So last night was my first ever attempt at playing ice hockey!

I can ice skate although my ice hockey stops leave something to be desired. Borrowed some kit, just some shorts, socks and body armour (I had the rest from my roller hockey) and I was away.

Nervous as all hell about it, but that quickly dispersed as soon as I got on the ice and did some basic drills. All the drills were familiar to me and all I had to worry about really was my skating.

The puck handles differently a) because it's heavier and solid and b) because it's on ice, it tends to travel for a lot longer.

One thing that took me by surprise was how easy it was to build up loads of speed at not a lot of effort. Trouble was, my stopping is a bit limited, but I didn't end up on my ass a single time.

We did drills for an hour and then had a scrimmage for a half hour. (Which threw me, I thought it was only an hour session, so I didn't get home until 12:30am!)

As the main squad did their own training and the rest of us stragglers did our own thing, we did 3 on 3 whilst the main squad did 5 on 5. We took turns on the rink for about 2/3 minutes a time.

What shocked me was that after my first 3 on 3 scrimmage, one of the main squad asked me to join in with them on the 5 on 5 scrimmage after my next turn. That was surprising, but awesome.

It's so much faster on the ice than you ever realise and it's a bigger rink than I'm used to, so whilst my fitness helped me out, I can see it myself getting fitter because of it.

Thoroughly looking forward to next Friday's session :D