it occurred to me while sitting in an hockey arena for the umpteenth game watching odin doing a fine job building his skills as defenseman – does hockey have the longest season of all the sports? or does it just seem like it because you’re sitting in the cold?
turns out, it just seems that way 🙂
odin’s team played 3 games in altoona, wisconsin this weekend. they had a great time bonding by the pool at the hotel and playing against some great area teams on the ice.
odin’s team is still quite young with many 7 and young 8 year olds on their “squirt b” so they will often struggle against more seasoned squirt teams with 9 and 10 year olds, though they always have a great time playing even when they lose. every game you can see them get better and better and i have no doubt that after a season of learning how to play together as a team they’ll be quite competitive.
this time they lost two close games and tied the third.
somehow i forgot my camera in the hotel for the first two games so i was only able to shoot the third. bad! bad! bad!
here the team is getting ready for the game with a little cheer by the net. odin is number 64 with the red mouth guard.
odin didn’t get a chance to practice his new goalie skills and instead played defenceman which is his “comfortable” position and means he spends a lot of time keeping the puck out of the defense zone and playing it up to the offense.
more chasing the puck down…
pausing momentarily to watch the puck after he hit it back up the boards out of the defense zone to one of the offensive players on his team…
and if odin does his “job”, then one of the offense can drive the puck down the ice and score a goal! which they did 🙂
another great drive to the goal by viroqua which led to a shot on goal…
and yet another great drive to the goal by viroqua which led to a goal…
and again! another drive by viroqua with a shot on goal. hard to believe it ended up tied 2-2! a great game by both teams.
the team was in great spirits despite the two losses. and after 3 games in 2 days and late nights by the hotel pool it was finally time to drive home and take a nap 🙂
in all the years odin has been playing hockey he has yet to play goalie in a game, but since getting moved up to the “squirts” he’s known he was going to have to play the position since the coaches like everyone to rotate around to get a feel for what they might like to specialize in later on their hockey “careers”.
maybe more so than other positions, being a goalie is tough to just “drop in” during a game so they have special goalie practices during the week and odin decided it was something he’d like to give a try so he could get used to wearing the special pads while practicing moving around, dropping to the ice and getting back up quickly and handling the goalie stick all while trying to keep an eye on the puck.
while a bit pensive about the whole thing before practice, we were not really surprised to find that he absolutely, positively loved it. maybe he’ll thing differently about it after his first time in a game as goalie. or maybe not. for now, he’s really wants to keep going to goalie practice in addition to his regular practices. which means another night of hockey practice for us all 🙂
who knows, maybe it’s the beginning of his life as a goalie.
( btw, odin is in the upper left of the picture in the white jersey )
coming off their exciting first tie game in black river falls, odin’s hockey team played a doubleheader in onalaska, wisconsin today. if you’ve ever skated up and down “full ice” a few times, you might have a sense of how exhausting two games can be so a doubleheader is a good way to see how well the team can play while tired ( incidentally, odin almost never played in the game because he/we forgot to put his skates in his hockey bag and the arena is an hour away from home. luckily and unusually, the arena has a pro shop with rental skates that was open on a sunday so he played in skates that seemed to have never been sharpened 🙂
the first game was against the onalaska squirt “b” team which means they were playing against mostly older and more skilled players ( although the official designation doesn’t exist, odin’s team would be considered squirt “c” since it has a few new 8 year old squirts, including odin, who moved up to fill out the roster in lieu of having enough 9 and 10 year olds ).
odin played defenceman which is his comfortable position and he did a fine job. here he is coming up behind the net going after the puck in the defense zone.
not unexpectedly, they lost but only 2 to 0 which is an awesome score for such a young team.
in the second game againt the onalaska squirt “c” team, odin played the offensive right winger position for the first time! every so often, he had a little trouble remembering exactly where he was supposed to be on the ice but that’s certainly to be expected when you’ve never played ( or practiced! ) the position before. still, he made some great plays and even had a shot on goal! he claims he loves playing offense way more than defense now so it’ll be interesting to see what he settles into over time.
even though it was their second game, the team played well and controlled the ice through all three periods and won 2 to 1!
so, three games into the season they’ve tied 1, won 1 and lost 1 which is an excellent start against some great teams.
after making the cut to move up to the squirts and a a few practices running plays odin and his new teammates played their first game today against black river falls.
and whooboy, what a game! viroqua played well through the first two periods and maintained a commanding 4-1 lead. they looked awesome for their first game!
odin struggled a little in the beginning to remember exactly where he needed to be on the ice, but he caught on quickly and made several great defensive plays ( here he’s in blue swatting the puck away from the net after a face-off ).
as viroqua got tired in the third period, black river falls scored three goals and with literally seconds left in regular play scored a fourth goal to tie the game and sent the game into over time! it was all almost too exciting ( i totally lose cred as an amateur sports photographer by missing the game tying shot )!
after several heart stopping moments, where it looked liked black river falls was going to win in overtime, virouqa held on with excellent ( albeit somewhat tired ) defense and the game ended a tie.
it was a great game played by both teams. i can’t wait to see how odin’s team progresses through the season. although hopefully not all the games are this exciting!
remember that hockey test test to see if odin had the skills to move up to the squirts? well, he made the cut!
so, now he’s practicing with older 9 and 10 year old kids and they actually practice running plays on his new team ( the 8-9 year old mites mainly concentrated on skating drills and learning individual positions, not necessarily integrated plays ).
i imagine this will mean odin’s already impressive skills with improve really, really quickly over the coming months ( here, he’s in the white jersey playing goalie ).
simple advice from wayne gretzky that requires looooooots of practice to follow.