Memoirs of a Hockey Mom (Season Three)

Today ends our third hockey season, and what a fun season it was!!  Hunter was a Bay State Breaker this year, on a team comprised of 2010 and 2011 birth years.  He played with a great group of kids and the team was staffed with some excellent coaches.  I couldn't tell you the exact record that our team ended up with, but I do know there were way more wins than losses. And most importantly, all the kids got along great and had a fun time together throughout it all.

It never ceases to amaze me how much just one season develops these kids, it is apparent on the ice just how much knowledge and skills they are soaking up throughout the year.  This was Hunter's first full-ice, 5 vs 5 league, and at the beginning of it I thought there was no way these kids could easily transition from half-ice hockey to full-ice. Boy was I wrong!  They got the hang of it right from the start.  This was also the first season of off-sides, icing and penalty calls, as well as face-offs at different sections of the ice depending on those calls.  The first few games were a tad slow as the kids were learning how to watch the play to make sure they didn't get an off-sides call, but eventually they started to get the hang of it and the games started to flow faster.

It still melts my heart melt he waves to me from on the ice  <3

First face-off of the season

Check out this stud

He earned the "Player of the Game" trophy!! 

Thanks to Mr. Claus, Hunter can get some good target practice in

Back when winter was still winter, and it was single digit temperatures of glory....oh how we miss those days:

Even the classroom pet wanted to come watch him play :)

Endless hours of kitchen hockey

He earned the "Hardest Worker of the Game" award

This was the congratulations I get after my very first win ever in kitchen knee hockey. He spent over an hour trying to convince me that my last goal didn't count. After months and months of bruised knees and almost broken fingers from incidental stick-on-bone mishaps...this hockey mama refuses to back down on this one.  I won this one fair and square!!

He gets to play the last game of the season in net...watching him pull out the split moves to make unbelievable saves never gets old.