Bad Night on the Road

First and foremost sports fans, Hockey Mom must admit that I did not watch last night's Caps/Blue Jackets match up in its entirety as I was at a gathering for the twins' team (and a very festive one I might add!). I saw segments of the game and the few that I was able to catch (e.g. Rick Nash scoring twice on Brent Johnson) weren't so pretty. As you all know by now, the Caps were blanked on the road by Columbus' rookie goalie, Steve Mason in a 3 - 0 loss. Hopefully once the Caps' roster is close to being back to full-strength, the road results will improve. Let's hope...

Other than the sweet Montreal victory on Friday night, this was not a good hockey weekend for Hockey Mom and her brood. After last night's team soiree, we woke up at 6:15 on a cold and rainy morning to head to the rink to face a team from Brantford, Ontario (yes, Canada) in the last game of this weekends tournament. HM wants to know what exactly they feed those kids up north as more than a few of them were gigantic! The Canadian team was lining up to win the whole tournament in the Pee Wee division and I'd be shocked if they didn't. Their tape-to-tape passing was impressive and despite their size, they really didn't need to do much hard-hitting. The end result was a 9 - 2 victory in their favor but I was really proud of the way our boys hung in there and played tough. I was also impressed with the fact that the entire Brantford team skated over to our bench before the game even began to shake hands with our kids. I thought that was a great show of sportsmanship and I've never seen that in one of our tournaments before.

So once again, we had another hockey-filled weekend. I am thankful that my boys' team mates have a really fun group of parents considering we spend a lot of time together. Hockey is truly unlike any other sport I've been involved in. One of my guys has played lacrosse with some of the same kids for three years and I still don't know some of the parents! I have never found that to be the case in hockey. We all suffer through the early mornings and road trips together and in some ways, many of the hockey families bond together almost like a second family. So far, travel hockey has been a great experience for all of us and we've been blessed with a really great group. We are already formulating a survival plan for being on a 10-hour bus ride with 18 players and their younger siblings to the tournament in Montreal this spring.

As we look forward to this week and the Florida Panthers, let's all hope that the injured guys in the Caps' lineup are healthy and back on the bench soon. Unfortunately, this will be the second game this season that is not televised, so Hockey Mom will be sitting in her car in the driveway listening to it on my XM radio. Til then....