My name is Connor Tedstrom. I played high school hockey in Colorado for 4 years, and during my senior year, I decided I wanted to pursue playing junior hockey and Division I college hockey. This is the story of going from Colorado High School Hockey to junior hockey from my perspective: my thoughts, experiences, and lessons learned along the way.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Monster of a Weekend Ahead

The Monsters are coming to town this weekend. I've heard that Fresno is a chippy team, especially when they play us. I played their team in the NAHL when I was in New Mexico and saw some of that style of play, and then in the WSHL Showcase we played Fresno's WSHL team, but they weren't as chippy as usual because it was a showcase tournament. The last time the Junior Steelheads played the Monsters in Fresno when I wasn't here earlier this year, there were apparently a lot of fights and multiple people got jumped, which is when one player is pretty much forced into a fight. I like playing in those games, though, because I think I'm pretty unflappable out on the ice, at least in terms of other players getting under my skin. Getting under my own skin is another story; I'm working on my consistency and decision making though. I mean if I have to get angry, I will, but I think in these kinds of games, we all have to play smart and disciplined even if the other team is not. We can't have players getting kicked out or taking stupid penalties because these games mean a lot for home ice advantage in the playoffs, and our coaches have been emphasizing these points to us for the past two weeks now. Fresno will try to get under our skin, try to take us off our game. And so will a lot of teams once in the playoffs. But we have to stay strong, play our game, and, quite frankly, not take any shit from other teams.

Today, after practice, we spent the whole day handing out buy one, get one free coupons to businesses all around town for our game at the Qwest Center in downtown Boise on Sunday night. We are trying to pack the house for what should be a really awesome, fun game. Going around to businesses and talking to people like that is difficult and very exhausting. Sometimes you talk to people who aren't even slightly interested, and it puts you down a little. But then you talk to people who are really excited, and it makes it easier. From what I saw, though, most people that we handed coupons out to were really excited about them. Hopefully we get a big crowd, but we will see.

I can't wait for this weekend. And I'm excited to play my best hockey games of the year. I need to get better every game from here on out. Enough of this inconsistency. I want to be a rock out there. I know I can be. It's just time for me to do it.

No comments:

Post a Comment