MThockeydad

Playing 14U?

Finally met EJB in person. This past weekend in Idaho Falls, his daughter's team played the 14U select team I help coach. His kid has a WICKED shot for a 12 year-old! I can see why she was the high scorer for the league. 2 games; his daughter's team won the first 7-2 and she frequently dangled our D. I think she had 3 goals and 2 assists. 2nd game, the MT girls won 4-2. I think they shut EJBjr down to 1 goal--they had to close the gap, put a body on her, force her outside, and shut down her dangles. Sorry EJB, it had to be done!

Two months later, we got 'er done! http://flatheadbeacon.com/2017/12/04/community-hub-ice/

Adult league started last night for my division. Glad to be back on the ice with friends and not just toiling every night on our community rink. I played D with my friend who is the Captain who drafted me. He picked a really great team. 2 unknown guys who are new to our area, one is incredibly good, the other is really good. They dished some sweet passes and everyone communicates well and gets along. It's going to be a fun session. Oh yeah, we won 4-1 and most of the goals were double assists. The outdoor rink is almost ready for concrete. We slipped a week. Should place concrete on Thursday, then it has to cure 28 days. We will start putting boards back up in two weeks and make ice Halloween week. Trying to have ice for Try Hockey for Free day.

Rebuilding our community outdoor ice rink. Original sand floor was installed in 2007. Time for a refrigerated concrete floor. I found myself the project manager and superintendent for the job. I'm exhausted, but we're in the home stretch. Hope to place concrete next week. Interesting tidbit: this rink system was from one of the first college hockey games played outdoors in modern times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_Tundra_Hockey_Classic Our hockey association purchased the portable rink system from Ice Rink Events and erected it over the site of the old city pool.

Youth today. *sigh*

Update: i ran into this player's dad last week. She's a freshman in high school and made the JV cheer squad. Dad was a little nervous that she's a smaller kid and they're doing lifts with her, but she's enjoying it and doing well in school.

She composes the pics well--tell her to find a spot where she isn't shooting through the glass and her photo quality will go up dramastically. ;)

I went from the iPhone 4 to the 6SE last year. A big difference for sure!

Haha, I thought you were chirping the $#!t out of him, too!

Awesome, jamarquan. One of my few mistakes in HS was taking AP English and then failing to register for the AP English test. Freshman literature and freshman composition in college were awful after taking those high intensity classes in high school. Take that test, score a 5, smile as you walk past classrooms of college freshman history students.

Missed my 42nd birthday celebration....my wifey was kind enough to invite a bunch of my old friends on Friday night for beer and ribs...and I had to cancel about midday Friday to go home sick from work and sleep all weekend. My actual birthday was Monday and I have so many cold meds in my body I haven't had a beer all week. Oh, shit...forgot this is the sweet spot: Feeling better now; time to watch my daughters play in the state HS girls tourney this weekend. Woot!

Good luck!

My vent is girl drama. F girl drama. I have to say that I've had a very, very lucky run of coaching girls--5 years of volleyball and now 3 years of hockey before having to deal with significant girl drama, but it's still a colossal pain in the F'ing ass. I hope that I can work this through to a positive resolution. I really like all the girls on the team, but they're making stupid decisions and treating each other like shit, including my own kid. Why can't females be more like dudes and just punch each other and be friends again and go on with life? Just saw this, but feel free to message me or I'll send you my digits if you want to vent to a fellow hockey player and you don't have to interact with in your daily life.

dkmiller3356, badger_14, sfdz6_20_07, you guys have dealt with some pretty heavy health issues and keep an incredibly positive attitude. Keep it up! A hearty thump on the boards to all of you.

I'm tired but satisfied. Our association has a sand-bed outdoor rink. I spent most nights last week until midnight getting it ready with a small team of very dedicated volunteers and we're almost ready to open for practice tonight!

Saw the pediatrician yesterday. Bruised, not fractured. She's already starting to feel better. :D

ND Tier 1 beat our MT Tier 2 girls 11-0 (last year was 14-0). NDAHA (Tier 2) topped our kids 8-0. Our girls held SD to a 4-0 win--much closer game than 8-0 last year! My kid and one other girl played in this tourney last season. They were shell-shocked last year and really stepped up this weekend. It was really cool to see. Huge eye-opener for these girls to see higher level girls hockey outside of Montana. Geographically our state is enormous, but we have a tiny hockey community. The rest of the team was shell-shocked (except the goalie...who was amazing)...by the 3rd game they were starting to click! I'm looking forward to them coming back ready next season. This was pretty much the moment I realized that my daughter has passed me in ability and I will never catch up to her. I'm crazy proud of how hard she's pushed herself this year and how much she has learned. She's also a kid who has always played coed hockey and never really integrated socially with girls--she did really well off ice with her team which I was equally happy to see. My kid took a stick to the ribs her last shift of the last game. She probably has bruised ribs. She's in pain, but she'll heal. I'm glad it wasn't her head.

Heal quickly and get back on the ice soon!!

Turns out our captain saw me at dropin playing D and thought I was one of his strong D picks. Oh shit!!! I did so-so. I backcheck very well, but suck on the blue line. I need to develop a lot better net-front presence. We lost 6-7. I was a -2 on the evening (+2, -4), and two of their goals were rebounds that I didn't control. At least our goalie still talked to me in the locker room afterward! It was actually a super fun game. The game changed lead 5 times, and most of the early game skaters stayed after to watch our game.

Montana 14U girls team has its first team practice on Saturday, then off to Dickinson, ND next weekend for the District jamboree vs. teams from North Dakota and South Dakota. Lots of work putting this team together, I'm excited to see them play and know they'll have a blast. Many of these girls have played only coed hockey and don't realize what high level female hockey looks like. Fall session of adult league started this week; my team had a bye and we play our first game on Monday. Our captain drafted a lot of strong D...so I'd better up my game out front and try to actually put the puck in the net!!! haha

This weekend is IIHF Girls Hockey Weekend; our turnout has been low due to fall soccer, so our 14U team invited any available 19U girls as well as coaches and parents who play for a scrimmage. We often do a parents vs kids scrimmage at the end of the season, but that scrimmage is filled with half never-ever parents. This time all but one adult was B division or higher. We ended up with 13 girls and 7 adults, and we mixed up even teams of 10 and set up lines. It was super fun to coach two of our newer players as linemates, and to have my daughter back me up at D. We had two hours of ice and stretched it out over four 20-min periods. Three other parents also got to skate on the same team as their daughters. Faster game than the girls are used to, but they also got set up with some awesome passes that they're not used to. A couple of our typically "head down and skate with the puck" saw the power of well-executed passing. While we as coaches opened doors for the girls last season, the girls followed us over the boards and saw a better example of taking faster shifts. My W linemate for two periods was a girl last year who would take a breakout pass and dump it up the ice. She watched dumbfounded as I iced it twice. Haha. I told her it was ok to remind me that I told her not to do that!! My other W linemate only started in January and skated all summer. Honestly, her skating needs more time, but having never played a game at this level, her positioning was amazing. She held the half wall inside their point while in our zone, had some great puck battles in the neutral zone, and did a great job of passing and shooting in their zone. I'm so excited to work more with them this season!! My 03 is a beautiful skater. She had an awesome Peewee coach last year and learned a ton at the District and Multidistrict development camps this summer. I am in awe watching her. She's an introverted wallflower at school, but is a confident force on the ice. She's playing with both the 14U and 19U teams this season, and I think she made an impression with her new 19U teammates. I can take no credit for her ability; I just feed her. Big sis will never catch her..but she's taking her 2nd ref seminar today and is looking forward to shadowing our district female ref in chief this winter. My best days of hockey are spent with my kids.

I can go W to C to D, but W to D is still brutal!

Most of my girls' coaches have been smart enough to tell the kids to get to the rink 20min before the game and dress quickly. Skip the dryland for one game, 40min of sleep is more important to their performance! Hardest 6am I ever had was after staying up way too late in the locker room drinking beer with Tiger Williams and Murray Craven after a benefit tourney my first year playing. I think I had 4 hours of sleep...but its something I can't actually complain about and I'd do again in a heartbeat!

Had an issue with some local politics over the years. Was on the verge of quitting the local board. Things were in a spiral and I was spending all my time butting heads and sending nasty emails. Decided to put my head down and outplan, outwork, out-network, and build a better team of planners and coaches. It's happening. Got great buy-in from our local coaching pool, both local associations, and just met with the team managers last night. Going to be an awesome season for our kids.