Emmy’s hockey team played in the Reedsburg/Wisconsin Dells U8 Mites hockey tournament and I got to watch all three games!
Emmy played in her first hockey tournament this weekend! The tournament was hosted by the Reedsburg/Wisconsin Dells/Mauston youth hockey program at Reedsburg Area Community Arena. Reedsburg is pretty close to my house so I was able to watch all three games.
Emmy’s team, the Verona Wildcats, didn’t have the best weekend on the ice. In the first two games they faced teams that were obviously more experienced than they were. They didn’t have great shots at winning those games, and, unfortunately, they were unable to overcome the odds.
The games weren’t blowouts, largely thanks to solid goaltending, but the end result wasn’t as happy for the Wildcats as it could have been.
In their third and final game, on Sunday morning, the Wildcats were more evenly matched to their opponent. In fact, with the exception of a couple very talented kids on the other team, I would say that they were the superior team. They jumped to a two-goal lead early in the game and held that lead until late in the third period.
Until late in the third period. Uh-huh. Alas, it was not meant to be. The other team ultimately won on a couple goals at the end of the period. The loss may have had a lot to do with passive officiating and aggressive, arguably unethical, coaching on the opposing side, but that’s not important to the real story that unfolded here.
What is important is that Emmy made new friends this weekend. The overnight stay gave her some time to get to know the other girls on the team, Ellie and Lucy. They talked. They went swimming together in the hotel pool. They had fun!
Emmy has a passive and polite nature. While passivity and politeness can be virtues in life, they’re not necessarily virtues in hockey. Ellie and Lucy are a little more aggressive. With a bit of luck some of that will rub off on Emmy and it will improve her hockey experience.
Regardless, they’re new friends! Friends improve our life experience.
I can’t honestly say that I remember how often my teams won when I played hockey as a kid. Did we win sometimes? Yes. Did we win half the time? Maybe. Did we win frequently? Probably not. I’m sure it mattered to me at the time, but it certainly doesn’t matter to me now. What I remember is that I got to play hockey with my friends–and with my rivals, and against my friends–almost every day. In the place and time where I grew up, it was a common thread that wove through all of us.
Cheers to new friends! On and off the hockey rink. May they stay with us to become old friends.
The Mullets
I have to say: all of the kids running around at hockey tournaments with purpose-grown mullet hairdos are highly entertaining to me. When I first noticed it, maybe ten years ago, it was funny to see hockey hair again all these years later. But it’s more than “funny” to me now.
The fact that this questionable style choice has come back for hockey is charming. It’s an honor. It’s a throwback to my era of youth hockey in the late eighties. Mullets were normal back then. A mullet was just long hair on a guy. But somehow it intertwined itself with the sport of hockey and has now tunneled through a couple decades and popped out the other end in all its glory.
Whether they know it or not, all of those mullets are pointed right back at us, the hockey kids of the eighties. It’s rewarding in its own way.