I can't believe it has taken me a year to write about this but I don't want to forget about our 1st hockey season experience. Jaxsen has been begging for 2 years to play hockey, we told him he had to be able to skate pretty well before he could be on the team. That was fuel to his fire. He worked hard and got really good on skates. So last year for his birthday we got him all the hockey equipment he needed to play that coming winter.
Since our hockey rink is outside and completely cooled by the weather we had to have 2 months of dry land hockey practice in the gym. Not so fun but it helped the kids get to know each other and the coaches. Our first official ice practice was January 5th and our first tournament was the 2nd weekend in February. We hosted the first tournament and the kids got slammed.. we didn't score any points and it took most of the game for the kids to get in the groove. We played 2 Idaho Falls teams, and they had been practicing since October. But from the time the kids laced up until they got off the ice they all had a great attitude. It's amazing to see the sportsmanship in kids who are just playing because they really love to play. We continued to practice but by the end of February the weather had warmed up so much that it melted our ice.
Jackson was so nice and offered their ice to us on certain days and said we could scrimmage against their kids once a week. We took them up on the offer and we trucked the kids over the pass to Jackson for 2 weeks. The first weekend in March was a tournament in Idaho falls. We went out Friday night and stayed at a hotel because our first game was Saturday at 8:00 am. I think we played 5 games that weekend and we lost all of them. Again our kids had such great attitudes that you just couldn't help but smile. They gained a lot of experience in 1 weekend and really started playing as a team. We had 1 week before another big tournament in Jackson we took the kids back over to practice one more time before the tournament.
This tournament we had a game late Friday night, I had a huge miscommunication with the team mom. For all the practices we had in Jackson I had been bringing the goalie equipment, but I had been taking it back to the rink after every practice and she thought I was brining it to the tournament and I thought she was grabbing it after I dropped it off. Anyways I was feeling HORRIBLE for forgetting the equipment and when I went in the locker room Jaxsen told me he was going to be goalie this game. Uhhhgg I was already stressed then nervous about him playing such a big role in the game. Thankfully we were able to use the mini mites goalie equipment and the rink had an adult size goalie stick they let us borrow. I was a nervous wreck trying to get Jaxsen suited up in all this gear I had no idea how it worked. Thankfully Dave got there to help Jax and calm me down. I told Dave I was so nervous for Jaxsen to be goalie, just because he's never done it and he will have to be on the ice the entire game. Dave said "Oh don't worry, it's just a game and he'll be fine." Well as soon as the game started Dave said "I think I might throw up." Hmm just a game huh. Well Jaxsen skated out there in this equipment that made him look so small and for the first time the entire season, THEY WON THE GAME!! Jaxsen stopped 19 out of 21 shots at him. He was on FIRE!! We scored 5 goals and won the game 5-2. The kids we EXSTATIC! It gave them the boost they needed to go on and win 3 other games, tie 1 and 1 loss. They ended up ranked 4th out of 12 teams in that tournament. I mean what a way to end a great season. They might have gotten 4th but you would have thought they just won the Stanly Cup. All the hard work and perseverance had finally paid off.
