What a weekend of Hockey

The WV Wild (Squirts) had their last home games this weekend... Wow was it exciting. They played the team from Maimi, OH the Jr Red Hawks. Not that same boys that our team played up there earlier in the year. These boys were big, fast, and tough. They could and would chase down our stars and take the puck away. It was rough watching the game on Saturday, by the end of two our boys were down 2-7 and only were able to get two more goals making the final 7-4. Pretty rough. It was the Wild's first league loss. The Jr Red Hawks rubbed it in their faces pretty hard by throwing all of their gloves and sticks in the air. It was strange to watch our boys line up to 'shake hands' and have to wait for the other team during that display. It all starts with coaching and parents. Some of our parents didn't like when their coach pulled their goalie with over 3 minutes left in the game and a 3 point lead. If the game was closer I could understand, but it didn't seem like an upstanding move.

On Sunday, I FAILED... I thought that the game was at 10:30am. We got up, had some breakfast, and I was having Isaac start putting on his gear when I got a text from an unknown number, "R U guys ok...?" Crap! The panic hit me. I was scrambling to get the schedule and see what was up. Sure enough, the game had started at 9am. We got to the ice with 1:50 left in the second period. Isaac was ready to go and headed to the bench.

The Wild were in the lead, 6-4. The whole place was electric, music was playing, parents were on their feet. Isaac had been missed, several parents were worried that something was wrong with us. When Isaac got to the bench his coach told him, "Everyone else is tired, you have fresh legs, you better skate your butt off." And he did, once he got on the ice he was chasing down players with the puck, making defensive plays, and making some nice passes. He played quite well. There were several penalties in the third period resulting in some power plays and points. With about 3 minutes left and the score 7-6 the Jr Red Hawks pulled their goalie to make a push to tie the game with some 5 on 6. The our boys were digging in and working hard. With 45 seconds left one of our kids got called for tripping and headed to the box. That left us with a 4 on 6 situation. Not good. But our boys dug in and finished the game with the final score being 7-6. And once again the Jr Red Hawks were poor sports. Most all of our boys reported that during the "hand shake" their boys were saying "F&$# You!" to our boys. What a shame, 8-10 year old boys with that kind of POOR sportsmanship.

Several of our boys had great games. Parker (#9) played inspired defence both games. Taking on the bigger boys, not letting things go, and making a difference. Will is quite the goalie, he made sooo many stops. I know that on Saturday in the loss he make 25 saves. A Squirts goalie should have to make that many saves. On of the saves on Sunday was the Jr Red Hawks BIG #17 who broke free at the blue line and headed in clean. Will SHUT HIM DOWN....!!! It was great.

So, off to Oxford next weekend to the league tournament. It should be great. We are expecting and excited to see Aunt Jean and Uncle John from Detroit, and they might be able to bring some of the grandkids from Bloomington, In. Big time hockey people. For those of you that don't know them, they have 5 boys, 3 of which played for BYU, one played in Florida, and another one is a scout for a Juniors team. They know hockey.