Back to August for the time being! This year our club hosted a huge Back to Hockey event so everyone could get enrolled, fitted for gear, and check on fundraiser information. One of the last minute activities of the event caused our phone to buzz. As it stands when the club's number comes up on the cell phone we sigh before we answer it. The last minute activity was a drop-in hockey type tournament for all the kids that came out to register. What it meant for us was having a little under a week to try to get on-ice and off-ice volunteers.
Thomas and I split up the work and he did all the off-ice organizing and I did all the on. As we roused up volunteers we were still short several on-ice helpers for the younger age groups. So I shot a quick email to the boy's coach to see if I could get any helpers.
I was surprised as several of the boys turned out to help us out on the ice(our boys included of course). So what we had was a number of AAA boys, several Omaha hockey coaches, and four hours of ice to control.
The most entertaining hour of the day should have been the first one. This hour was all the younger skaters ranging in age anywhere from 4-8. When it comes down to it though age is deceiving in the sport of hockey and a large number of these players had really just started skating. Chris ended up coaching Kaiden's team which however it happened at check-in ended up with decently skilled skaters. Poor Isaac though ended up with a lot of kids who had never even skated before, but handled it like a trooper. It was fun to watch both boys trying to give the Captain various pointers. However, the most entertaining thing came when one of the coaches told Kaiden he had scored enough goals and let someone else have a try.
The funniest part of the day came in the last hour. First off the boys were only suppose to help with the first two hours, but they all stayed the whole time. In the last hour we didn't have enough bantams come out to form two teams so we divided the AAA boys up and had them play as well. We offered it to Cloudya, but she chose to run the time clock, so her and her buddy could goof around. Kaiden however did not like the fact that he had to not only sit on the bench and watch his brothers play, but he also had to do it wearing a helmet.
Watching those poor tired boys play with a bunch of bantams was hilarious. Kaiden from the bench is yelling all sorts of funny comments to each of the boys(when he wasn't asking if he could go out on the ice). Isaac chooses to use his stick as a microphone after someone figured out how to turn the stereo on. In the last couple minutes of the game they decided everyone should come out on the ice and see if they could help break the tied game. When that happened Kaiden jumped out there with everyone(wearing shorts, skates, helmet and gloves only). It didn't take long before he showed everyone that he loves to play with the older guys. In the last couple seconds of the game a AAA player scored the winning goal. However, he just happened to be one of our goalies. His celey was the best!
The rest of the day my house was invaded by the AAA volunteers. They were sprawled all over my tiny living room in blankets trying to get warm! I don't blame them it was a long day on the ice and to top things all off they had to go to practice!
Regardless of how tired we were we all had a lot of fun and were able to make our little army a bit stronger!
- Veronica
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