Hockey Ends

Today, at long last, the hockey season came to a close. The boy had his season ending game in the morning and the lass’ finale was mid-afternoon. When it was all said and done, we went out to dinner to celebrate.

For posterity’s sake, the boy’s team lost. Badly. The boy did seem to play harder, but as the game wore on and his team’s scoring attempts continued to fizzle, the boys effort also did. Most of his teammates as well. There were plenty of potential lessons to be learned there I suppose, but I’ve learned that I can’t teach them. They’ll have to seep into the boy’s psyche on experience at a time. The only thing I did tell him is that it won’t be the last time he’ll lose. For once, he didn’t argue.

Interestingly, he was plenty mad when he came off the ice. It was like he actually cared about winning the game. A little later, though, I think he remembered that he’d decided he didn’t like hockey and that the season was over so it didn’t last long.

The lass’ team, on the other hand, went out with a bang. Actually, it was more like a KABOOM. And an earth-shattering one at that. They actually stopped keeping track of the score at the end, that’s how big they won.

The lass also played well. She even scored a goal for her efforts, which was the family highlight of the day. She’d come down the boards in the offensive zone and there was a mini-scrum for the puck. She was on the outside of the scrum and noticed that the puck had popped out. So she just kind of skated over and took the puck and no one followed her. She kept right on skating towards the net. By that point, she was almost parallel with the net. Because of the extreme angle and the way the goaltender positioned himself, it didn’t look like there was any chance to score. But she kind of flicked the puck towards the net and, wouldn’t you know, the puck found enough space to squeeze through for a score.

Right now, all th hockey equipment has been washed and laid out for drying and subsequent storage. The boy left himself the possibility that he play again in the fall. I think that’s about right. The lass wasn’t talking about it. She was glad the season had ended and is looking forward to having normal weekends again.

So are the Wife and I.