Amy was sitting on the side of her bed when I woke up this morning. I opened my eyes and she said, "Welcome to the 7th Circle of Hell." Then we had a discussion about Dante's version of hell--wasn't the innermost circle a ball of cold, frozen ice? That would be appropriate.

Almost done, we've only got one more ice session, a scrimmage at 10:15 p.m. The body is starting to fall apart in bits and pieces. The hip flexor continues to protest, something in my left knee isn't working properly. Still, I've made it through the week, and I'm proud of myself. When I get home, I am planning to post a more coherent, linear accounting of a week at camp. I'm going to need more than a few hours of sleep before I can do that, though.

I can't even remember what's happened since I last wrote. Wednesday was notable because my bench neighbor spilled beer in my helmet and neck guard. She was appropriately contrite, but I was so tired that I just couldn't deal with it. No big damage done, but my neck guard was wet the next day from having to rinse it in the sink.

My backhand shot (off ice) continues to rock, but I'm losing the snap shot. Almost there with the wrist shot. Too bad they all suck on ice.

Went running yesterday morning, kept it to 4K in anticipation of needing my legs for power skating. So right I was. Power skating focused on backwards, and man, is that a hip burner or what. In general, I didn't find power skating as informative this year, not so much feedback, probably because the groups are much bigger. Instruction on Thursday (as well as today) was very low key, with Corinn and Carly running things. Not a lot of skating actually, so my feet got cold.

The down part of camp is always the scrimmages. It's just chaos, no set lines, people changing whenever (like when the puck is in our zone, for godsakes), people saying whatever. I always come away from the scrimmage mad. Well, I think a lot of people do. They just aren't very good for learning. Joby was completely messing with us on face-off formations yesterday--telling us to set up one way during instruction, then moving us another way during scrimmage. Face-offs were jacked, anyway. I had to take 3 different face-offs. Why? Because I got coerced into playing center, the position I hate most. I'd rather play D than play center.

Anyway, it's almost over. I get to go home tomorrow. I think I can get in one more run on the fenland tomorrow morning, that should be nice. I've (re)learned a lot, gotten 4.25 hours of ice time every day (plus some time Sunday), 2.25 hours off-ice instruction every day, so I think I got my money's worth.

p.s. My new record for bouncing the ball on my stick is 30.