wrong with used stuff. You know, make sure it's not completely destroyed, make sure it's not disgusting, and wash it, wash it very good for things. But used equipment's great. It's a great way to find out stuff like, what size gloves do you actually want? You know, you can try them on as much as you want, but until you kind of play with them a little bit, and try and shoot a stick handle, maybe you realize you want like a tighter glove, or a looser glove, or a big cuff, or a little cuff. Maybe you realize, you know, you like shorter shin pads, or longer shin pads. Do you like big shoulder pads, little shoulder pads? You know, stuff like that. I would so much rather find out that, hey, I really like a compact shoulder pad, and a long shin guard, because I spent, you know, 50 bucks on the pair of gear, versus I went to a store and bought, you know, 80 dollar shin guards, and 90 dollar shoulder pads, and then realized, eh, I really wish I could have gotten some different sizes there. Not really ideal for me. So I definitely would have said, go find new stuff, and give it a go, even if it turns out to be, you completely hate it, you at least find out why you hated it, versus having to spend all the money on new stuff. Definitely would say, don't cheap out on skates. I totally cheaped out on my first pair of ice skates that I owned, because I didn't really play ice. And so I was like, I just want a pair, so I can go to some, you know, pick up stuff like that. And these were awful used skates that I only got, because they're the only things that would fit on my feet to some degree. They fit very terribly. They were super uncomfortable. I had no idea how much worse it made me as a player, and how difficult it was to learn ice skating in awful skates. As someone that has big feet, skate sizing is always an issue, especially if I try to go to like a public skate and get, you know, rental skates or something. But I wouldn't cheap out on skates like that again. And I wouldn't say you need to get top of the line skates, for sure. My first pair of, I guess, real kind of hockey skates that I had were like the lowest level CCM skates that you could get. Not great skates by any means at the time, but so much better than the weird no-name skates that I had. So that's more the lines I'd be looking at, is like the kind of the lowest rung of regular skates or something like that, or used skates, if you can get it, that are not no-name skates, because also they'll be broken in. But don't cheap out like I did. That's not the time to go bargain bin shopping or get complete garbage from some place. That's something you've never heard of. But again, you don't need to get super expensive skates, probably ever. But there is definitely a huge sweet spot in the middle, between the highest price and the lowest price skates. And in that middle area is the good place to be. One thing I would cheap out on is sticks. So when I was going through, and even when I was playing roller hockey, I was doing this as I went through using super long sticks, super stiff sticks, because I thought I was going to be ripping slapshots all the time, all kinds of blade patterns, all kinds of different ways just to find out what I liked. So a big tip that I would say is check out any kind of like sale sticks, bargain bin sticks, used sticks, anything like that, any of your used sporting goods stores or bigger hockey stores usually have kind of old, kind of crappy sticks that are cheap, and get things or anything close to what you think might be a, you know, blade pattern or size, what you want. Like going back to righty versus lefty thing, you know, I'd rather go try out two kind of crappy $40 wooden sticks, a righty and a lefty, and find out, oh man, I should be playing lefty versus righty or vice versa, than spending, you know, 90 bucks on a righty stick and going, ah, I kind of stuck being a righty now. Maybe I shouldn't have been that. But that's a way to try out all the different kinds of stuff. Curves, finishes on the stick, you know, how stiff you like it, lies, all kinds of different things like that by trying out a bunch of different sticks. That's really the only way to do it. Now you can also try out friends sticks and stuff like that. That's a good way too. But hey, if you find a place that does have used sticks, like I said, a lot of the bigger hockey stores, if you can get to them, have like bargain bins. I think it's totally worth it, especially as a beginner. Totally worth for a beginner to cheap out, buy a multitude of sticks, see what you like, kind of hone in on what you think is going to be kind of your go-to thing and then go from there, versus spending a whole bunch of money on one or two sticks to start off with. Just doesn't make a lot of sense. And honestly, beginners, man, we don't know how to use a stick. I still don't really utilize a stick. You know, I don't do a great job of utilizing the flex of the stick or the lie properly, or even the blade pattern real well. It's more of a crutch than anything for me. So it's not worth it to get a super expensive stick, even now for me. So that's something I would totally cheap out on. Along those same lines, definitely would not cheap out on a helmet. That's one thing I would not cheap out on at all. I would say spend as much as you feel comfortable spending on a helmet, because if you make sure it's one you can try on, and if you can try it on, that will last you for a number of years, and it's important to have a good helmet. So that is the place to definitely not at all cheap out on is helmet. So, all right, kind of away from gear then. Another thing that I noticed when I was beginning, and kind of more and more as I moved away, I guess, from the beginner part of playing hockey and into a little bit more of the intermediate stuff is figuring out a game day routine. As someone coming into hockey without any kind of formal youth hockey training or youth hockey background, I didn't ever even think of doing things like pre or post game or anything like that. And I'm talking about simple stuff like drinking a lot of water the day before or the day of, stretching kind of before or after the games, not just that 30 seconds you get on the ice, finding a good way to wind down post game. That's something I'm still working on. You know, finding a good way so I can get to bed before 4 a.m. While I was playing my 20s, this wasn't even a consideration to think of this stuff. You know, because I was in my 20s, it didn't really matter to me. But kind of now as I get into my 40s, yeah, 10 p.m. starts, 8 a.m. work, doesn't really always go together that great. So I wish that I had thought of this stuff and kind of built more of this stuff in or learned some of these things or asked more around about this stuff. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to try different recovery things earlier. So I'm not awake in the middle of the night trying to fall asleep after games. Anything like that. Try a whole bunch of different stuff. Try melatonin, or taking naps before games, or eating before games, not eating before games, anything like that. All that stuff helps some people, doesn't help others, but I just kind of shrugged it off and went, oh, well, this is what happens playing hockey as an adult. And I wish I hadn't done that. I wish I had tried to figure this stuff out earlier. As an aside, doing a regular yoga routine, like one or two times a week, has been a great help for me with the stretching stuff. Not necessarily before or right after hockey, but just kind of during the week. And it's 1,000% worth the 15, 20 minutes, few times a week, of doing it. You know, either looking like a jackass in front of people or doing it in the living room. So if you are thinking about kind of like some stretching stuff like that and things, I totally recommend doing that. Another thing I would go back and tell myself is, as I'm kind of learning ice hockey, learning the ins and outs, how to play, and playing on a team and stuff like that, is I would make sure that I knew that I didn't have to play exactly like my favorite players. That's something I did try doing, especially early on in my ice hockey time, was trying to play like my favorite guys, not kind of within what I can do. Which nothing wrong with trying to emulate your favorite players, but like my favorite players growing up, were all like these fast guys that were shooters and super offensive players, things like that. That's just not me. I'm just not that. And try to do that is terrible. I am not good at that, and it's not fun. It's just super frustrating. So there's nothing wrong with not playing the same way that your favorite players do. That's something I would have told younger hockey me for sure, to do that. Just figure out what you like to do, and figure out what you're good at, and do that. Another thing I wish I had known when I was younger was how much just a little bit of practice makes a difference. It compounds like crazy. So just shooting a couple of pucks every day. I just did a podcast episode about having a shooting set up at home. Just going out and shooting 25 pucks a day. I mean, it doesn't sound like a lot, but if you do that almost every day, that makes way more of a difference than going out on, hey, this Saturday, I'm going to go shoot 200 pucks, but then not shoot for another week or something. Shoot them every day like that. It makes a big difference. Same thing, stick handling, just stick handling in front of the TV. Watching TV while you're stick handling, so your head's up. Doing that for, you know, during your favorite show for half an hour a night makes a ton of difference versus trying to like sit down and carve out, okay, I'm going to do, Saturday morning, I'm going to do 45 minutes stick handling in the basement, and then I'm going to go shoot X number of pucks, something like, one, probably not going to happen. Two, it's just not, it's not a feasible thing to do. It's not going to help nearly as much as doing a little bit every day. So that's what I would say is, start doing small stuff and just let it kind of compound with things. And finally, I would warn myself how expensive hockey is. I'm sure everybody listening to this, you're in hockey, you know this, but that's something I wish I would have gone back and kind of gotten myself braced for. Like when you're, especially when you're starting out, getting all your gear, even if you get used, that costs you money. Then if you're going to join a league or a beginner program, that costs you money. If you're going to join something like that, you'd probably have to buy jerseys, that's going to cost you money. And that's not even getting into fun stuff that you want to have. Like what if you want to get nicer sticks, or you want to get something to practice your shooting with, or you want to go to some stick and pucks, or open ice tines, like that stuff just adds up so fast. So just for an example of right now, while I'm recording this, where I'm at in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States, the league that I play in, usually league fees per player are around, I think around 500, 600 bucks for like a fall winter season. So 500, 600 bucks gets you 22 games. But for your team, you have to buy jerseys, and it's pretty much every team has two jerseys. And if you can find a good deal on jerseys, you might be able to get away with getting jerseys for only, say you get a really good deal for, let's say 200 bucks. So kind of at the low end here, you're talking 700 bucks just to play in a league and have jerseys so you can play. And that's assuming you have all the equipment and everything for this. So it's not cheap. And it just kind of goes up from there because there's always more and more and more on top of everything. If you play on multiple teams, it's more. Some leagues I know are really strict about, you have to have certain color helmets or gloves or even shells for the pants, and that just adds more on top of it. Even if you have all the gear and everything, buying stuff, you know, because you're going to have late night snacks or something. I know people that stop and get something like Taco Bell after every game. And even though it's not expensive, if you're playing 20 games and you're spending seven, eight, nine bucks every game, that's another almost 200 bucks on food after every game on top of what you just paid for everything. So again, not prohibitive, fortunately, to I think people that are listening to this, but it's something I would have kind of braced younger me for, for that, just because it was something I was not ready for when I started playing organized hockey like that. Again, coming from roller hockey, where you buy skates, you get sticks, gloves, and a helmet. A lot of people don't wear shin pads. I did. And nobody really has hockey, you know, it's not traditional hockey pants, just kind of like roller pants that would just kind of go over, you know, your shin guards and stuff like that. They're not the ice hockey kind of pants. You don't have shoulder pads or elbow pads. Usually some people do, some people don't. It's generally very loosey goosey with the kind of gear like that, whatever you feel good with. We can get away pretty minimally. For ice, you kind of need everything. There's not a lot of options. I know some people for Beer League don't wear shoulder pads, which I think is insane. Some people, I'm sure, don't wear elbow pads, again, which I think is insane. For it, maybe if you're playing at a really high level, you don't need it. But I've seen enough people fall down and flail in front of me that I'd be scared to not have that kind of gear on me for things. But you kind of need to get the full everything to play. And, you know, again, that's not cheap. And then playing hockey is not cheap. Even if you're not playing in a league, and you're just playing, like, at some pickups, pickups get to be expensive. You know, around here, the pickup and stick and puck times of stuff vary from, like, I think the cheapest one I know of is $12 for a lunchtime, like, stick and puck, to up to $20, $25 for a pick up hockey time in there. So that adds up really fast. I mean, that means you could be paying, you know, $100 a month for hockey, just to go play four times a month like that. So I can really add up. And same thing, you still need jerseys and stuff to do that. You know, you need to have something covering you for that. And just even plain white and black jerseys are not super cheap. You know, they cost something. So that's something I would just been more prepared for. Now that I'm in hockey, I've been in hockey for longer, you know, I don't need to buy new gear every year. I'm not upgrading everything all the time. It's very slowly that I upgrade stuff for that. So the costs are more stretched out now. More so than, you know, like, for kids, that, you know, kids are buying new stuff all the time because they're growing. So fortunately, I'm not growing that much. I need to be buying new pants or something every year like that. But yeah, that's something I would have definitely prepared myself for is, it's going to cost you. So, you know, make sure you're saving up for it. And as someone that captains a team, I wish more people would realize that and kind of save their money over the summer to know that, hey, when I go play hockey in the fall, I'm going to have to pay for it. People seem to forget that it does cost them every year to do that. So that's it. That's what I wish I could go back and tell younger me before I started playing beer league hockey. Hopefully, this is a help to you. If you're somebody that's just starting out playing beer league, or you can pass it on to somebody that is about to start or thinking about it, or maybe just some ideas for things that, you know, gear that you want to try out on, or different ways to think about stuff if you've been playing for a little bit. If there's stuff that you wish you could go back and tell your younger self, I would love to hear about it. Drop me a comment, or you can always text the show. There is a link in the show description, in the show notes, text the show, and let me know something that you wish that you could go back and tell younger you before you kind of got enveloped into the world of beer league hockey. As always, any kind of likes, subscribes, like I said, comments, really help out, help the show grow, are greatly appreciated. You can get show notes for all this and all previous episodes at thebeerleaguer.com. Thanks a lot, everybody. I'll catch you in the next one. Thanks for sticking around. I wanted to let you know that we added the ability to text the show. If you check out any of the show notes for any of the newer episodes, you'll see a link called Text the Show. Just click that and it'll open up your text app of choice. There, you'll see a code automatically inserted into your text message. Please leave that there. That makes sure your message gets routed to the show properly. Add your message and just send it away. We only get to see your area code, so if you want to include your name to be mentioned, make sure you include that in your message. Give show topics you'd like to see, comment on previous episodes, tell us what we missed, or what book, movie, YouTube video we should be checking out. All the messages are seen, and most go into planning what we do next, or get mentioned in a shorts episode, recapping what we missed. Thanks for listening.