Congrats to our Hockey Daddy!

This is long overdue but congrats go out to the hockey dad of our clan Thomas for receiving the award for Volunteer of the Year!  In case you missed it the number of things he did this year was long...Housing director for AAA Omaha hockey, squirt level commissioner, squirt select team manager and that's just the things he had names for!  He organized many activities and events as well. 

Happy Father's Day

Father's Day wishes go out to the awesome dads of our wonderful hockey sons!  Happy Father's Day Joe, Dave, Chris, Ken and Brian!

More Congrats!

More congrats are in order!  This time it goes out to our other hockey son Isaac who has been drafted to play for the Twin City Steel.  In case you have been following, yes that is the same team as Marshall.  Looks like Dean Hockey will be traveling to the cities this season:)

One last congrats goes out to Isaac for his high school graduation!

Congrats!

Congrats goes out to our Hockey Son Marshall for being tendered with the Twin City Steel!  We are all proud of you!

To All of My Boy's Moms

Happy Mother's Day to the wonderful mom's of all the boys that we have been lucky enough to have come into our lives!  Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us and letting them become a part of our family!

Teresa, Liz, Julia, Cheryl and Michelle you are amazing women!

The Dean Family

Peter the Great!

When you first meet our family you learn very quickly that we are HUGE Colorado Avalanche fans!  The truth is though that I AM a huge fan and my poor family have been brainwashed to ride the train.  The other thing you quickly learn is that Mommy adores Peter Forsberg, former member of the Avalanche.  On the day we found out Kaiden would be a boy, I would not take no for an answer he would have the same middle name as Peter the Great.  Years later, with honestly no prompting from mom he chose to wear the #21 as his hockey number.  Just a few months later Kaiden announced to us that someday he wanted to be the Captain of the Colorado Avalanche when he grew up.

One evening during the last summer I got up for work and Thomas tells me that we won't be going to Salem in October(our already planned vacation).  He pulls up for me the information for the newly announced retirement ceremony for Peter which just happens to be in October.  He says to me not to argue that we don't have to go, because he doesn't want for me to miss the retirement of my all-time favorite player. 

Just a couple months later I am standing in the entry way of a hockey rink in Minnesota(we had traveled to watch our hockey boys play) trying desperately to buy tickets. When I finally get an attendant they inform me that the event is already sold out.  This was only three minutes after tickets went on sale.  Then she told ME that this was a popular event!  A couple hours later I bit the bullet and bought tickets on StubHub for a more expensive price, but it was worth every penny!

Our trip was quickly upon us and was filled with all sorts of hockey related events.  On Friday we attended the Avalanche practice.  Here's a hint to all hockey fans...its FREE!  Cloudy couldn't believe how fast they all skated for "old" men.  Kaiden enjoyed watching Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly spend the last part of the practice playing baseball with pucks.  Once practice was over we were able to hit the ice ourselves and the kids loved getting to skate in the same place that their team does!


The morning of the retirement ceremony we drove around Denver purchasing pretty much very Avalanche piece of merchandise I could find!  Before hitting the game we strolled around downtown Denver and ate dinner at the Hard Rock. 

The time came though to get to watch them raise Peter's banner to the rafters.  I knew that it would be special to be there with my family but when he walked out on the ice to be honored the feeling was so much more than what I thought it would be.  During the highlight video of his career Kaiden kept saying"Wow that is so cool."  Sometime in the actual ceremony I looked over at Cloudy and she had tears in her eyes.  Whatever their honest reason for coming they knew those moments were important to their mommy and they wanted to share it with me.

The score of the game was unimportant as we left that night.  The kids had an amazing time at their first NHL game.  As we were walking to the car Kaiden asked me if Peter had ever been the Captain of the Avalanche to which I had to tell him that he had been only an alternate captain.  He looked at me and said, "I don't need to be Captain mom.  I'll just be an Ace Captain like Peter."

-Veronica

The Great Move

This may not be entirely true.

Home is where the heart is…or in our case where all the kids, hockey bags, and smelly gear can fit and our old house was just not cutting it anymore.  Veronica and I had been searching during the summer for a possible solution to the fact we had outgrown our home in the four years we had lived there, but we struck out at every turn.  On a whim I was sent to look at a house that I was not impressed by at all – the amount of work it would need to make it a home for me was more than I cared to take on.  However, Veronica saw it and was ready to move.  The size was a major selling point not to mention a family room with a fireplace, and 5 nice sized bedrooms the smallest being larger than any of the room at the old house.

At that point I was set off on a mission, a mission to paint and get the house ready in 2 weeks for the big move.  Every wall in the house was the exact same color – a cross between honey and burlap so not something we could live with or very long at all.  I started in the hockey boys’ bedrooms – the first I was out to be wild and crazy so I painted two of the walls orange and two slate grey walls with black and white trim throughout the room.  Cloudya still holds to the fact that the grey is actually lavender – she may be right but I keep telling myself it is grey and someday I will convince everyone that I am right.  Next came the bedroom that one day will hopefully be a guest bedroom leaving the walls the same color I added vertical striping in blue.  The stripes started as something I thought would be cool but in the end I realized my yard stick was not straight and I had to make some adjustments adding to the work load.

Kaiden's bed Avs and Sharkstuff everywhere

The kids’ rooms became my next task Kaiden’s was easy enough as he wanted his room to look the exact same way it had before so the Colorado Avalanche bedroom was reborn.  Shaded ice took on the wall color and two wide stripes in maroon and blue blocking in by black stripes made of hockey tape.  Decorations were added and a hockey bedroom any Avs Fan can be proud of came to life.   

Cloudya's overly colorful room

Now if you know Cloudya she is all girl and totally wild when it comes to what she wants – so her room looks somewhat like a fairy attacked a paint store.  She has walls painted purple, green, and a Caribbean blue with everything trimmed out in pink accents – like I said a lot of color.  There is no doubt the room belongs to a princess – just you would never know it is a HOCKEY PRINCESS.

While I love painting by that point I was kind of beat up and running out of time; packing during the day, painting and unpacking at night takes a lot out of you.  The only rooms that have been painted since the move is the Family Room and entrance of the house, both Veronica has picked some very bold colors.  A deep purple for the Family Room and a nautical blue for the entrance into the house, making both of these rooms my favorite.  As time moves I am working on pieces here and there and adding new décor to the house in every room and I will eventually be done. 

Veronica was able to see something more than I had, which is often the case as I am more of a realist.  The house is coming together and everyone can actually spread out and have a bit of space which is by far the most important thing.  I have my fingers crossed that we don’t outgrow this house too soon. Besides if we do the poor soul that moves in here will never get the stench of hockey bags out of the garage no matter what they do – I know I have tried.

Fluffy's Flow Takes Home the Gold!

 We warned you about Isaac's gorgeous hair, but we weren't the only ones that felt that way.  Check out the link to a story all about his hair winning an award!

 http://nahl.com/news/story.cfm?id=4591

To Grade or Not to Grade

Edmond de Goncourt is quoted as saying "A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world," however with the development of youth sports his quote is no longer accurate.  Now it could be worded to replace paintings with outstanding younger players within team sports.

He's not really mean, he just wants his hockey stick

This year I managed to cause a scandal all on my own when I took the advice of all of our hockey boys, two former professional players, several coaches, and our own back and forth conversations and choose to send Kaiden through the move up process.  Now if you are not familiar with our club the process is really pretty simple - you sign a form that says you are interested in moving up, your player must test on testing day, and in the process they must place in the top 35%.  So we went through the process and Kaiden managed to place well above the required percentage.
Now we were very excited about the opportunity for him to play up when we found out he had managed to pass all the areas he needed to(What parent wouldn't be) - and then the phone started ringing.  The rings where just not the ones we had hoped they would be(you know the kind that are of congratulations).  Instead I was cursed at, told I cheated, and even accused of a coverup.  I also had a hockey mom who happens to also be a board member drop the F* Bomb repeatedly on me at 8am because she felt it was dirty and low down, then the same woman called back and apologized only to turn around again and send my sons private information out to several people within the organization(YUP SUPER CLASSY to try and destroy a 6 year old that has great talent).  

We held our heads high and made sure we have supported Kaiden every day since the moment  he signed his form to apply for grade up.  Since that day Kaiden has scored several goals against much older goalies and players, become quite a stud at getting assists, and made a travel select team(WAY TO GO CAPTAIN!).  Looking back on it there have been a few moments that made me think if this worth it but it has been.  The love for hockey is there and he is growing under the direction of a wonderful house coach .  So will we move him up again when the time comes - oh I am sure we will, and my advice to everyone else out there jump on the opportunity just prepare yourself and your player that not everyone will be happy you have talent in your corner.

Congrats to the other Outlaws!  You are the elite!

- Thomas

Welcome Back to Hockey: A Family Affair

Yes...it is January and we are still writing about the beginning of hockey season.  So our resolution is to get this bad boy caught up and to keep everyone more up-to-date. 

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

Happy Holidays from our team to yours!

Pride and Prejudice

There is always some kind of game on in our house rather it's hockey, football or basketball.  It doesn't take very long before the Captain asks, "Who are we rooting for?"  On the day of the boy's first scrimmage we weren't looking forward to that question.  Our AAA 18s were playing the AAA 16s.  You think that Kaiden would naturally want to cheer for his brothers.  However, if you refer to his bio you would learn that one of his heroes is Coach Jake.  The team that Coach Jake coaches is AAA 16s. 

So on the way to the rink to watch Kaiden asked who the boy's were playing.  In which we responded, "Coach Jake's team."
For a moment he looked puzzled in that six year old kind of way, but then he asked, "Who should I root for?"  Even at such a young age he knew that this was a hard choice his brothers versus his favorite coach. 

In the end he came up with the solution to cheer for his brothers and few of his other favorite players and to only cheer for Coach's team if they were winning.

-Veronica

Stay tuned for a week long slumber party!

The Oops Baby...

So every once in a while friends of yours may actually admit they have an oops child.  Sometimes that oops is in the form of the first born, or the youngest and sometimes even sandwiched right in the middle.  Well I will proudly admit that we have An Oops Baby and his name is Isaac. 

Now Isaac is a special kid.  He is the fun loving, outgoing, ball of energy that is bound to get himself into whatever mischief may happen to be around and if there is none he can always make it.  Along with that and his little grin that is contagious to anyone that sees it, Isaac has a head of the craziest hair I have seen on a boy ever.  In hockey terms Isaac hair is CRAZY SICK FLO – now if you don’t know what they means well you are on your own but in laymen’s terms it is simply sexy hair.

As I have already established Isaac came to us as a bit of an unexpected blessing.  In one of the crazy shovels of players Isaac came to live with us for what was supposed to be a short stay along with another player, Brett(there is plenty more you will hear about him).  Things always managed to have a way of falling through when it came to finding him a new house, and he was fine with sharing the open basement with our 11 year old.  Pretty soon the kids knew he was not going to leave; he had come to love the food and his own little corner of space he had carved out.  It was not long before Veronica had accepted the fact he was not going to be moving and she was plotting out ways to move people around to make room for him.  I of course was worried about how having 6 people in our house was going to work not to mention two hockey players.

I finally broke and agreed to Veronica purchasing a bed for him still I had no clue where it was he was going to sleep once I had the bed.  But the bed arrived and Veronica pushed and finally after getting rid of the couch I have loved more than any other piece of furniture we have every owned, Isaac finally had his very own space bed and all.

Now Veronica and I both know the exact moment Isaac became part of our family and there would be no way he would ever be allowed to leave.  That moment came in the form of a cuddle session on the couch(similar to the one in the picture).  Isaac was lying on the couch taking up all the room and the next thing we knew Kaiden and Cloudya where there with him.  The three of them all nestled together watching TV.

There is not a day now we can’t think of our very own little oops baby being anywhere else but home with us.

-Thomas

And the Bodies Hit the Floor…

Before anyone gets alarmed, the title sounds a little scary and ominous really I picked it because it works when you have players arriving and crashing wherever they can for the first day or two.

Before you can truly appreciate how crazy things were this year let me explain what happened in previous years.  In the past the players have arrived on the first weekend of August.  Around 2pm on Saturday afternoon they would meet at the rink to fill out paperwork, sign housing checks, meet their new families for the first time, and to see who they knew on the team.  After the meeting was over players would follow their host families home, unpack into their rooms, and generally they would head out for dinner and back to the hotel to stay the night with their parents one last night.  Come Sunday there was always a large BBQ everyone sitting around chatting, getting to know each other, host families caught up with each other and met the new players, then once things were done the boys would move the rest of their things in and spend the first of many evenings with the family.

However, this year things were a little on the crazy side with things happening in rapid fire style.  The boys all arrived on different days, there was no Team BBQ, and we were all flying by the seat of our pants.  Needless-to-say, with the level of chaos we had going on players were arriving and families were not ready for them.  Our Chris was the first to arrive – and I was ready for to an extent.  We got him moved in, ate dinner with his family, Chris and I hit a movie, we got him enrolled for school and he was off to a great start.  Somehow though in the mix of everything Veronica just happened to be working so I was one parent short for a few days, but we made it through. 

Things were off and running well, until the phone call came.  I have already told you the housing director is the guy that fixes all problems, and I was handed a fun one right away.  One of the boys arrived in town to not only find out his room was not ready, but his family was not even in town.  They had taken off to get their son moved into college.  Normally this would not be a big deal except the players family had not planned on being in town for more than the day because their younger son had school the next day.  Being the guy I am I packed him up like a stray puppy and brought him on home to meet the family.

Now because I felt bad I made some homemade spaghetti for him, and Veronica had to work that night so I let him crash in our room and I took the couch instead of making him sleep in the front room.  The evening was progressing well until another player’s parent called me during dinner to ask directions, and had a list of questions a mile long.  As the phone was ringing I made my plate, grabbed my garlic bread and headed to my chair to eat, but quickly had to leave all of that behind to get on the computer and pull up paperwork.  Sitting in the kitchen I realized I was extremely hungry, cooking all day does that to me, so I made myself a plate.  Now if you remember, which by this time I had forgotten, I had already made my plate once.  Thinking the conversation on the phone was wrapping up I headed back to my chair to find a drink, a plate, and a fork waiting for me.  The boys of course found this extremely humorous.  Passing the second plate off to Chris, my eating machine, we had a little laugh after I got off the phone finally.   The night was the first in many nights where more than one player would end up at our house during a transition.

One of those very transitions brought us Isaac, our little mistake.  Isaac as you will find out is the laid back, easy going kid that nothing seems to ever faze.  He started the season living with another family and another player altogether, but as things shook out both of the boys left their first home.  While during what was supposed to be a brief transition we ended with Chris, Isaac and another player on the team all crashing here until we could get the extra boys moved.  One of the players was a short stay, although he became very fond of my cooking and you will hear about him very often, Brett also known around here as Scooter, moved into a house with a fellow player about three days after starting his mini vacation with us.  Brett made a pretty good impact and has his own quote that is repeated very often around here – “Dude. Go to bed!”  All spoken with an extremely thick North Dakota accent.  While we were sad to see him go it was a sigh of relief with one less mouth to feed, and one less body on the floor of the basement. Not to mention the lack of “Dude, go to bed!” being shouted at 11pm when everyone else was still awake.

Isaac was not as easy to get rid of, every day I thought we were a little closer as he kept telling me he had a place to live but needed to clear up the details.  It was pretty evident though he was not going anywhere fast.  After two weeks we gave up, and Isaac found a permanent spot in our hearts.  He volunteered to sleep on the couch in the front room or in the basement, he even said he would share Kaiden’s slidebed.  Eventually we ended up tossing Cloudya into Kaiden’s room and he took over her bed while we made the final adjustments of adding another body to our very small and overran boarding house. 

With everything said and done now I look back on it and would not have it any other way; I would still toss my hands up in the air and start singing...let the bodies hit floor.

-         Thomas

Stay tuned for more on our little…I mean tall oopsJ

It's a Boy!

      When Cloudya is asked how many brothers she has the answer always changes.  With every response we as parents get a strange look.  “Yes, it’s true I tell them.  Cloudya has five brothers.”   You’d think being the only daughter in the Dean brood she would hate it, but the truth is whenever a new one arrives no one is more excited.   This year was no different.

      This year the boys’ coach paired us with our player, since Thomas is the housing director.  The surprising part came when Thomas was preparing dinner one evening and received a call from Kansas City and a man introduced himself as the parent of our hockey son.  The funny thing is that at this point coach had not told Thomas who we were getting.  I came home hours later from one of my many motherly tasks to find out I had a new son, but Thomas had to verify with coach that it was correct.

     It was and a couple weeks later our news hockey son came skating into our lives.  His name is Chris and he is from Kansas City.  His hometown is quite ironic since Thomas and I lived there for a very long time plus Kaiden was born there, not to mention the fact that our hockey son from last year had played there the year before.  I’m the one most homesick to return there, so it’s nice to have a Chiefs fan around even if we don’t really like them all that much.

     Before we knew it the date of Chris’ arrival was upon us; his room was painted, his bed was made and the excitement in the house grew.  When the car pulled up to the house it was Cloudy that jetted to the window and peered outside.  As she looked out the mini-blind she jumped up and down shouting, “He’s here!  He’s here!”  Before they knocked on the door she had run towards it in anticipation. 

     Last season all her brothers left early and it left her bummed.  Thomas and I were a little concerned on how excited she would be to have a new brother.  Watching an eleven year old jump up and down because Chris had arrived answered that question. 

Welcome to the family Chris!  The kids are loud, the house is small, but you will always be one of us!

Veronica

On Friday: And the Bodies Hit the Floor!

House of Cards

When you are trying to make a house of cards so many things come into play; are the cards thick and strong, is the table solid and unmoving, are there any air vents, who is around, etc…  The principals for being the Housing Director for a hockey team apply much the same way.  The end product is an amazing thing, but getting there is absolutely a challenge.

Veronica managed to get me roped into taking the job as Housing Director for a AAA hockey team this year(GO OMAHA AAA LANCERS!), and what a job.  What is a housing director you may ask?  Well basically I get to be the poor guy that has to beg people to take in a smelly, moody, loud, messy, large, eating machine into their home and convince them it is a rewarding and fulfilling experience all while I send them a check for $275 a month. 

Now if you don’t have a teenage boy let me give you a hint $275 is not much in the way of food.  In a single month they can easily drink 6 gallons of milk, 48 bottles of water, 24 pack of soda and 31 Gatorades – they can eat 4 loaves of bread, 8 bags of chips, 4 large boxes of cereal, 6 boxes of poptarts, 16 cans of soup, a dozen bagels, 10 packages of Ramen, 12 boxes of Mac& Cheese, 10 Frozen Pizzas, 2 bags of Pizza Rolls, a packages of Oreos and anything else they get their hands on.  This is not even getting into what they eat for dinner.

You may think that getting kids into a home is the hard part but really that is just the beginning.  Once you have a home figured out the next thing is trying to get players moved in from all over the country, and even some from outside the USA.  School quickly becomes an issue and trying to register 20+ boys all with different plans about graduation is enough to make anyone nuts.  Then for the next ten months your job becomes a mix of begging people to house for the next year, mailing out housing checks, putting out fires, and just keeping track of where everyone is at all times. 

It is hard enough to keep track of 1 teenage boy, try two full hockey teams.  That level of control requires a NASA computer and satellite triangulation along with the cooperation of the Soviet Space Station.  This year already I have had two players moved because of housing issues, one player that has refused to leave my house because he likes it here so much, a player that changed their mind about playing & moved out without telling anyone, players wanting to switch housing because they want to go to a different school, boys thinking they can only eat dinner at my house, coaches changing practice schedules, housing and biological families calling for various reasons, and plenty of sicknesses.

While this may sound like the worst job in the whole club to have, oh did I mention I don’t get paid, I would not trade it for anything.  I love my players and all the other ones too.  I stop by practice to watch for a moment between running to various committee and board meetings and the boys will wave at me from the ice – SORRY COACH.  It is in those moments that I forget about the headaches and the chaos that is may cause me, and I can’t think of life without them.

Thomas

We're coming...

Inaugural post coming Friday:)