We made the trek to Livermore CA for his third tournament at this location. Livermore is a very unique place to play 8u (Mites) hockey, because instead of multiple cross ice games on one full size rink like most venues, this place has two shortened mini rinks, and the players get to play full ice "real hockey", which is a super exciting experience for them.
Camden was suffering from a month long never ending cold this weekend and was very low on energy, but nevertheless he worked hard, played four games and even scored a rebounded back-handed goal.
He scored himself a new stick at their skate shop there with the help of his assistant coach (that we left unaltered, and will cut down to proper size right before his next season this fall in Kodiak), and finished strong with a trip to Camden's favorite store in Oakland Hockey X to oogle at new gear (which we opted to not get).
It has been such an amazing first hockey season for Camden, where he not only learned to play hockey, but learned a lot about himself on the ice - that is has wicked defensive instincts and has an explosive amount of ferocity and plays best after he is checked (literally, goes ballistic and skates 10 times faster, trips up plays, is a magnet to the puck on defense).
I have learned about the hockey family community, which before I joined the ranks, barely knew it even existed. But it is a thing, a big thing, bigger than Little League families or football families or any other kind of sports mom group you could imagine. We are at the rink at 5:15am draining our mugs of lifeblood (coffee) and having breakfast every weekend together. We are traveling all over the region together. We are staying in hotels hundreds of miles away from home together - and with that sharing meals, doing between-game activities, and carpooling together. We aren't just a bunch of moms and dads that happen to have kids on the same team - as I feel with the kids' baseball teams. We are family.
And youth hockey, and the youth hockey family that I've created and that Camden has created with his now-best friends, has seriously ruined every other youth sport for me.
Hockey rocks.
See you at practice this week, Flyers!
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