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The Madness Continues

The madness continues with Day 2 and 3 of the Labor Day tournament. Thankfully, the schedule gods were kind and I got to see both kids’ games yesterday.

Both the Mayor and Goalielock’s teams played the Ice Bandits from Atlanta. The mayor’s game was earlier in the day. For the majority of the game, it was a close contest. Unfortunately, the Ice Bandits opened up on the 3rd and we lost.

The Mayor worked hard and was more than ready for the team lunch at Sam Sneed’s post game. It’s never easy to feed a team of hockey players and all their families. Yesterday’s lunch took quite awhile, but the food was quite good and the Mayor enjoyed the time with his team.

Goalielock’s and his squad were up next facing the same organization. He’s played with most of these kids since mites and now they’re huge. They look like giants and men. Now longer do they look like the sweet little first and second graders they were when this crazy journey first started.

Their game was pretty good. These boys are coming together quite nicely and will be fun to watch this season. They came away with a strong 4-1 win.

Of course the best part of tournament weekends, is hanging with the crew and barbecuing back at the hotel. The rain put a slight damper on the festivities in that it wrecked most our hair and diluted our drinks. Aside from the rain, the night was pitch perfect. This morning on the other hand was a bit rough.

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Labor Day Tournament Day 1

After driving for what felt like countless hours on the turnpike, we finally made it to the Labor Day Tournament. Well at least hubby and Goalielocks did. Due to a number of accidents, the drive took longer than expected so I dropped them at the rink in Kississimee before heading to Orlando.

I abhor driving in Orlando, but driving in Friday night rush hour in my hubby’s truck takes the cake. Nevertheless, I survived the drive. The Mayor and I made it to RDV in once piece.

 

Both boys played last night at 6:45 and 7:50 respectively in two different rinks. I was bummed that I had to miss Goalielock’s game. The rink in Kississimee is like a cave. There’s no cell service, so this goalie mom was dying from anticipation in RDV.

 

Goalielocks and his squad played great. They ended up winning the game 10-0. Always a good night when your goalie gets a shutout.

The Mayor’s squad played a local team that was pretty well padded with travel players. They ended up in a tie, but they had a lot of critical opportunities they were unable to convert. My mayor had a great game getting a hatty and an assist. The Mayor was excited to play last night and is really looking forward to today’s game.

Last night’s loser was definitely Steak N Shake, who saw their entire computer system go down during a storm. By the time we had left, their credit card processing machines still hadn’t come back online.

Finally, the parents were in good form. We kept the bartender in the lobby busy and the bicep curls looked good. Nobody got arrested, broke anything or got sick, so all in all it was a good night.

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Time to Sync the Calendars

This time of year is the craziest!  We are, at once, back to the crazy break neck pace of school and hockey season. It is time to sync the calendars.  If we kept all of our calendars separate, there is no way we’d ever show up to the right place at the right time.

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Thank god for Team Snap and the ease with which you can synchronize the team’s schedule to your iCalendar.  The downfall, of course, is the constant reminder that we have absolutely no free time until next March.  Without the easily synced calendars for the boys activities, we’d be lost.

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There is a limit to all of this calendar mayhem. I refuse to integrate my work calendar into my iCalendar.   If I did sync it to my phone, I  think I would lose my mind!  It is all about finding balance in life and that’s where I draw the line.  My work calendar has no hockey on it and my personal calendar has no work.  I have to keep them separate in order to maintain a healthy work life balance.

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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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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.