Change of Scenery

Normally I’d be heartbroken at the end of hockey, but not so this time around. It has been a long and grueling season, and I acknowledge that a lot of the pain and suffering stem are of my own doing, but sometimes you have to endure a little misery to make things happen. Yes, I volunteered my time to help out, but what’s a parent supposed to do? Sit back and do nothing while the program slowly sinks?

Truth be told, I like being involved in what my kids are doing, and I love hockey, so it’s a win-win situation. Either way, the season is over and the kids are doing some end of season fun/skills stuff, and I don’t have to do anything other than just get them there and watch. I love it. The skills camp that N is doing is run by top-notch coaches who are pretty hardcore, so the last thing they want is some weekend warrior dad getting in the way. The program over in the big city of Hanover is first rate, those guys put together amazingly strong teams that consistently win state championships. It’s pretty incredible, but I think it comes at a cost. I’ll leave it at that.

A&N are also doing a spring hockey session, and again, the coaching is all taken care of. This is one of my favorite things to watch for the kids because it really is all about fun. No stress, no scores, it’s like pond hockey, without the pond. The winters have been strange, anyway, and good skating ponds are hard to come by. The kids love it, and it gives them a chance to let loose and get crazy.

All this while, N’s old team has been playing under a different moniker. The coach, Mr. Hockey, puts together a special team to extend the season, and they end up at Lake Placid. In the past it has been described as a “select” team, but this year he opened it up to the entire team, and I think with the exception of three players (N being one of them), they all jumped in. I was watching the practice and it dawned on me that perhaps the reason it allowed the entire team to join, thereby compromising the “select” quality of it, was because he didn’t get a huge response from players in the other programs. I deduced this from the fact that it was basically N’s old team, sans N and a couple other kids. This included some kids that clearly did not necessarily qualify for a select team.

Whatever be the case, this time around, we felt a need to have a break and get away. A chance of scenery, as they say. I think the experience with Mr. Hockey was invaluable, he is a great coach, and N really grew as a player under his tutelage, and I learned a lot as a reluctantly aspiring coach. It was, however, stressful, not to mention demanding, and I think we all wanted to just be free from pressure and just have fun.

I figure that if N can just have fun in a carefree environment, but also get some training from top notch coaches while playing with some outstanding talent, he’ll get the best of both worlds, right? At least that’s how it goes in theory, but as we all know, theory rarely translates into reality.

It should be interesting, we’ll see where it all goes. Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to useitinfo for the pic.