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Wheels Up Pt. 2

For the first time in my travelling life, I would need to use the baggage claim at ATL.  Usually, my trips to Atlanta include hurried runs with the family from terminal to terminal to ensure we don’t miss our connecting flight.  It felt a bit foreign not feeling rushed upon landing in Atlanta.  Fortunately, the rushed feeling was replaced by the mortification and embarrassment of our continued run-ins with the boys’ favorite fellow passenger and her nipples.  Had they not announced it every time they had a visual on her, it probably wouldn’t have been so embarrassing.

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We collected our baggage, as the boys continued to stare at the beautiful women and her see through shirt, and headed out to the shuttles.  It was after midnight and the shuttle lines were crowded.  Storms across the Eastern seaboard left several passengers stranded in Atlanta for the night.  Michelle, the boys and I muscled our way onto a shuttle with three older travelers  after the shuttle driver assured us he could take us to a hotel that would take our vouchers.

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We drove for what had to be 20-30 minutes before pulling into a seedy looking motel with funky colored lighting up the side of the hotel.   We had taken the backseat, so we were the last ones into the hotel lobby.  The shuttle driver followed us in and was given cash by the clerk in the hotel lobby.  The lobby of this Choice Hotel was dingy, dusty and gross.  A breakfast nook off to the side beckoned the boys, who by this time of night had become hungry again.  The heavily tatted hotel clerk was unwilling to let the boys have any of the cereal to eat.

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The Mayor and Andrew in 2015
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The Mayor and Andrew 2032

There was a couch off to the opposite side, so we sat the boys down and waited our turn to check in.  Our fellow travelers had been trying to check in with their vouchers, but the hotel clerk was refusing to take them. He was trying to charge us over $110 for the night in his seedy, roach infested hotel.  As they argued with the clerk, we tried to keep the kids occupied and relatively quiet.

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This became increasing difficult as a few hotel guests started to file in.  These guests, clearly prostitutes with their johns, were dressed in clothes that would make even Tara Reid blush.  Our boys’ eyes were wide with wonder and hysteria at the veritable shit show that had started to walk through the hotel door.  Now Michelle and I were starting to get worried one of their comments might get us shot.  Needless to say, we were not comfortable staying in that hotel.

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Our knight in shining armor, was a fellow traveler, a beautiful woman from Milwaukee that is a merger and acquisition specialist (something tells me that Choice Hotel isn’t her normal hotel of choice.)  She arranged for two ubers to pick us up and booked us each a hotel room in a hotel close to the airport.  She truly saved our bacon.  Finally after the longest night of travel and fearing for our physical safety, we made it up to our hotel room at 2:00 am.

That morning we headed back to the airport bright and early to head to Minneapolis.  The weather was beautiful and sunny as we hopped the shuttle to ATL.  Security was kind to us rushing us to the front since we had the young hockey players and all of their gear.  Finally after an adventurous evening starting at PBI and a circus of a night in Atlanta, we made it to Minny.

To Be Contd.

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Love Thy Tendy

There’s hockey mom crazy and then there’s goalie mom crazy.  Go to any rink across the US or Canada and you can pick out the goalie mom who is pacing nervously or sitting nervously near the end of the ice.  Between periods she’ll migrate from one end of the rink to the other.  Depending on how the game’s going for her goalie, she may make small talk with her team’s hockey moms or she may walk by silently.

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As her goalie slides across the crease or moves to make a save, she moves with them.  When the puck leaves her goalie’s zone, her pulse starts to slow as their team makes their way into the other team’s zone.  Her pulse remains steady until the puck pops out into the neutral zone sending her pulse rate up.  If the game is close, her pace is safely in the fat burning zone.   (Thank you Fitbit!)  Not until the handshake line starts, will her nerves start to unwind.

 

Her job is tough.  Her tender could play the game of his or her life, but still walk away with a loss. A loss, which most tenders, will place solely on their own shoulders.  On the flipside, her goalie could have an off game and the team could still win.

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Goalie is a unique position that takes a unique personality.  There aren’t many people, at least sane people, that would volunteer to stand in front of a hard rubber puck moving upwards of 50-70 mph to try and stop it.

As a goalie mom, it is hard to see young goalies, mine included, beat themselves up, but I know the mental difficulties of the position will prepare them to deal with adversity in their lives.  For us goalie moms, the Dunkin Donuts coffee, the Ciroc, the Bailey’s, the Goose, the Ketel and our fellow hockey moms help us cope.  At least we get an hour of free fat burning courtesy of our goalie’s hockey game!

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If you’re looking for more hockey mom related content, here’s the perfect place to start.

Photo Credit for action shots to Pam Huss (awesome FL Bulldogs hockey mom), Pat Cash and myself.

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Worn With Pride

Uniform, jersey, sweater it has many names.  It is symbolic of the high level of commitment it took to attain it and symbolic of the club which is represents.  There are a number of great quotes involving uniforms about what it means to be an athlete.

Brooks’ quote is legendary and I think most of us remember it from the movie Miracle or from the Lake Placid games.  The philosophy of playing harder for your team than for yourself is a key component of hockey culture.  It is also a critical component of what made his 1980 team so special.  In 1980, the team was comprised of college players mostly from University of Minnesota (Go Gophers!) and Boston University.   Just as they do today, my Gophers and Boston University enjoy a healthy rivalry on the ice.  In order to get his players to put their egos and these college rivalries aside, he needed to unite them around a common goal and that was playing for the name on the front of their jersey Team USA.   Brooks was a genius.

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Clemente’s quote speaks to the pride that athletes feel when they put on the sweater.   At the professional athlete, I cannot imagine how amazing it must feel.  Major League Baseball is the pinnacle of baseball and to make it to that pinnacle after years of hard work must feel otherworldly.  The pride he, and his family, must have felt the first time he put on that MLB jersey are something he will probably never forget.  I remember the first time my sons’ put on their travel hockey jerseys.  The smiles on their face went from ear to ear.  You could see the pride the felt in their achievements and they carried their heads a little bit higher.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with my favorite quote on a uniform and it comes from my favorite brassy gal Mae West, who as always said it best and wasn’t wrong.

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The Last Mooring

Tomorrow we will untether the last of your moorings as you graduates high school.   I’m still in a state of belief that this day has come, after all, it seems like just yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital.  The point was driven home tonight as I drove to the rink with his younger brothers to watch you play a beer league hockey game.  You are now everybody’s favorite player because of your youth and because you can drive dad home post-game.

The process of letting you go and become independent doesn’t start tomorrow at high school graduation; it started way before you even set foot in high school.  I remember being struck by this fact when you started preschool.  When we dropped you off for your first day, it was tempting to walk in with you and get you situated, but on your grandma’s advice we didn’t.  You walked in to class confidently and got yourself squared away.  I won’t lie, there was a little pain mixed in with the joy of seeing you gain independence.  We parents like to feel needed.  This was the first time we as parents had unmoored one of his moorings.

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With each passing year, each new stage, trust was gained and with it more independence. More moorings were released.  While graduation tomorrow represents the culmination of this journey, even though the moorings are no longer tied to our dock, we will always be here to guide, advise, listen to music with, play hockey with and love you.

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Mother’s Day Part Deux

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Hockey moms enjoy a somewhat sensationalized reputation as being some of the craziest moms in sports and that’s not too far from the truth.  In my humble opinion, we’re a good kind of crazy.  Who else but a hockey parent would get up at 4:20 am to drive from Clearwater to Ellenton for a tournament game?

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The level of dedication it takes to have a kid in travel hockey, is unbelievable.  During the boys’ hockey season, hockey is all we know and all we do.  Devoted to their family and to the sport, hockey moms can log hundreds of miles (at least in Florida) driving from rink to rink in a single day.   One weekend a couple of years ago, I logged 700 miles of driving for hockey.   To see my boys play the game they love with their friends never gets old.  Mastercard’s tagline sums it up perfectly: it’s priceless.

To be clear, we hockey moms know how to have a good time.  In addition to knowing the proximity of Dunkin/Starbucks to every rink, we also know where to find the closest Total Wine.  We love watching our kids play and seeing them develop over the years, but we really enjoy the good times we share with our fellow hockey moms and hockey dads.  Over the years, the fellow hockey moms and dads, who started off as our friends have become a part of our family.

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I am blessed to be surrounded by an amazing group of moms at the rink. These women are incredible.  They balance life, work, family and hockey and do it with grace, intelligence and beauty.  Hockey moms are a tight sorority of sisterhood that is closer knit than any outsider could possible imagine.  As crazy as we are, the rivalry ends when the teams leave the ice and there is a hockey mom or family in need.  Regardless of what team or organization our kids play for, when there is a hockey mom or family in need, the hockey family will take care of them.  Hockey moms don’t let another hockey mom walk a difficult road alone. We are at each other’s side to the very end.

I posted an article on my Facebook page the other day about the benefits of travel sports of kids.   The article is absolutely on point, but it didn’t even address the ancillary benefit of travel sports and that is the relationships the parents build.  I never imagined when my kids started playing hockey, how much I would benefit from the travel hockey experience.  When Luke’s mom got sick or when Luke had a run in with the SUV, our hockey family had our back.  The hockey community is incredibly close knit and I could not be prouder to be a hockey mom or more grateful for all of the incredible women hockey has brought into my life.

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A Simple Gesture Equates to a Magical Birthday for the Mayor

Celebrating the Mayor’s 11th birthday was an all-day affair that was uniquely his own. After our 5k, I called home to see if he wanted his favorite Dunkin Donuts sandwich for breakfast being that it was still only 8:30 and I had to stop to get my coffee. The Mayor, however, had other breakfast plans consisting of a pepperoni pizza Lunchable, which has long been one of his favorite things to eat. Admittedly, I didn’t quite believe my hubby when he told me he was picking the Mayor up a Lunchable for breakfast, so I had Jake call the Mayor who confirmed his breakfast wishes. While my stomach churns at the notion of eating a Lunchable at any hour, I can’t even begin to fathom eating one that early in the morning. The Mayor, as you may recall, still has his iron gut courtesy of the rink floor skittles he enjoyed years before, so the Lunchable for him that early was no big deal.

As soon as I finished showering and eating post-race, the Mayor was ready to get his gift. His mind had been set on a new GoPro, so he could be mic’d up during his games and get some good video. The Mayor is a legendary chirper, so Luke and I were happy to oblige. I cannot wait to see what comes out him wearing this camera during games. Prepare to be entertained. He spent the remainder of his afternoon playing around with the camera outside with Goalielocks.

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The hallmark of his birthday came at hockey later that evening. It is always a good day for the Mayor when he is playing his game. There is nowhere else he would want to be than at the rink playing hockey. The squad had two games back to back in Lake Worth versus the Bulldogs (Estero) and Goldenwolves peewee squads. We had the first game in hand, but gave it back in the 3rd and the game ended in a tie.
The window between game one and two was quite short, but after a hard fought game us parents were worried the kids would be gassed. The coaches, smartly, had a plan up their sleeves. Perhaps the perfect pep talk pregame would be enough to light a fire under the kids and energize them for three more periods of hockey. So who better than Macklemore to give the kids an awesome pregame pep talk to help them get their mindsets ready for the game. As they left the locker room to hit the ice, Macklemore fist bumped each player offering encouraging words.


Would it work? Would the coaches’ plan workout as they had hoped. After 3 periods, 7 goals for and 0 goals allowed, I would say it more than worked. So I had to wonder, can we clone him? Can I bring him to all of Goalielocks’ and the Mayor’s games next year? I don’t think it is particularly unreasonable.

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As the game came to an end and the opposing team made its way back to the locker room, people started to recognize him asking for pictures and he obliged. As the kids took off their gear, the coaches invited him back into the locker room and he gave them another rousing pep talk. The kids, being kids of course, started asking him to sing. In the end the entire locker room, Macklemore included sang happy birthday to the Mayor. Afterwards, Macklemore was kind of enough to pose for a picture with the Mayor. Thereafter, my birthday boy was on cloud nine. The subsequent sleepover replete with a mini-hockey tournament, Sushi Yama (only 3 bags of takeout needed to feed these kids), street hockey and shenanigans were the cherry on top of a wonderful birthday.


It is amazing how the seemingly smallest gesture can have the biggest impact. It doesn’t always take grandiose acts of kindness or love to make people feel special. Sometimes it’s a pep-talk, a picture, a song or a simple compliment that can make a person’s day. The Mayor’s birthday could not have been more special not because of the material gifts he received, but the acts of kindness he received that night from Macklemore. He will always remember that moment as long as he lives and so will I. So when you go to work tomorrow or to the gym, compliment someone. Say or do something nice and see the positive impact you can have on someone else’s day.

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11 years – Happy Birthday to the Mayor

11 years…

Boy oh boy, my baby, my Zak-Zak, the Mayor is 11 today.  While it’s completely cliché to say that time has flown by, it would also be completely true.  As a baby, the Mayor channeled his inner 80 year old man.  He was a complete curmudgeon in every sense of the word. And then he hit the dreaded toddler stage and a miracle happened.  He became the happiest, sweetest boy you could ever imagine. He’s still an incredibly happy, sweet boy unless he’s hungry.  If he’s hungry or tired, you should run away and hide….

As the youngest of 3 boys, the Mayor is a tough as they come be it on the ice or in a game of mini hockey.  He was the perfect addition to the family.   From day one, he’s loved his brothers even if Colin wanted to put him back after holding him once.  Colin spent a lot of time in the corner when he was younger, but he was never alone.  The Mayor always had to join him and keep him company.  It was the sweetest thing.

He’s got a zest for life and food that’s unsurpassed.  Since we was young, he could eat pretty much everyone I know under the table while weighing almost nothing.  Yes, I’m completely jealous and I’m still trying to figure out where he puts all the food.  He loves food so much that when the boys first started skating at Skate Zone 7 years ago, he ate skittles off the very dirty floor.  The hubby and I were convinced he’d end up in the ER that night with a serious stomach bug.  Much to our delight, he didn’t get sick and in fact hasn’t had a stomach bug since that day.  I’m pretty sure he’s got an iron gut and probiotics for life off those dirty skittles.

Hockey is his life and it has been since 2006.  For his 3rd birthday, he proudly rocked his Minnesota Wild jersey as he enjoyed his hockey themed cake.  He played his first hockey game when he was 4 years old as a defensemen in front of his big brother Goalielocks.  Nobody was allowed to touch his brother.  In the years since, he’s enjoyed the travel hockey life and the friendships that come with it.  He is a rink rat through and through.

His heart is as big as his appetite and I’m so proud to call him mine.  Today we celebrate him.   Please help me wish the Mayor a very happy 11th birthday and his birthday buddy (my brother Justin) a very happy birthday.

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The worst week of the year….

Cue the Pepto, Tums, Maalox, Cîroc and Xanax as tryout season is here.  Arguably the worst 2-3 week period of the year for any travel hockey parent (or any sports parent for that matter.) Starting tomorrow, the tryouts will go 5 days straight across the three major programs in Broward and Palm Beach County.   In the end, I’m sure it will work out okay, but the period of weeks and weeks of not knowing can be excruciating.  Truly even if it is over in hours or days, those hours and days are eternal as is the accompanying heartburn.

So here are my tips for surviving tryout season after 6 plus years of living it:

  • Have a plan: where will you tryout and why?
  • What’s the most important factor in choosing a team or organization to you as a parent?
  • What’s the most important factor in choosing a team or organization for your player?
  • If you have multiple kids in multiple age groups, figure out the car pool situation.
  • Manage your own expectations (work in progress over here.)
  • Manage your kid’s expectations
  • Pre-load your medicine cabinet with a nice accouterments of antacids and acid reducers
  • Breakout the yoga music and Enya music to get your Namaste on. It will help, I swear….
  • Brownies, chocolate chip cookies and Neuhaus truffles are the perfect treats to help deal with the anxious moments
  • If room temp or fresh out of the oven isn’t your style, then Ben and Jerry’s is a solid alternative to the items listed in the bullet above.
  • Blare Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing and sing at the top of your lungs while on the 95 or  the Turnpike.

At the end of the day, tryouts will always remain a grueling marathon for the players, families and most assuredly the coaches.

Hard work on and off the ice leading up to tryouts is the best way to setup our players for tryout success.    Herb Brooks said it best “Success is won by those who believe in winning and prepare for that moment.”  The stakes for all of us are a bit lower than they were for the legendary coach, but I’d be lying if I said it tryout season, even with proper preparation, wasn’t tough.  The worst possible outcome for our kids is that they will not make the team of their dreams, but this too presents an opportunity for the player.

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Our oldest did not make the travel team, the first three years he tried out.  We never ran interference to get him on a team.  Instead we told him that if playing travel hockey was his goal, he would need to work.   And work he did.  He worked incredibly hard and made the travel team as first year U-16A player.   His team that year wasn’t strong, but he didn’t care.  He was thrilled with the opportunity to play and continued working to get better.  His second season in U-16A was one of the most incredible seasons of travel hockey we have ever played (between the 3 kids we’ve logged 13 seasons.)  His coaches (Coach Frenchy, Coach Dan and Coach Mike), his team, and his  teammates were outstanding!

His last season of youth hockey, he worked his tail off for his team, his coaches and himself.  That Hawks team had the most incredible synergy that I have ever seen in youth hockey.  They played for each other, not for themselves.  The result?  An undefeated season in league play and a state championship banner.  While it may have taken him longer to get into the travel hockey than he wanted, but his achievements were completely his own.  He got their because of his hard work.   This spring he will graduate high school and then off to college.  His experience in hockey is one that he will always draw on because it is an example of where his hard work and dedication help him achieve his goal.

There is nothing wrong with learning resilience and persistence in youth sports except for when it’s your child…  I couldn’t be prouder of Jacob, but each spring he didn’t make a team got tougher.   As hard as it was to watch, it was the kind of experience that builds character and life skills way beyond the hockey rink.   So if you see me or any other S. Florida hockey parent double fisting coffee and Pepto this week don’t worry, we’ll be okay once tryout season is over.

Best of luck to all the players, coaches and families this week!

P.S.  Notice I said okay, not normal.  We’ll never be normal…..

P.S.S.  Hockey families – do you have any tryout rituals or superstitions in your family?  If so, share in the comments.

 

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I won the weekend!

I don’t mean to brag, but I totally won the weekend.    Truly, I freaking killed the weekend.  What does winning the weekend even mean?  Let me explain….  At work we talk a lot about what winning looks like.  In order to win, we need to hit certain metrics or certain objectives.  For me to win the weekend, as a hockey mom, it is not dissimilar.  I need to hit certain objectives.   These objectives include incredibly sexy tasks like laundry, cooking meals, vacuuming, grocery shopping, cleaning the house (still in a post hockey season disarray) and logging my miles.  I can count the number of times I have hit all of these objectives on a weekend during hockey season on one hand.   To be fair, it probably happened just once before.  My fellow hockey moms and dads, I know you feel my pain and can appreciate how amazing it is that I could win my weekend during the spring hockey season.

 

Again, this post isn’t about bragging, but relishing in the small joyous victories life sometimes brings.  Friday night was a complete miracle.  I came home to a deceased hamster.  Chuka, Zach’s (aka the Mayor) newly acquired hamster went to the great beyond after a mere 5 days at the homestead.  He was devastated at the loss, so naturally we put the dead hamster in a bag and took it back to Pet Smart for an exchange.  While the Mayor and dad exchanged the hamster, I ran my four miles and it was awful, but I did it.  Before we took the boys to hockey, the Mayor’s new hamster (Oompah Lupa) was in its cage and playing about.   Both boys made it to their hockey practice without being a minute late.  Victory!  By the time the Mayor and dad got home from peewee practice, I had already grilled the chicken (without blowing up the grill), cooked the pasta and made a Caesar salad.  Remarkably, the chicken did not taste like lighter fluid and there were no fires.  Dinner and the Mayor’s sleepover were a complete success.

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Saturday could have been better had my Wild beaten St. Louis, but they choked and broke my family’s collective heart by being eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  To be fair, the officiating didn’t help their cause at all.  Nonetheless, I was extremely productive completing the grocery shopping, vacuuming the floor, and completing almost all of the laundry! I even logged my four miles with my Athena.  Best of all, the Mayor’s team won both of their peewee spring games.  Post run as a consequence of some foot pain, we headed to Dick’s Sporting Goods so I could replace my worn sneakers.   New sneakers and a couple workout tanks I didn’t need later, we headed over to PetSmart to buy Goalielocks some new fish.  If he has his druthers, he’ll have a fish breeding facility in his room in no time.

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Sunday was the perfect day to stay home and do nothing as it rained almost all day.  These days rarely happen in South Florida and I took full advantage to finish the laundry and get most of the house organized.   Even had the opportunity to take the boys to Petco to get our saltwater aquarium water’s tested.   Fortunately for my wallet the tank isn’t done cycling.   For now our tank, will keep cycling with the hermit crabs and Bubbles the conch.  Post Petco the sun finally came out, so Jake and I went for a quick 3.5 mile run.  The run was miserable as the pre-run diet of brownies and coffee was less than optimal, but we did it.  We stuck to our goal and made it happen.   Note to self (and cautionary tale to the audience) stop eating brownies and going for a run immediately thereafter.  It makes you want to vomit and slows you down.  Sometimes it all about life’s lessons and small victories.

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To be perfectly honest, I finished all the loads of laundry and maybe by this Friday we’ll get all of the clothes put away.  Small victories will turn into big victories that’s what I keep telling myself.   Either that or we’ll hire a housekeeper during hockey season.   In the meantime, I’ll relish small victories and winning my weekend.

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An Introduction

It may seem strange to many that I’m a hockey mom living in sunny S. Florida, but life has a way of throwing curve balls our way.   In 2005, we headed south from Minnesota to explore what South Florida had to offer.  Our kids were still quite young at the time, Jacob was going into first grade and Colin was only 18 months.  It was truly the perfect time for us to relocate without much interruption to their lives.   While Jacob had played hockey at the Super Rink in Blaine the winter before we headed south, he decided not to continue playing in Florida.

Several years and a Zachary later,  you can imagine our surprise that despite living in Florida for five years (and Zachary being born in Florida), our boys (especially Colin and Zachary) were still drawn to hockey.  We tried numerous other sports (karate, soccer, etc.) to no avail.  I guess you can take the boys out of Minnesota, but you can’t take the Minnesota out of the boys. Consequently,  since 2010 we’ve been living the hockey lifestyle in sunny South Florida.  With three boys playing at three different age levels on three different travel teams, our life has been busy.  I would be lying if I told you that laundry, non-hockey friendships and household chores don’t fall by the wayside during hockey season.

This blog is about my attempt (any my family’s) to find balance between motherhood, hockey, fitness, survival and career.   In writing this, I hope to both amuse and perhaps help others striving to find this balance.  For others it may confirm what they already knew; hockey moms are crazy.

This blog is also about saving money!  Managing a household with three hockey players, two of which are now teenagers, encompasses a lot of food and a lot of expenses.  I’ll  be sharing deals, flash sales and my best finds.    You can also expect reviews of our favorite products and new products we’re trying.

I hope you enjoy reading the blog and that the window into our crazy world provides you with both entertainment and good information.