Six Games in 48 Hours: How I Survived a Beer League Tournament

Surviving a grueling hockey weekend

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So here's a story for you. A middle-aged, out-of-shape beer leaguer travels to a championship tournament, plays six games in about forty-eight hours, doesn't feel terrible afterwards, and actually makes it to work no problem after all this is said and done. How did I do it this year? That's what we're gonna talk about in this episode of the Beer Leaguer Podcast.

The reality of a beer league tournament

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So you've heard me talk about on previous episodes going up and playing the HA Hockey North America Championships up in Toronto, Canada. I've done this a number of times over the years. And uh last year and this year is the first time that I've gone up there with two teams, which means a minimum of six games uh within, well, really just two days, Friday afternoon and Saturday. Uh, if you know you you win, you win your kind of division that they put you in, then you might play on Sunday. But it's a minimum of six games over two days, like I said, in about 48 hours, honestly, a little bit less than that. And yeah, uh, I did that again for the second time. Uh, me and a number of teammates on both teams did the same thing. And I did this last year, felt awful afterwards, uh, really couldn't move and was insanely tired. And this year, not so much. So, what changed? Uh, well, a couple things changed, and that's what we're gonna touch on here in this episode. Uh, just to kind of give you a little bit more picture of kind of what all this was that went on. Like I said, it's uh not just the playing hockey, there's also travel. Uh, where I'm at getting it to these tournaments is about a five-hour or so drive one way. So it is a decent amount of uh driving up there. It's not, you know, a half hour away like the regular local rinks. It also means, you know, staying at a hotel, which, you know, some people are great with staying at hotels, some people it really messes you up, being on a different routine than you're normally used to. I mean, most games that I'm used to playing are after 9, 9.30 at night, uh, for sure. You know, sometimes 10.30 at night uh for games. And these are games that are starting, you know, maybe at 3.30 in the afternoon or even 9, 10 in the morning sometimes. So very, very different kind of stuff all the way around. Um, and and that really, I think last year really kind of messed me up having all those differences and not being ready for it, even though I knew it was coming, just not preparing properly for it. Whereas this year, I think I had a better plan going into it. Uh

Hydration and nutrition strategies

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so what did I do? First thing I did, kind of the week or so leading up to it, is I really, and this is something people always say, and I think people just don't do, and it makes a big difference, is I tried to drink a lot of water. Um, I know that they say, you know, if you're drinking water day of, not really doing any good. But I really was trying to load up lots and lots and lots of water uh for the week or so before. Uh also a good amount of like sports drinks uh for things, lots of sugar-free sports drinks, uh just so I wasn't loading up on sugary stuff. Uh, but really just trying to get as many, as much water, as many electrolytes, any of that kind of stuff in me, knowing that I was gonna sweat a bunch of it out and probably gonna drink enough stuff while I was up there necessarily, but making sure I could, I could give myself the best chance possible. Um so definitely doing that. Um tried to have as many, as many foods as I could, uh like snacks and stuff beforehand that I knew were gonna be good for, you know, prevent cramping and things. So uh things like bananas and a lot of fruit and stuff like that, that really just to try and prevent cramping and getting super, super sore from things, uh, playing that much hockey up there. Uh this is also in the middle of summer, so you know it's hot outside, makes it kind of a weird thing. Um, you know, the rinks, their rinks are gonna be cool. Uh, but you know, like Saturday afternoon, they've been having a hockey tournament going on. The rinks aren't usually as cool as you'd expect them to be. So, you know, that that can also put a little bit of a hindrance in there. Uh, I will say uh I did have, I mean, not really an issue, but kind of more of an inconvenience, I guess would be the right way to put it. Uh, for our second set of games on Saturday, our locker rooms were hot. Not warm. They were hot. You get in there and you're just sweating. And I was trying to put on uh all of my like under garment stuff, like some people call it a gitch, uh, underneath uh that I wear under my pads and everything. And I was having some trouble. You know, it's all like compression gear and everything, and I'm just here like sweating like crazy. Also kind of tired, didn't help. Uh but yeah, so that's not something you could prepare for, but that was that was definitely a thing that happened. Uh also leading up to all this, I I was really trying to

Stretching routines for beer leaguers

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make sure that I was stretching a lot. And when I say stretching a lot, I think people, when you say stretching for hockey, they think you're doing like full-on 20-minute stretching routines and yoga and all this kind of stuff. No, I'm I'm just talking about like little stretches for things. Uh, especially for me, it's always my legs that kind of get cramped up or will get super tired from something like this. So, you know, kind of any chance I got, you know, trying to stretch out my calves or my hamstrings or something, you know, just sitting at my desk and kind of like, you know, lifting up my toes to kind of stretch out my legs a little bit, or uh when I'm getting in and out of my car, just a little bit extra of a stretch, uh, mostly that kind of stuff. Just a little bit of stuff here and there, but all throughout, which honestly is probably stuff I should be doing all the time, anyways. But I was very conscientious of doing those types of things uh leading up to this uh for it. Uh also when I was on my drive up there, every time I stopped, usually for me, a five-hour-ish drive, I could do straight. You know, I might stop once, maybe. Uh, I tried to stop a little bit more often uh just to get out of the car. Uh, again, kind of, you know, stretch my legs, but really kind of stretch my legs uh while I was out and about. Um and and again, drinking a lot, uh, trying to really just overload on uh like water and everything. So there was a lot more stopping than normal. And same thing when I got into the hotel room, uh trying to make sure that I was able to stretch

Essential gear for tournament survival

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out uh and everything. And one of the things that helped me with that when I got to the hotel room is this year I brought with me my little massage gun, you know, one of those percussive massage guns uh that you use. And I think it helped. Definitely didn't hurt anything. Uh I used it before and after games for stuff, you know, just for a couple of minutes while kind of I'm sitting there watching TV or whatever, uh, just kind of on my legs. Uh, nothing else on me really gets that super sore from things, uh, but really it was from my legs using it and using it, I think, on Thursday before stuff started, uh, using it before games on Friday, after the game Friday, uh, using it before and after games on Saturday. I think that did uh help out. I like that definitely didn't hurt anything. So that was a thing that I brought with me. Uh another thing that I brought with me that I think was uh was useful, and a lot of the stuff for what I brought with me was trying to, like I said, plan out how these games were set up. And like I said, the games were set up with uh we had all back-to-back games, which was super helpful. So it was back-to-back games on Friday in the afternoon, back-to-back games Saturday morning, and then back-to-back games uh like early Saturday afternoon. Uh there's like maybe two-ish hours, three hours, something like that between games. So some amount of time, but not a crazy amount of time uh between games there. So one of the things I brought with me, I'll thinking of that, uh, that was actually really a nice luxury item, is actually my

Keeping your gear dry in the summer heat

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boot and skate dryer. Uh I have a it's it's an old, I've talked about it here before. It is an old shock doctor skate boot dryer thing. I mean, you can buy these kind of boot dryers, uh skate dryers for, you know, every winter, every store puts these things out. They're like boot dryer, skate dryer, whatever, same, same sort of thing. Uh, this one's kind of nice because not only is it just like a heater, but it also has some ozone uh that goes into your stuff that helps it from not smelling. Uh so I always use it when I'm home, but I thought, hey, why not take it with you and have dry gloves and boots for your games, which again, luxury item. It was nice to have. Uh, it was a very nice thing to have uh when playing that much. Uh, I also made sure that I had a hotel room that had access to a washer and a dryer, because I don't have so much uh like undergear stuff that I could bring that for all the games. And I like having that. I don't like just wearing like a plain t-shirt or something like that underneath. Uh, but I definitely have two full sets of that gear. So I was able to wear, you know, like set A Friday, go back to the hotel, wash it, and then wear set A in the morning and set B in the afternoon and have that. And that's everything. That's socks, you know, like the pants they have underneath and the and the shirt and stuff. And having that extra set of things and planning ahead to have a hotel room that access to a washer dryer was uh again, more of a comfort thing, but really nice because putting on wet gear is one thing. Like I don't hate it, I can deal with putting on wet gear if you have to, uh, but putting on any kind of wet underneath stuff is a that's a complete no-go for me. Um, so it was a little bit of planning on on my part to make sure I had enough stuff for that, along with a way to extend the life of that stuff that I had. Um I also had uh a balcony on my hotel room that I fully utilized. The there's a little table and chair setup, perfect for drying my hockey gear. And again, kind of thought of that, planned that out, worked great. Uh, because it's over summer, no rain this year. We have had rain in the past for these, which kind of messes up some plans for drying gear. Uh, but I was able to dry all of my hockey gear uh in the bed of my truck on Saturday between games. Was there anything perfectly dry? No. Uh was it mostly dry? It was dry-ish. Uh again, skates gloves, no problem with the dryer. Uh, all the other stuff doesn't get that soaked uh because the underlayment stuff gets soaked, uh, but it got dry enough. Um, so that was uh a nice thing to have. Um in years past, a lot of people, what what you'll see on Saturday afternoons, you will see people uh laying stuff out in parking lots, hanging stuff there is like chain link fences kind of around the parking lots. You'll see people hanging stuff off of that. Uh there's trees around which people hang their stuff in, which I don't really get why you hang your stuff in a tree because it's not in the sun as much. So it doesn't make as much sense, but it's something, I guess. Uh, but yeah, this was great. I was actually between games on Saturday. I was with Mason, you guys know from other episodes, and we just took my hockey sticks, laid them over the back of uh the bed of my truck, and that gives you like two layers to put your gear on and let it sit out there for, you know, it was about two hours uh that it was able to sit in the sun, which really helped. I think all that stuff was pretty well dry. Um, I also had my, like I said, the dryer, I have a little power bank thing that that was able to be plugged into, and that was sitting under all that running, uh, getting the skates and stuff real good. But yeah, uh made things a lot more pleasant, made things a lot less uh squishy and gross uh from how it can be uh in years past, even when I've only played on one team. Uh sometimes if you have games that are super close together and stuff doesn't get properly dried, or like I said, we've had years where it rains a bunch and stuff definitely doesn't get dried in the rain, and it just kind of makes it gross. You know, I mean it's totally playable. You have fun playing and everything. But if you can uh have a nice warm, sunny weekend, that really helps out with things like that. So yeah, so getting to know what the what the weather's gonna be, uh that's a big help. Um, I'd say if you're doing something similar to this, if you are planning on a big uh weekend of hockey where you're gonna go do something like this, I would say it's a general format for most tournaments that I've been in, uh, usually seem to be like three games. Uh that seems to be the general thing, maybe four, but it's usually like three games over two days with it is looking ahead of things, like looking at weather, uh looking at your schedule and trying to plan that stuff out. That makes such a huge, huge difference in paying attention to that. So you plan out kind of how you're gonna do stuff, how you're gonna handle your gear and and all these things. Uh, but also helps planning out on how you're gonna eat. Um, I am not one that loves to eat a lot before a game. Uh, I usually during the regular week, you know, when I have a game at like nine, ten o'clock at night. I will kind of forego dinner and have a very large late lunch usually. Um, just because I don't like eating, you know, three, four hours before a game, that's maybe okay, but definitely not like two hours or so before a game. Uh, so that was also something that I tried to take in consideration of when I was eating stuff and kind of what I was eating. Um, super easy on Friday when our games were kind of in the early afternoon. It was easy, you know. You have breakfast and and maybe a small lunch, something that you're gonna have dinner afterwards Saturday. It like I said, kind of was in the middle of the days there. So I had a little bit between games, uh, but knowing I was gonna eat later. Um, but just kind of playing that stuff out and and knowing so you're not starving, but also so you don't feel gross uh if you're somebody that can't eat a lot right before games, um, something to think of. And again, like I was talking about leading up to it during this whole weekend, still drinking uh just a crap ton of water, um, sports drinks, stuff like that. Uh brought a lot of that stuff up with me, had stuff up there. Of course, while I'm playing, uh drinking stuff, probably a lot more than I normally would uh during a regular game, uh, especially by the end there, just consuming more and more uh stuff during games. Uh so just being prepared for that as well. Another big factor that you have to take into consideration if you're going to some kind of tournament like this, and you have any kind of control over things, is just knowing how many skaters they're going to be. Uh this year it really helped. Like I said, playing on two

The importance of roster depth

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teams. Uh both teams had a decent amount of skaters, uh, both teams had over 10 skaters, which makes this so much easier. Uh last year went up and one team had I think nine skaters, uh, and the other team I think had 10. I mean, they were both pretty low numbers. And we had a lot of, again, a lot of crossover people between the two teams, and that's just tough. Um, no matter what you do, having that few skaters is really tough. Um, so you kind of have to, I think, be aware of that and plan accordingly. Uh, I went up a couple years before this with just one team, and we hit we only had eight skaters, and I was dead just from playing on one team with only eight skaters. I could not have played for two teams, no matter how many skaters the other team had. I just could not have. Um, there was there was no way. So I think that's another important thing to kind of know beforehand and put into your planning uh to figure out, uh, you know, and also kind of help you know when you're playing how hard you're gonna have to go with stuff. I mean, if you're playing on what if one team has a ton of guys and one team has very few, you know, you might have to uh later on in the tournament kind of make the decision of, well, this team's doing good. I gotta really go at it for this team, but this other team's not, you know, hasn't like won a game, so maybe don't go as hard for them or something like that. Uh it sucks to say that, but you might have to make a decision like that for things. So it's something you you do need to be aware of going up there and kind of planning how you're gonna do all this stuff, but also while you're up there planning how everything's going kind of game to game. So, how did everything wind up turning out? Uh well both teams did fine, pretty average. One team uh went what we went uh oh one and two, the other team went one, one and one. Um, so very, very middle of the road for both teams uh for things, uh which, you know, not great, but neither team uh did terribly. How did I feel uh from like game one versus game six? Honestly, not terrible after game six. Uh I was tired. I was definitely, definitely tired. Um while playing, I actually didn't feel too, too bad. Uh, you know, I could tell I was I could tell I was getting slower, I could tell I was a little tired. Um I didn't feel awful. Uh, but definitely after game six, that's kind of when it hit me is sitting down in the locker room, having to get all my stuff off. That's when kind of like the tiredness really hit afterwards was just the sitting down of it. Uh it again didn't help. Like I said before, those locker rooms were so hot, um, which did not help uh anything for it. So those those were insanely hot locker rooms. Uh so having to sit in the super hot locker room after playing uh really didn't help my motivation to kind of get undressed and everything. But no, I did not, I did not feel terrible. I felt better than I did last year. And I think a lot of that I marked that up to the prep kind of beforehand with things. I'm definitely not in better shape than I was last year, but I think I was better prepared for it. Um I think the things like the massage gun uh really helped with stuff. Um I think the like trying to stretch and drink a bunch of water really helped. Uh, I definitely took advantage of the uh hotel shower, which means you could take a super hot shower for kind of long to, you know, really almost kind of like take like a steam uh to try and feel better uh for things. Definitely did that, would probably not be doing that as much at home, uh, but definitely did that. Um it was really nice to you know go back to the hotel, take a super hot shower, come out, use the massage gun for a little bit, and then I would go take a cold shower after that, because I'm a cold shower guy normally. But yeah, that actually was really, really nice. Um if either team had gone and advanced, or if both teams had advanced, could I have played a game seven or eight on Sunday? Yes. I think I totally could have. I would have would I have been tired? Yes. Uh would I have been too tired to play or anything? No. Definitely, definitely not. Um last year I think I would have been uh just a pile of goo trying to play on Sunday. This year I think I I would have been tired, but I would I would have been able to uh to to get it together for a game or two, no problem. Um would I continue trying to do this if I'm able to? Yes. Uh it's a ton of fun. Uh it's a ton of hockey in a short amount of time. And like I said, it's exhausting. You you don't really get to do much else. I think that's an important thing to point out. And I I try and tell people when they're going up to do like this tournament in Toronto and people that bring their families and stuff, is uh if you're playing three games, it's tough to kind of get in a vacation really around that during that same time, let alone trying to do six games uh in just a couple of days. It's really, really hard to do that. And so I think you kind of have to, if you're gonna do something like that, kind of punt on trying to have any kind of vacation-y stuff while the games are going on, you know, and and just kind of do those before or afterwards, not when there's games. I think that's an important thing to do uh and something to note. But yeah, I would totally do it again. And if I get a chance to do it again, is there things that I would change? I don't think so. I mean, there's stuff I'd love to say, like, yeah, I'm I'll try to be in better shape for next year. Yeah, probably not. I'd love to think that. Um I think the prepping, like I said, for stuff I think was really good. Uh, I think uh having the stuff for the the like the boot dryer, I think was really a great thing to have. The massage gun, I think, helped. I don't know. I think it did though, um, considering my legs uh didn't feel a complete uh jello on Sunday. I think that that had something to do with it. Uh so I would I would totally do that again. So I don't think there was much more I would change with that if I get a chance to do this again. I think that was kind of a good lock-in kind of thing to do with it, and I and I liked that. So I think that's how I would handle it again in the future. So there you go. There was my take on playing six beer league games in two days, no, two days uh for it. Have you ever done something like that? Have you ever gotten a chance to do something like that? Have you ever done like three games in two days thing, which is kind of a normal beer league format? How did it work out for you? Do you have any tips or tricks to share with people of things to kind of help you get through it and make sure that you're okay to play uh for things and that you're not uh the person on the end of the bench that's so cramped up they can't play, or the guy on the other end of the bench that's so hung over he's throwing up on the bench? And neither one of those extremes are great. Your teammates uh don't don't ever appreciate either one of those. Uh so do you have any way to not be that person uh for stuff? Like I said, this is my second year in a row of doing this. I definitely felt more prepared. Uh, definitely kind of had a better idea of what I was doing going into it. So I hope if you do something like this, then uh hopefully this helps you out a little bit as well. As always, if you have any comments for anything, leave a comment uh for this episode, or you can always head over to thebeerleager.com. Uh it's another place where you can get past episodes, you can leave comments for the show, all sorts of good stuff over there. Go check it out. As always, thanks a lot for listening, everybody. Catch you in the next one.