Ouch 🤕

I love being in Birmingham because I have so many friends to visit and have a drink with and on this day one of my good mates Ritchie Longmore came into town for a visit and we ended up hitting 5 or 6 pubs over the afternoon enjoying a good chat and exchanging gifts we both wanted :)

I had to cut myself off and have a cola at the last couple places because we are on the ice tonight and I’m actually trying to hide a bit of a niggle I’m carrying as I have this knot in my back that’s killing me and leaving me seriously uncomfortable but I don’t want to back out of playing hockey .

Kassum Samms came to pick us up to go to the rink with all three of our hockey bags in his mini car 🚗 no joke it was small and Andi was buried under my bag in the back seat . Today is a special day for Andi actually as it is his 50th country he has played in . We park at the pub across the road to have a swift pint as the players all have a deal with the pub to park in their spots as Planet Ice nahe the urge to be greedy and charge their customers money to park in their lot which is empty because of this reason and the pub is making some good business off the lads instead . Smart play by the players if you ask me and a good way to say F you to the rink for trying to make more off them . I would do the same .

Last time I was here there weren’t too many familiar faces but today there are a bunch which is always nice to see people I’ve played with and kept in touch with like my goalie buddy Andrew Hazel . He even brought me a bottle of Buckfast which we got into after our skate 😝

We walked over to the rink and then I had to mess around with my heel strap which broke . I ran some laces through the hole in the strap then pulled it through my heel of my skate and wrapped it and brought it back around the pad which is pretty ghetto but it worked . My back is feeling tight but let’s see if I can make it through the ice time . When I stepped on ice it was bad ! First step hurt and every push I made with my skates hurt like a stabbing feeling in my ribs . I got to my crease and shaved it up and it hurt even more with more pressure ….. I faced the warmup and was fine but held a standup stance only going down once or twice I thought it would loosen up but it didn’t .

When the scrimmage began I let in the first goal which was a snipe but I hardly moved and that’s when the alarm bells started ringing . Next play in my zone I dropped and made a few pad saves and I felt like I couldn’t breathe from the immense pain and I got back to the bench to swap with the other goalie as there are three of us . I wasn’t comfortable at all and then went out for my next shift at the other end and let in a few goals because I just couldn’t move and I waved to the bench and called it a night …. I had to walk around the rink to get to the room and every step was painful and I actually had to stop a few times . Time to hit the shower . Felt bad I couldn’t get through the ice to get photos with Andi to celebrate his big moment :(

In the room we enjoy a few beverages and then a group of us stuck around to have some more beers in the lot . That box didn’t last very long but we had some good fun as I found out Aston Villa had clinched the champions league spot for next season . Of course not all of us are Villa supporters here as you can see in the photo below ⬇️

Always good banter with these lads regardless of who supports who . You guys know I love ya regardless of how shit your club is 😝 . We got a drive back to our hotel from Kass and put our big bags into our ridiculously small room and had a schnapps together before going to the war zone we call McDonald’s over at New Street Station which is a good place to watch a fight or someone overdosing . It’s pretty crazy there . Can’t eat at this place because they don’t want people sitting in the seats passed out so we went back to the room and found space to eat on my bed before crashing . Oh yeah I’m all about the healthy lifestyle here on my trip but trust me this is only while I’m travelling . Ouch my back hurts !