Compete Level

I've worn size 9 Bauers since I was 14 or 15 years old and today's models definitely run larger than in the past. I also caved and bought expensive ones at a Boxing Day sale a few years ago. I should have gone down to at least a 8.5

I bought new skates 3.5 years ago (around a week before Neu! 15 was born, so I remember the timing) and I was shocked by how much CCM's sizing had changed since my last pair. I wear a 11.5/12 US shoe, used to wear size 10 CCM skates, but I dropped down to a 8.5 with this pair.

Eventful game last night:
- I made a nice backhand saucer pass through the defenseman to my teammate who was wide open in front for our first goal
- I skated up to take away a shooting lane in our end, he took a reasonably high shot that I thought would hit me in the chest. Instead it hit the shaft of my stick, went over my head, glanced off the top of our goalie's head, and in.
- I made up for it by beating one of their defensemen with an actual on-on-one move and shooting five hole. I score a lot of garbage goals so it was nice to be a part of two nice ones.
- They tie it up again with a weird play in our end, one of their passes deflects towards the slot, goes off of our defenseman's stick, and in. We have scored all four goals and it's 2-2.
- They're doing a hard shot out of their zone when I'm skating just past our bench. The shot goes straight into the side of my knee (where there's only thin padding) and I have to scoot myself over to / flip onto the bench. I walk it off although it is swollen now / hurts a lot.
- We go back up with a nice high-slot redirection.
- This team always starts being assholes in the third if they're trailing and hey guess who starts being assholes in the third? I got punched in the back of the head on two occasions, no call. Then when they've pulled the goalie, I manage to deflect a pass in their end and get it along the low boards, right in front of their defenseman. I make a quick turn move (copyright Gustav Nyquist) to free up space so I can shoot at the empty net / make any kind of play and the guy takes my feet out. No call, but the puck ended up going back to their other defenseman behind the net, and we're able to pressure them into staying in the zone until four seconds left. 3-2 win.

I blocked at least three other shots, including a hard one off my heel on the PK that went straight to our other forward and out of the zone. At some point I'll learn that blocking shots in beer league is dumb as hell but not today!