I was away at a conference this past weekend, the Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy conference hosted at Trent University. Kate Norlock who blogged here about falling in love with cycling was the organizer. Tracy and I were both on the program. She was the keynote speaking about dieting, food ideology, and food security.
I was on the program giving a talk with Kristin Rodier, “Fat Stigma in the Philosophy Classroom”. She’s also blogged here with me.
It was a great conference and the only bad thing is that I missed soccer, our second indoor game of the season.
I love women’s recreational soccer. I love that most of us only started playing as adults having learned the rules by watching our kids play and thinking it looked fun. Hey, we can do that! And now we do.
I love that these are women I know through church and school and now we all play on this team together and we’ve added friends from our respective workplaces and from the neighborhood.
We’re very supportive of one another, giving each other advice and tips about how to improve our play.
I also love the names. As I’ve noted before, nothing screams middle aged women playing soccer quite like the team names. Our first game was against the Chocolate Martinis. Later we’ll get to play Cougar Town, and the Ball Breakers, I have a new favorite team name in our league, Midfield Crisis.
We’re the Rockettes.
Our first game was a nice reintroduction to the world of indoor soccer. We’re pretty evenly matched against the Martinis and they’re a nice team to play. Like us they have a real mix of skills and experience levels. In the end it was a tie at 0-0. (That was so nice as a way to start unlike the team that demolished us last year. I’ve blogged about that experience here.)
It’s a bit a switch from the venue I played in last winter and of course, a huge switch from outdoor soccer. Last year we played in a repurposed hockey rink with turf rather than ice over the boards. What was fun about that game was using the boards. You could kick the ball at the boards to pass. Our new venue doesn’t have boards and so the ball can easily go out. Luckily there’s mesh so we don’t have to run too far.
And you kick, rather than throw, the ball back into play.
It’s a small field, faster play (very smooth, flat, artificial turf) and it’s all about passing and control. Team work!
No big boots down the length of the field. I kept reminding myself to kick lightly!
Go Rockettes!
