I've learned it is a good thing to GO BACK TO THE RINK on a Sunday. As a testament to my faith in our boys, I bought the tournament wrist band on Friday. (That means, on Friday I paid the $25 weekend entrance fee to the tournament rather than paying the $10 daily fee - so I saved $5, yay me ...)
Cole and his Rangers team have made it into the final eight teams at their tournament. They squeeked into the 8th spot. Today they play the tournament leading Marlies team. The Marlies are a wonderful organization with a tremendous team. Cole can learn a lot. He's learned a lot this whole tournament. After all, that's what an "early bird" tournament is all about, right? We'll see!
Yesterday there was a big bang-em-up game against a team from Rochester, NY. Our boys lit up the goalie, but it was a hard hitting and fast paced game which was a ton of fun to watch. If you are patient, and not reading the Twitter feed, the score was 6-1. What was not mentioned in the feed? Cole did not bend his knees and some pipsqueek upended him. Comical for me. He was not amused.
There were many hours between games. Our first game had us at the rink for 9AM with our second game starting far later than the 5:15PM scheduled start.
I had two of the boys join me and Cole for our daily trip to the closest Subway. We were joined by another mum with her three charges, so all six boys spent some time eating and chatting and then we headed back to the rink with a few hours to spare! While the cars were covered in drying hockey equipment (I got smart and had the boys put their socks and undergarments on the roof of the truck to dry out) the boys went back in the arena and watched hockey. The mums brought out lawn chairs and chatted. For hours! Not a drop of wine to be found ... but the equipment was dried and friendships were made.
The 'big' game was late. The last game slot of the day is brutal because there is such a delay! I'm always surprised the boys stay so up and ready. Goodness knows I'M NOT! I joined some of the parents for a drink in the rink bar during the delay and then everyone was ready to go! What a GREAT game vs the Senators. A couple of boys from last season have joined the Sens and there was, as far as I understand, some "bad blood". At one point there was quite a scrum at the front of the net and Cole tried to get the puck to our goalie and ended up having a Sens player push his stick and essentially had him score on his own team. It happens, but boy was he devastated. Until he got to the bench and his coach gave him stern talk and all was well -- time to move on. It was a fast and physical game ending in a score of 4-2.
With all of that, the boys earned their way into Sunday.
In other news:
- Caden will be playing with his same coach from last year. Louis conducted the draft and by some miracle ... ermh ... my boy was drafted to play with his buddy Mikey and Sacha.
- We managed to sell $140 worth of skates at the big combined skate sale
- Claire hung out with some buddies over at Shell Park and (my house) the new Shell Park water fountain and washroom :)
- Louis survived a day of MOHA drafts with many more days of drafts and on-ice evaluations to follow.
As for the day today, while we (Louis will join me, Chloe and Caden to watch Cole at Chesswood) are at the rink, Claire is playing in her final rugby tournament of the season in Markham. If they make it to the second round, we'll head out to see the girls. It's an early start with us all out of the house by 6:45AM!
Okay, in order for that to happen, I have to go! Have a great day. And remember, it's the 12 of 12 today! Take photos!!
