Game One
The nerves, the excitement, all the questions and that was just me. My bantam was feeling a bit edgy, this being her first tournament and first game with a fair amount of her new team and coming off a development team year that they only played 12 games, never had a team full ice practice and lost consistently by at least a dozen goals (a 23-1 blowout was the worst).
Hitting the fresh ice
All that said with a new organization and a new team with jerseys delivered just in time for the tournament, she was ready. Or as ready as a second season player (yes, she started very late) can feel, but her team started practices 4 days after tryouts so I had hopes this wasn’t going to be another soul crushing game.
I even jokingly said, “You know E, your team is really coming together, you might even win a game this year.” (they have 22 games scheduled between now and December so I feel I have statistics on my side).
To which E replies, “Mom, let’s not get all crazy so soon.” The sarcasm is pretty strong with that one, but it’s my side of the family so I can’t complain.
The team
Seeing her hit the ice in her brand spanking new uniform was a moment, taking a quick count of the players and realize there are like 15 of them on the ice was a shock for me. Yes, I know—that’s a normal number, but last year there were maybe 6 or 7 girls on the bench and a goalie at best – so a full team, that was just amazing to my newbie hockey mom brain.
I have no explanation
The game was great! It was the first time seeing them as a unit and after realizing most of the U14 players on her team are a full foot taller than E and likely wouldn’t get carded at a bar, I settled in to enjoy (as much as any hockey mom with a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old is able to focus on anything – yup that’s how my mite rolled up to the tournament – slightly more appropriate than the Caption Hook look of last year)
In the end, they did lose 3-1, but wow what a game. It could just be that there was such a stark difference from the year before that it blew me away on face value of “wow, so that is how that is meant to work.”
Game One Takeaways
Either way, she came off the ice sweat soaked but head held high. A win would have been nice, but she was just so happy with how well they played as a team and that she got to be a part of that true experience. (My grinchy-why-do-I-this hockey mom heart grew three sizes in that moment).
The team goes back at it today and after waking up at 4:30 am to find an email that casually mentions we have 5 games this weekend, not 4, but we won’t know if it’s 2 games Saturday or 2 games Sunday until after her Saturday 8am game (mind you this is an hour and a half drive each way for us) and we had just invited my husband’s family over for Saturday dinner….yeah, plan killer, we move forward to game 2!
