Underwater Hockey @ Deep Blue

[FreediveWI]

One of the hardest parts of the game is moving the puck up the slope when you have the other team bearing down on you- which is why we switch sides every other point.

jon

[FreediveWI]

While we play for fun, and to get a little bit of exercise in the winter time, you can take this sport to a much higher level. There are international competitions with judges and penelty boxes. There are also many different stratagies that you can apply, that cross over form soccer and other field sports. Of course the big difference is that in this sport you have to do it all while holding your breath!

We try to keep the teams as even as possible and if one team seems to be scoring too many points we will switch players around to makeit more even- and fun!

Jon ;D

[Chris H]

This was a ton of fun. We had a really good turn out and I look forward to playing on a regular basis.

If you are in limbo as to whether you want to play or not, stop by and check it out. I think that everybody who showed up had a good time.

[Deep Blue]

Thanks for the great turn out everyone!!! and an especial thanks to Jon and his buds for driving all the way from Madison to share the finer points with us. Lets plan a 7:00PM meeting at Deep Blue (101 West Capitol Drive) for a glove making party. I have ordered the sticks and a puck. Now all we need are gloves.

Also, bring any hot glue guns that you may have lying around and lots of glue sticks. You will need gloves too. Left or right based on how you play. Those cotton gardening gloves with the sticky dot on them are great.

Bring the beverage of your choice, and we will take up a collection for pizza if anyone is interested and hasn't eaten yet. (Even if you have eaten, consider it dessert.)

Anyone interested in underwater hockey is invited, the more people that we have involved, the more fun this is going to be. We will discuss a playing schedule at the party.

[Swimjim]

Maybe the morning coffee hasen't set in, but what day would this 7:00 pm glove making party be on? I am interested in giving the sport a try after reading FREEDIVE. I would have attended tuesday, but my wife works third shift on monday and tuesday night and I have to be home for my son. As I live a ways north of town that makes the timing kind of tough.
By the way, I'm a Cub scout leader so glue guns I got. Thanks!

jim

[Deep Blue]

Sorry, guess my coffee hadn't kicked in. That meeting would be Tuesday, January 20th.

[Omicron]

What's with the special glove?? Why do you wear it...and what on earth do you do to it to make it special?

[Deep Blue]

You use the glove to protect your stick hand from getting scuffed up by the pool bottom. (Or other player's sticks) If you look closely at the pictures, you can see the gloves on everyone's stick hand.

All you do is take a standard cloth or knit gardening glove and coat the backside with hot glue to form a protective layer. I made a couple today and you need about 5 or 6 glue sticks per glove.

On second thought, the beverage of your choce and hot glue together? We may need to get people to sign waivers!!!

[Omicron]

Yeah, I saw them on everyone's hand and I was trying to figure out why on earth you would need it.

Now I get it!

[Deep Blue]

Glove Update:

Ok, so I am not good at waiting to do stuff. Yesterday I picked up a glue gun at Home Depot and a couple of gloves to experiment with. I discovered a few things.

1. It takes about 5 or 6 of the shorter glue sticks to finish a glove.

2. On the first layers, the key is to not burn your hand inside the glove. I still have some pinknes on the back of my hand where it got really hot.

3. I made one with the fingers separate and a few with the fingers together. I will have to see which one I like better.

4. The cotton gardening gloves with the grip dots on them seem to work the best and they are only $1.49 a pair!!

5. At Home Depot, they have really long glue sticks, 10 inches and that makes the job of applying lots of glue much easier than using the shorter glue sticks where you need to reload all of the time.

5. They turn out pretty good, not pretty, but I think they should work just fine. After all, I aint so pretty and I work out pretty well myself!!!


6. People at my work are now totally convinced that I am insane. At lunch I was making a glove and when I told them what I was doing they just smiled, shook their heads and slowly backed away, never taking their eyes off of me.