THE "FRET" MINDER IS BACK!!!!

This is THE FRETMINDER's (BOBBY MICHAELIDES) first game back in net since a big rib injury in September!


I remember the first time I saw Bobby in net.  I was walking into the ice complex to get suited up for one of my games when my glance was uncontrollably drawn to a colossal mess of long black "rocker" hair flowing wildly out of the backside of a goalie mask.

I said to myself "Who is this dramatic looking character in net for the Paddles?"



I played against him a few times and never got one in on him.....he's good!!!     







I remember we connected on FB and I discovered that Bobby was actually a guitar player!  He's been playing since he was 15 years old.  He actually studied music at Berklee College of Music which is a prestgious school. He played the music scene in Philly for a while and was with "Spoiled Brat" signed with Arista Records!  YES folks, there are talented folks out on the ice with you!  He played with "Buff Daddy" which led him to the share stages with the likes of Brett Michaels, Ratt, Dokken, George Lynch and yes folks... Quiet Riot!  His firey string playing can be heard on all kinds of recordings all over the world! 




There HE is!  Thats the ROCKER BLOCKER!!  I love making nicknames for him!  It's so easy!



Finding out about Bobby's musical gifts and training was literally music to my ears.  I'm thinking I'm strange for being a professional opera singer and playing hockey.  And I'm thinking surely there aren't any other professional musicians on the ice at any given time.   Boy was I wrong!   And I am thrilled about it!  And there are others too!!

Bobby is one of those ever so cool characters that seems to make friends with everyone.   If there is such thing as an enemy of Bobby.... I question the character of the enemy.  That's how cool he is.  And his wife Lisa is the freeking BOMB!  She plays on the Blazing Paddles with Bobby.   Honestly, I don't have many female friends as I've mentioned in previous posts.... Just an occupational hazard and that I grew up with dudes as my friends..... But Lisa would be one of those gals I'd bond with.  She's that cool.  So together it's like Bobby says "I run a dojo of coolness."   They are ÜBER cool.  Ok, I think you get the point.  COOL.



Here they are!  TEAM COOL


Bobby didn't start playing hockey until he was 30. He started out playing roller hockey when his buddies would rent out a roller rink once a month and asked Bobby to be in net. After a year on the roller floor he got talked into playing on the frozen surface!  He never went back, winning a  Gold in the Can Am Tourney in Montreal and several Beer League Championships! 16 Years later here he is having the time of his life in Texas with his NYTEX family, working for General Motors and basically loving it.  

His injury came in Sept of 2012 when he fell into a repair pit at General Motors. He fell 8 feet down on his side directly onto a steel rail and broke 3 ribs in the process.  The pain was beyond intense and he could hardly breathe or sleep without emphasized agony.  He sat around in the healing process because thats about all you can do with injuries like this... packed on some weight from sitting around for 5 months and knew it was going to be a long and difficult journey to sports again.  Did I mention Bobby LOVES playing sports??????

He healed.... then he dropped 30 lbs and got back out there!  He took a lot of shots in this game and I was frankly impressed.  He told me he had ZERO pain! 

Bobby was lean and mean coming back after the injury!  I actually assumed he would be slower, having not been in net for that many months.  I have tried goalie gear before in an hour lesson.  It was ridiculously hard and extremely taxing.  Bobby came back like he had never left! In fact Better!

Aside from his seeming new handicap of being so much lighter that he had to adjust his thrusting power from side to side to not OVER do it, he was awesome!   I laugh at calling it a handicap because the next pic shows Bobby letting in a goal for that very reason!  He was so much lighter that he had not adjusted how much LESS thrusting power he would need to push his body from side to side and he overthrusted!  He moved like lightning but was way off net hahahaha!  He was smiling at me when he turned around to tell me about it through the glass.  I guess this is a GOOD problem to have!!!!  Bobby looked GREAT out there!   Here is that moment I just told you about!!!

Bobby told me that I needed to clean the lens on my camera because there is a black speck inside the net that did not look right.  :))))))




I ran into Bobby in the parking lot before the game and he was happy to mug for the camera.  Thank God because some just don't like doing this!  Bobby's a performer though... I had a feeling.




Here he is getting ready for the game!


This is a HAPPY DUDE folks.  I have not seen him much without this look on his face. 



He even let this adorable kid shoot on him after the game!  I mean... CLASS ACT!

Bobby, don't ever lose this kind of BLISS!  Others should take example from you!






SO I decided to try and up my own coolness by doing some "comparison shots" using pics that I have of myself next to Bobby's cool pics.  Here goes nothing:


Bobby Works the shades and hat, slight attitude lip pucker lolol

What do ya know???  So does the DIVA!!!! hahahaha

 

Here is Bobby's Band!

Here is the DIVA's Band!

 

 

HERE is a FRAYED, MISUNDERSTOOD, DARK and MYSTERIOUS MUSICIAN PIC of BOBBY

                                       HERE IS DIVA's VERSION OF THE SAME

 

 

 

HERE IS BOBBY ROCKIN OUT!

                              HERE IS DIVA ROCKIN OUT!!!!

  HERE IS THE AUTHENTIC ROCKER BLOCKER!

HERE IS THE HALF BAKED DIVA VERSION

 

 

 

This is all I had in response to that one.... It's my If I were a ROCKER CHICK look.

 

BOBBY plays with his band called BLACKOUT

Visit their website at WWW.BLACKOUTROCKS.COM


HE also plays with the BLAZING PADDLES Hockey Team at NYTEX SPORTS CENTRE

If you see this guy around,  don't be thrown off by the wild hair.....it translates into TOTAL AWESOMENESS as a person... as an artist... as a hockey player and I can confirm... AS A DEAR FRIEND.  

PLUS !  HE says my Opera performances are EPIC!  So I like him even more.... Opera is an aquired taste!   HEHEHEHEHEHEEH


WE HAVE PLANS TO PERFORM TOGETHER! YEP!  WERE GONNA DUET!!!
I WILL POST WHEN THAT COMES ABOUT!

 

 

So I hum and purr during games! What's the big deal???

Basically, the cold temperature of the ice rink is not the greatest for the voice. Granted, once I get skating hard the body warms very quickly and before I know it I am not cold in the very least. But I still have to protect my money maker by keeping it warm the same way a baseball pitcher throws a jacket over his pitching arm to keep it warm......it prevents injury.

So instead of yelling cheers for my team (sometimes it happens lolol) I choose to purrrrrr like Eartha Kitt did and hummm as I'm skating down and up ice. Once or twice I think a couple of my comrades looked over with a confused, but oddly appreciative expression hahahahah!

Next time you have to face my team the Average Joes...(NO not the Sloppy Joes, or the Above Average Joes, or even the Ordinary Joes) ....And you see my pink laces skate out onto the ice.... Just listen for anything out of place..... It's likely your friendly neighborhood Diva.

My strange sounds DO have a purpose.
This avatar of me is kinda creepy huh.

THE MYSTERIOUS LOCKER ROOM DIARIES

PENALTY KILL No. 6
Originally Posted 2011
PS...I'm part of the JOE's NATION now!  Very proudly!


She walks into Nytex Sports Center and signs her name on the Mud Ducks roster. She then grabs her pink taped hockey stick, a wooden one, and grabs her rolling bag with all of her gear and makes her way gracefully down the ramp (as though crossing to stage right to deliver her first aria). She bursts through the double doors with zeal and makes an immediate right into the infamous locker room 1. The men's locker room, much like the men's bathroom is a sacred and interesting place though women are allowed...well most times lol.

I won't lie, it was like walking into a place that I was forbidden to enter, as though some great secret was hiding within.... the secret.... of uncategorized aroma and chat that can sometimes make the hairs inside the ears stand up.

I call out "any one indecent?" to which I hear "its all good... this is your locker room too!" or "Yep were all in our birthday suits, come on in!"

So I enter. OH MY WORD.  My nose was under instant ambush.  It was a wall of unidentified flying spores and they were all giggling at me.... at my reaction.  I named one of the spores Bob.

I wanted to reenact the flower spreading scene below from Madame Butterfly in that seemingly eternal inferno of rancid smell. 



And I was praying to GOD to make it go away!



And it's not like it is any one's single fault. That is just how locker rooms smell! I go into the bathroom area and there is a whole new level of  oscillating odor....like feral cats had lived in there!

I have to change into my under clothes for my gear so I'm skillfully bouncing around on the sticky, and wet floor one foot at a time trying to minimize the time each foot hits the ground, while gagging and hold my breath, eventually shoving a shirt in my mouth and over my nose.   I looked like a female bandit...oh wait... I was one briefly.... we all make mistakes LOLOLOL!  (could not help myself, all in good fun)

Tears rolling down the eyes now as I am continually laughing.  I run back into the main locker room and release the gasp!  Even the guys noticed that there was a nice FEMALE smell in the room when they came in last night. (little did they know that I sprayed a lovely beaches and floral spray all over my bag because frankly, my GEAR.... its starting to TURN. All that sweat, inevitible.)  

<


I grab the best spot I can find and start hanging my stuff and begin preparing my ears for locker room talk. I politely giggle here and there especially when it gets, well, a little racy sometimes... though somehow a precious apology always makes its way over to me LOL. They probably have no clue how I grew up hanging out with boys as my buddies and playing in the mud lol.  So really nothing shocks me... but I think it's really sweet that I get apologies anyway.


The first few weeks I changed in the ladies bathroom, but then got over it and wanted to be closer to my team members and not miss any important line information and play strategy. So I joined them. I dig it. It's not like do a TOTAL change anyway.

Then comes time each game where I always ask Ulrich to braid my hair for the game. He ALWAYS refuses of course. But if I don't ask him, he believes it is bad luck. He probably doesn't wash his socks or other under parts of his gear either hahahahaha Sorry darlin!

It's nice to look over at the door and see my PINK taped hockey stick right in the middle of all of the other guys sticks.


Of course the shower situation is hilarious. Once the game is done, I can't go in that room because, well, when boys shower, they just shower out in the open. So, I politely go down to the ladies room and do a face wash and change lolol.

All in all, the best parts are hearing the guys banter back and forth about guy things and then its especially hilarious when they forget I'm there and actually talk about chicks! HHAHAHAAHAHAHA It's so revealing!

I love these guys crazy! I know without a doubt that we all have each other's back on and off the ice. Like one big family.


SOUNDTRACK IN MY HEAD when I enter the locker room: Flower Duet from Lakme, and Opera by Delibes. Yes, Flowers....to combat the STENCH!!!!

PENALTY KILL No. 5 "Stage direction: Diva to JUMP THE WALL at measure 33"

Penalty Kill No. 5
Originally Posted 2011



I've been directed to do all kinds of things on stage while singing and acting. I've been staged to sing and die lying on my back, once hanging upside down off of a bed (to simulate a dramatic death).  

I've run up and down stairs singing lightning fast coloratura (Thank you Rossini) I've danced the Waltz, I've even done the Csardas (a hungarian dance) while singing!



So if anyone ever tried to tell me that jumping the wall for a hockey shift the first time with all that padding on, with my stick, and hitting the ice directly into a play was no big deal........... yeah, they were lying.

I took a piece of the fiberglass wall covering with me when it hung on my pants in this jump LOL The Soundtrack in my head in this moment was: "Libera me" (DELIVER ME OH LORD FROM ETERNAL DEATH) from Verdi Requiem HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

There is a PRINCESS in all of us....even hockey players!!!!

NO, this is not a intended to lessen the masculinity of all of these big, rustic and tough men I'm surrounded by at the ice complex. Honestly it's one of my favorite parts of being at Nytex. Since I basically grew up with boys as my best friends and buds.... There is a pleasant comfort in being surrounded by men on my team. I just tend to communicate with men with much more ease than women. Probably part of that Tom Boy in me.


Either way, there is nothing more hilarious to me (and speaks volumes to a guys sense of humor) than when masculine guys, as a joke, will take on a female trait, or a prop, and pretend for a moment that they are indeed a woman. In today's case...... PRINCESSES abounded after my game when I stuck around to watch other games.

I was given a Tiara and asked to wear it with two other gals to cheer on the team. It seems that these tiaras were in big demand by the guys!

Rough and tumble dudes of hockey hotness: I SALUTE YOU!!!!

 

 

I could not help myself. Rosser NEEDED a tiara especially since he was serving a lame roughing penalty. lololol! And Justin, well... he could not be left out of the fun.

 

 

 

 

Looking like a DIVA while playing hockey!

Penalty Kill No. 4
Originally posted 2011

So being an opera singer, being accustomed to stage lights and the need for stage make up....not to mention having 1,001 make up tricks to keep the make up, eyeliner, lip stain and base from running because of sweating under the lights..... I've certainly learned how to keep make up CEMENTED on my face to last through ANY condition (from stage kisses to being checked into the boards, lolol)

First time I went to practice hockey, I had regular daily make up on. I thought "I'll sweat a little maybe, I'll be ok" When I came off the ice with raccoon eyes, I KNEW this was going to require me to pull out the BIG GUNS.




Well, maybe not THAT big.

I seriously do however use the same stage techniques to apply my make up to play hockey in. I mean, A Diva can play hockey, but don't forget, still a DIVA. Make up required.























Lipstick in a locker room?? Ohh yes indeed, when the DIVA is present!!! A little rouge and lip color goes a LONG way in a face-off situation!!!

  

 

My make up must be able to withstand conditions like THIS:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And come out looking like this!!!

 

It MUST be able to withstand the HOT and SWEATY conditions in the helmet!


And, though the hair is a complete loss.... Madame Butterfly's Porcelain look still exists after the game!!!


In the end, hockey is yet another chance for me to PERFORM. Granted, no standing Ovations or autograph signings or newspaper reviews..... but as long as my team is happy with OUR performance... I'm happy. And if I can go home looking as put together as when I came...... DIVA IS REALLY HAPPY!!!  

The "SNIPER DIVA" makes an appearance!

Today I was fortunate enough to play a little 3 on 3 half ice with some of my buds and all better players than myself. Being a chick playing hockey, sometimes it can be somewhat intimidating skating with all men, even though I grew up with guys as my best friends and buds. Inevitably, in such a male dominated sport, there will be that few or perhaps just one or two men that truly begrudge a woman playing on the same ice with them. I've experienced it and I've seen other women experience it. But this group of guys are way cool and totally allow me room to make mistakes and actually help me during the game to improve. Grateful.

So when I play, I get this urgency to score! I want to pull my weight!

I hadn't skated in 3 weeks and frankly I was clumsy starting out as easily exhausted even though I kept going to the gym. Skating is MUCH more intense of a workout than anyone imagines.

But finally I got into my groove, not necessarily skating that much better, BUT being in the RIGHT place at the RIGHT time!

My other two team members Greg Davis and Joel Ulrich totally hooked me up many times and I told myself I owed it to them for passing to me so much that I was going to focus an score off of one of those beautiful passes. I would have settled happily for one! (I was so happy to be passed to that I wanted to make something of it!)

Well..... 4 goals later (with assists from Joel and Greg) I heard my nickname "The Sniper" uttered by the goalie I scored on.

The fact is.... I needed to breathe. I needed to be calm and focus in the moment and visualize the goal, then execute.

(PS... My nickname was given to me during the Heritage Classic Game in downtown Fort Worth this previous Winter by Jeff Smith, The announcer for the Fort Worth Brahmas who called our game. I kept being wide open and NO passes came my way. It was like no one could see me! Ever since, that name has been floating around I regards to me because I'm seemingly a non issue for goalies, but that allows me to move around without being noticed as much! )

So the lesson here is: BREATHE, FOCUS, VISUALIZE and EXECUTE. And be in the right place at the right time!

Am I a great player? NO. Not compared to professional or other upper level teams. But... It IS a team sport. I can't lose a game all by myself and I can't win one all my myself!


GOALIES BEWARE !
The SNIPER DIVA is out there!