Hockey Info

Good vibes thus far on the hockey front. Being the OCD dad that I am, I’m torturing myself over what direction to take this. As you can imagine, there are options, and as my Mentor will attest to, I don’t always do so well with options.

I don’t want to become one of those obsessed parents who tortures themselves over their kid’s hockey career, but being a guy and all, I can’t help but think about these things sometimes.

The problem is, N is a good skater and is showing great promise on the ice, but he has much less experience than most of the other kids. In fact, I would bet he has the least experience out there, having never played organized hockey before. It’s crazy how hardcore people are about this sport.

Anyway, there were several areas of uncertainty. First off, his equipment, namely his skates. These were given to us by HH, thanks BTW. They are hand me downs, and they are perfectly fine for just casual skating, but in hockey, everything seems to be notched up a bit, and having good equipment is important. I didn’t want his skates to interfere with his skating, and worried that maybe having hand me downs (I’m guessing he’s the only kid out there with hand me downs, all the other kids have nice new skates) was not a great idea. Even R mentioned that if it was a problem, we should get him new ones, which is amazing.

I had to walk out a bit on a limb and ask the coach his thoughts on N’s skates. It seems that other skaters have different blades, and figured this must affect their speed and agility, but when the coach looked at them, he said they looked fine. I didn’t want to embarrass N in front of the other players, but I think I did just that because the coach examined his skates in front of everyone else. Sorry about that.

The next question was if they were a proper fit. I made a huge blunder but putting N into new skates his first go-around in hockey, and his feet must have been killing them. Even with a perfect fit, there is a break in period, and he had some blisters to show for it. To his credit, he never once whined or complained. What a trooper.

In fact, I think it baffled him why I was obsessing over his skates, he likes them. I just needed to be sure, so the next stop was Stateline Sports, where the hockey gurus reside. I brought the skates in and the sales guy took the time to check them out. He said they fit just right, and any blisters or sores were a natural part of breaking in new skates. N was actually elated that he could keep his skates, even in lieu of getting new ones. This makes me happy.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Adam Klepsteen for the pic.