A Quiet Saturday

I'm not going to lie: I'm tired. One would think that broadcasting hockey games on the radio wouldn't be an overly-tiring job, but I can say that there have been a number of things that have led to me wanting to crawl into bed and not wake up for a few days. Some of that is due to being up late on Thursday thanks to games that ran late and being back at the Hockey For All Centre on Friday for an 8am game on Friday morning, but I do enjoy the work we do at the Female World Sport School Challenge so I won't complain. Gotta play through the fatigue, right? Onward and forward with more fun!

The semifinals ran today, and we were treated to a dandy overtime game between the MFHL's Winnipeg Avros and Winnipeg Ice who have quite the rivalry. These two teams always seem to be in the hunt when it comes to MFHL championships, and they're both near the top of the standings once again this season with the Avros holding down second-place while the Ice are in third-place.

The Ice prevailed 2-1 in overtime over the Avros as Isabella Mann chipped a puck over Adriana Almeida's pad on a 2-on-1, but both Almeida and the Ice's Bailey Grunewald were exceptional in their goaltending today. I know there has to be a winner in a semifinal game, but I selfishly wanted to see this game to run longer due to the skills shown by all the players today, particularly when it came to the netminding. This semifinal was fast, there were great chances, there were amazing saves, and we got a final in the overtime period.

After that hockey today, you can keep your NHL. I got a family-sized serving of incredible hockey earlier this morning, so I'm happy. So what did I do on a Saturday night where I could relax?

Well, I finished off a few blog articles, but I also did something I've been meaning to do for a while: I updated my GoodReads account! I'll be honest in saying that I don't use GoodReads very often, but I think I'm going to start cross-posting some of the book reviews I do over there because there are a lot of great authors who seemingly have very few reviews on their books at that site.

I get that Amazon dominates the online shopping market and there are a ton of reviews posted there for people to read. I'm not saying that should stop. Instead, what I am saying is that a site where people go to find information on books should have more information rather than less. Specifically, there were a lot of hockey books written for children that had very low ratings which, to me, is weird because they're meant for children. Why are GoodReads/Amazon users rating them like they're written by Stephen King or Nora Roberts?

In any case, I added a pile of books to my profile on GoodReads, so feel free to follow me over there if you have an account. As I said, I may start moving reviews over to that site when the time allows, so hopefully I can help a few authors sell a few more books with my opinions on their books. Beyond that, I'm hoping to potentially add a "library" page on HBIC where one can click the cover or spine of the book and be taken the review I wrote for it. We'll see how that goes.

In any case, I'll be in bed early as we're back at the Hockey For All Centre tomorrow for the 10am gold medal game as the Winnipeg Ice, coming off their 2-1 overtime win, will meet the Rink Hockey Academy Winnipeg who ran roughshod over the Westman Wildcats with a 7-1 win in the second semifinal game. It should be an incredible final if both teams play to their potentials, and we'll know who stands atop the mountain when all is said and done at the 2025 Female World Sport School Challenge!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!