Joakim Bruden: Uncovered (Part 2 and 3)

[PadStack 48]

This is part two of a multi-part series examining Ottawa Lynx backup goaltender Joakim Bruden and his story of his journey so far:

 

We get a lot of snow in my hometown. Being a coastal city there is a lot of moisture in the air, and we're high enough north that a lot of that moisture comes back in the form of snow. The benefit to this is that by late October we are able to skate around outside on the frozen lakes or backyard rinks, but I'll explain why that was such a benefit for me a bit later.

 

I finally had a team! I had my own equipment as well, although it didn't feel like mine. I had so much trouble moving around due to the tremendous weight of protection, and the chunkiness of the pads that I was constantly getting frustrated. I knew what I wanted to do, I knew where the puck was going to go, but I just could not will my body to get there quick enough.

 

When I complained about this issue to my older brothers, they laughed and told me that the solution was really simple. I was always playing with cheap, lightweight equipment meant for street hockey. The pads were just pieces of air filled foam, a baseball glove for my catcher and a hockey glove in place of a blocker. I didn't even wear a chest protector, and the helmet was more of the same, cheap plastic case over cheap foam padding. This gear did offer enough protection against a tennis ball in our basement, but no where near what was needed for a puck. They told me that I was a pretty good basement hockey goalie, but I was a horrible ice hockey goalie. If I wanted to get better at ice hockey then I needed to practice how I played, so that meant every day when we were running around in the basement that I would be in full gear. I wanted to get better more than anything else in the world.

 

Day after day, week after week passed. Every day after school I would race home and start getting ready so that by the time my brothers and sisters got home I would be ready to go. Everything hurt. Even without skates I was having trouble moving as my pads would bump into each other, and I would trip over my feet. My arms were sore from lifting the chest protector and catcher / blocker constantly. My neck was sore from wearing the heavy helmet, and my eyes were sore from focusing around the bars and all of the sweat dripping down my face. Sore, but excited. I noticed at the end of the first week that I was able to stay going longer. The first day I only made it an hour, but by the end of the week I was at 2 hours. The end of the second week I went 2.5 hours before supper, and I let in less goals than the week before. I noticed my glove hand was getting faster. I was getting a better handle on my stick (I had never used a goalie stick before, it felt weird having the curve backwards, or left handed), and even tried a few passes when I had some time.

 

I was improving on ice as well. My biggest issue was stopping once I went down to slide because on the floor there is grip, but on the ice there was nothing to stop me from sliding a little too far and getting caught out of position. My scoreboard was improving as well - My goals against went from 8 or 9 per game, down to 3 or 4. We were still rotating goalies each game, so when I was not on the ice I was watching how people get ready to shoot, or if they are going to deke, and of course opening the far change side of the bench for players to change. In our league we didn't really have lines, it was more or less the first 5 people through the door were on the ice. There wasn't much comprehension on the idea of positioning or any ability to skate backwards either, so I was opening the door for people racing off the ice so that they could be first in line for the next shift.

 

About 2 months after tryouts were finished I had started in 9 games and we had won 6 of those. The weather was also constantly cold enough that they were starting to freeze the outdoor rink in our neighborhood and soon it was going to be ready for us to use whenever we wanted to.

 

The day before Halloween we got the all clear and I discovered a new issue with my equipment - I didn't know how to tie my skates by myself. I always had my dad or my coaches tie them for practice or games, but they weren't around. I vowed that I was going to figure out how to do it myself, but in the meantime the pressing issue was getting them done, so I bugged my brothers to help out. There was some back and forth, and I had to agree to bring water and carry their skates to the outdoor rink every day (this wasn't an issue for me because I put all of my gear in a wagon and pulled it for the 3 block journey.)

 

My family wasn't able to make the trek to the outdoor rink every day, but on days that they weren't able to come I would bring my skates and pads and try to tie the skates, fail, then take off my pads, tie my skates like normal and just skate around on my goalie skates for about 30 or 40 minutes before heading home. I was getting very comfortable in my heavy, once bulky equipment. Able to move faster, react to what was coming to me and especially after I was able to get ice time every day (even if I was just skating around, or practicing passing and puck handling with my goalie stick) I was improving a lot. When I would see where a play is going, my body was able to make the movements it needed to to put me in a position to make a save. I was also learning how to control my push offs, so that I wouldn't be horribly out of position when I want down to make a save any more.

 

The improvements were fast and noticeable. By December when I was in net we would be guaranteed to win, 5-2 or 6-1, the games were never closer than 3 goals. It felt great and some people started to take notice.

 

-- To be Continued --

 

1114 Words, Media claim for week ending Jan 5, and week ending Jan 12

Edited December 30, 2019 by PadStack
word count and claim dates