I went to check out a game of Bandy here in Oslo recently. For those of you who haven’t heard of it before, Bandy is a sport which is similar to field hockey, but played on ice. The rink is huge, as are the goals. There is much less contact than in ice hockey and a small ball is used instead of a puck. There are 11 players on the ice and only a few subs. I’d love to play, but my shoulder will need to be in much better condition before I can attempt anything like this.
I helped organise a social hockey trip to Naseby this winter. We were greeted with an awesome snowy experience on arriving in Naseby, including snow during one of our games! My should was too munted to play, so I refereed it instead.
Anna, Harry and myself road-tripped from Dunedin to Alexandra to do a night skate on the Manorburn dam, then headed to Poolburn reservoir the next morning to skate on mega thick ice at Poolburn reservoir, then finished our journey by travelling through to Lake Tekapo for a hockey tournament between the Killer Keas (our team) and the Christchurch Rangers.
The Killer Keas ice hockey team, bronze medalists in the Dunedin Ice Hockey League Autumn season.
Thanks to Jaydee Cabral for providing the photo and Anna Craw for taking it.
The field hockey team I usually play for (The Soft Sticks) had no opposition at our last game. So they played a game amongst themselves while I took some piccies from the shade on the sideline – I’m still recovering from a dislocated shoulder. The temperatures were searing (26 deg. C I think) so there were some very hot looking pink hockey players by the end of their game.
Mallory Handcock (left) and Natasha Munro (right) (more…)
Our uber awesome, wonderful and truly incredible professional ice hockey coach Jenel Bode is leaving 🙁 Hopefully she’ll be back next year though 🙂
Rhyan McMillan and our uber awesome coach Jenel Bode
For her goodbye bash, she organised a goodbye party in a cave at Longbeach. It sounded boring, getting stuck in a cave all evening on a cold, wet, rainy day 🙁 Luckilly Sarah was heading out to take Jane so I hitched a ride along so I could make an appearance and bail home early with Sarah. Darn glad I went though, coz it was totally awesome. The cave was wicked, the fire kept us all cosy warm, everyone had fun and there was loads of entertainment provided by my teammates who provided firebreathing, guitar and flame throwing demonstrations for us all. There were even baby blue penguins in the back of the cave hanging out with us!
Neil Dudley and Rob Owens demonstrating how much effort it takes to burn human skin (more…)
The Beasts (my ice hockey team) headed to Stewarts Gully Mini Golf. The facility is owned by Clive Murphie, a top bloke who is also heavily involved with the Aardwolfs Ice Hockey Club who we played against in Christchurch. As it says on the label, this is “Mini Golf”, so basically big golf shrunk to a small size, no castles, water features or other fandangled things to navigate, just good old putting greens.
Clive Murphie, the owner of the course
Estelle Baker expertly sinking the ball in the hole after some advice from Jane Soper (on right). Conveniently I clicked the shutter just as the ball was falling into the hole.
Jason Sedgwick kicking some serious butt on the greens
Jane Soper playing catch up
Neil Dudley aiming for 18th hole … from the 1st tee
Estelle Baker putting for gold
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about GimpCam and NetCam recently. To save me feeling like a broken record, here’s a selection of pre-prepared answers …
I’m now famous! My rather crappy videos have made their way onto the What Now TV show. I received an email from them the other day asking if they could screen some of my videos of the recent New Zealand Ice Hockey National Championships on their show. Pity I didn’t know before hand as I’d have prepared some far better quality footage for them.
What Now: If you are reading this and don’t want it posted here, then email me via the form on my contact page and I’ll remove it ASAP.
I’ve been trying to avoid over-running the site with hockey videos from the Nationals, but this one definitely deserves it’s own post 😛
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I’ve also posted a higher resolution version here.