Missing the Cut – Ep. 3 Anything But Net

Once again, I failed miserably at a women’s sport. For once, it wasn’t my lack of ability, but the fact that for no valid reason, the equipment used to play the game changed.

Physical contact is minimized in the women’s game, so the sticks have no pocket to them making it next to impossible to catch the ball. I was warned it would be like playing with a tennis racket, and I think a tennis racket may have been more useful than the small patch of netting on a pole.

I figured out how to throw the ball quickly, but then they asked me to shoot it. Fair enough, that is the main goal of this sport after all, to shoot the ball into a net. As easy as throwing and passing was, shooting gave me fits. I don’t know if it was the overhead motion or that I was just trying too hard, but the ball never went anywhere near where I intended for it to.

Catching the ball was next to impossible. Even 20 minutes into our practice, I was dropping the ball left and right. They asked me to try playing left-handed because apparently being ambidextrous is a requirement in this sport. I thought it would be easier to catch that way having played baseball and using a glove on my left hand to catch for over 15 years, but when they threw the ball to my left hand, I flat out missed it.

Defensively, I was nothing but a warm body. They both ran right past me and scored on every attack they attempted. I did salvage part of dignity with a goal against Thomas, but it wasn’t much later that he stripped the ball out of my stick and took it away from me before I ever got to shoot.

Faceoffs were about the only thing I really succeed at. That was my favorite part of the day because I felt like I could actually hold my own. But again, the women’s game was my downfall as I failed miserably at their version, and Morgan won every one despite being at least five inches shorter than me.

So enough of these different rules. Why are we making the women’s version less enjoyable and overly challenging? Just let them hit each other. At least then maybe the ball would stay in their sticks.