Hockey Hair

What to do?

My son refuses to allow a full on haircut. He calls this his hockey hair. Ugh! I tell him I'm going to put a cute pink barette in his hair to keep it out of his eyes.

While at practice one day, a professional NHL hockey player saw my son leaving the ice and said to him, "how are you going to see the puck with all that hair in your face?" Sean's reply, "I can see it better this way."

Maybe I should cut it while he's sleeping...





Maybe not...he's just so darned cute!

Need to get the hang of this...

The blogging thing. It's hard for me to make the time to sit down and write out what I'm thinking/learning/feeling about certain topics.

I need to learn to make time for myself. Very difficult to do when you're a mom (full time job), an employee (full time job) and a wife (full time job). I'm slowly learning to do this.

I've made some New Year's Resolutions to help me with this. So far, so good at keeping them! Yay, Me!!!!!

The Joys of...Losing????

Well, another several weeks have gone by and another several hockey games and practices as well. The holidays are upon us and I am taking this time to reflect on the joys of hockey-mom-dom.

It's so nice to see my child playing well with others on his team. It's not so nice to see him playing not so nice with opposing teams! Example: This week at practice they ran some drills with the other house league team at our rink. When my son couldn't catch the kid (who happens to be the son of a current NHLer), he threw his stick at him. The other kid's dad, who happened to be at practice laughed and said, "gee, I wonder where he gets that?" I replied, "watching Scott Hartnell."

It's also nice to see my son still enjoy playing the game despite his team's record. They haven't won a game in weeks and weeks. But the kids don't seem to mind too much. They are a young and small sized team; mostly 6 or young 7 year olds. They are improving every week. In fact, teams that have beaten them by double digits are now only beating us by a goal or three. I know the kids would like to see a win now and then though, but they don't let us parents see it. Good boys.

I'm so thankful that my husband has been able to assist with coaching the team. He loves being involved with his son's sports activities and is thrilled to have those boys call him "Coach". I can see it in his eyes that he is loving every minute of it and is disappointed when he can't make it to a game or practice. I send him text updates though so it's almost like being there...sort of.

I'm so glad to be a hockey mom. It takes a special kind of parent to be a hockey mom. We don't mind the cold. We always have a blanket and gloves in the car even in the heat of the summer. We sip gallons of coffee trying to warm up and wake up at 7 am hockey games. We heave large bags of equipment into the back of our all of a sudden too small minivans. We know the best ways to get odors out of hockey pads and we aren't afraid to assist our young sons in the adjustment of the cup.

These are just some of the things I've learned and enjoyed this season...so far...

Road Trip!

Sean's team (Orange Crush, as they call themselves) had their first full ice game with refs and no coaches on the ice this past Sunday. We had to make it a whole experience. I can't tell you how fun it was for the boys.

The parents wore orange shirts and had signs and cowbells. It was so fun! We still lost but here's the funny part. The score was 7-2. Sounds bad BUT, we played this team early in the season and they beat us 17-3! Thankfully, the scorekeeper stopped putting it up after 5 but we parents keep track.

Our boys ARE improving. They are getting better every week. They are playing as a team. They are passing the puck, ON PURPOSE! They are blocking shots. Playing in their positions. AND they are learning ALL the positions.

The team we played this week obviously has a full time netminder. Our goalie-of-the-week was wearing the pads for the first time ever. But that's ok. The boys gave him a cheer anyway for giving it a good try!

Home game coming up this week. They'll be better this week than last week, I'm sure! ;-)

It's Not Always About a Winning Record

Well, after a brief (sort of) hiatus that included a hard drive crash and inconsistent wireless internet access, I'm back.

Sean's hockey season is well underway and luckily for me, there are NO seven o'clock game times! Yay!!!! Unfortunately for me, his team is 0-3.

It's heartbreaking to watch your child attempt something and fail numerous times, especially when it's something he loves so much. I sit there in the stands shouting encouragement to him and his team mates to no avail. I watch in horror with the other parents as the opposing team opens up and shooting gallery that ends with a score of 17-3. Mercifully, there was no score keeper that game and generally, they stop putting it up on the scoreboard after 6 or so goals. I feel very sad for my son to not know the feeling of victory. I feel like the coaches (including my own husband) should be doing a better job of preparing the boys for their games. I feel like I need to be the biggest cheerleader in the world to keep him excited about the game.

Then...I ask my son how he feels about it. He doesn't even notice the score. He noticed how his buddy passed the puck to him and he almost scored. He sees how good he's playing defensively. He knows how fun it is to get dressed in the locker room with his team and how they talk about hitting the arcade afterwards. He sees that his coaches are doing the best job they know how and making it fun for them to learn the game of hockey. AND he says, "maybe we'll win the next one."

Man, have I got a lot to learn about life.

Hockey Rides Again

It's in the inbox. The roster for Limited Travel Mites. Sean has been assigned to Voorhees Team Orange! He's thrilled!

I am a bit less than thrilled with the evaluation process and the distribution of the 'talent' on the teams. Voorhees Black team has the sons of two two professional NHL players on their roster. That's THREE Canadians on one team! How fair is that???? Sean is looking at this and finding an upside, as he always does. He's just excited enough to be playing opposite those kids and the prospect of playing in front of their dads is awesome to him!

Luckily, my worst fear wasn't realized. We will NOT be having a 7 am game 50 miles away! Whew! Dodged a bullet there. AND most of our games are at home since we have two teams and a majority of the remaining games are at the rink very close to my house, again because they have two teams. Yay!

Practice starts Wednesday. First game on Saturday.

Onto NHL action, the Flyers have won three of their first four preseason games in a shootout. And only lost one game in a shootout. Four more games to come and then the real deal starts. I'll be glad to go to some games. We dropped our season ticket package back down to two seats so we'll be going to fewer games but that's ok. I'm still looking forward to it.

And Away We Go!

We're opening a new chapter in the little guy's hockey life...Limited Travel Hockey!!!! It's basically what some might call a "house league" in that we only play teams from our rink system. It includes five different rinks and we'll travel as far as 50 miles from home. The closest rink is actually 5 minutes from my house! Looking forward to those games!

Sean is absolutely thrilled with the prospect of playing in different "cities". He may be on a road trip "just like the big guys" he says. He also reported that he'll need to "listen to music to get pumped up for the games...just like the big guys do." We've decided to make a mix CD for this purpose. I only hope it lasts as long as the trip to Atlantic City.

I'm also getting "pumped up" for this new experience. I've heard these games are a whole different ballgame so to speak. One of our team mates last season got picked up to play a game with the house team (he's a goalie and they needed one badly). His mom said that the other mom's actually WATCH the game! LoL! I watch the games too but it's far less competitive at the mini mite level apparently. These moms were yelling, cheering and shouting when there was a bad call. I can hardly wait!

Jack is thrilled to be able to take his place with the other hockey dads standing on the top row of bleachers at the rink. That way he shout encouragement (I hope) to our boy and get a really good view of the action.

The down side to this will be my schedule. I work every other weekend and I HATE to miss a game! The 50 mile travel will also be pretty yucky when you consider a 7 am start time. Ugh! But there's always the LARGE travel mug of coffee to get me through.

I took Sean to the rink for stick time this week to shake the cobwebs off his skates and he looked like he never left the ice. He hasn't skated in about 2 months and really had no problem picking up where he left off.

This is going to be a great season for him and for me. It will be a growing experience for both of us. I can't wait!