My God The Horror......

So, this is what happens when you show up early to pond hockey....


They strap the pads on!!!!!


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Wow, I didn't kill myself

I vividly remember when Max stepped onto the ice for the first time at his first lesson....and I think I am feeling what he must have felt that day. Alot of exhiliration and nervousness all rolled into one tight package.
I step onto the ice and get the feel of stainless steel on ice for the first time. It is quite a different sensation than ski's on snow. My center of gravity seems to moving constantly and I have alot of trouble finding my balance. One of the things i notice first is the GIANT ruts in the ice all around the boards...especially behind the goalie crease. (They were not giant, but to me they seemed like potholes) After a few shuffling laps I get the courage to try some striding and gliding....so far so good....my quads are killing me though...i heed the advice I have given Max and am keeping my knees bent, head up. I keep going to the benches to sit and take a breather...then get back out skating. The little girl out skating with her coach keeps looking like I am going to kill her everytime I skate by her. Keep in mind I am 6'4" 290lbs dressed in all black.

AT the end of the public skate as I am getting off the ice I am so geeked at my accomplishment that I can barely walk back to the lobby to change. I notice that I am completly drenched i sweat and my legs are burning from the workout. IT FEELS GREAT!

I can't wait to go again!

Keep your stick on the ice.

Did you know ice is slippery?

I think the next few classes that Max attended, were the hardest for him....coach Mike was really pushing Max to loose the cone. Max really liked the cone...the cone is good...love the cone. Eventually he let it go and found that he could stand without it and actually had a nice stride...he fell on his butt alot, however he got right back up every time....no complaints. Now, this is the time where the coaches started introducing little games to the kids.
After a few lessons later,the head coach, Therese set up an obstacle course of cones and drew a path on the ice with black marker for the kids to go through and at the end they got to dive across the finish line. This is where Max really started to get frustrated, because there were kids who were much better skaters than him. They were passing him...and if you know Max, you know he likes to be in the lead. As I said in the last post, Max is very competitive and does not deal well with not being the best. He started to trow some mini fits and there were a few tears....Coach Mike stopped those actions pretty quick...."There's no crying in hockey!!!!! You're on my time!!!" I really beleive that if it wasn't for coach Mike, Max would not have tried as hard as he did....Max always was eager to show coach Mike that he learned a new skill.

So, I have most of the tools i need to go skating................yep.............allrighty then.......Stalling? What? I'm scared to death!
I finally get up enough courage to go to an open skate at Darien.
I have been practicing lacing up my skates and walking around in them at home often, so I am not woried about my ankles colapsing, I am worried about screwing up my already weak knees however. I go to the rink and start to get al my gear on.
Skates first, then shin guards, elbo pads, helmet, gloves...pull on a practice jersey and walk into the rink for the first time.
There was a little girl and her figure skating coach already on the ice as well as a woman practiceing jumps...great...i'm going to kill myself and take some poor inocent bystander with me when i go down


I walk from the lobby to the doors of the rink and step onto the ice.......


Keep your stick on the ice.

Progress

In the interest of saving time and getting up to speed, I am going to try and sumarize the first few classes.

Max loves all the equipment involved in hockey.....he uses the traffic cone to skate.....he gets rides on the net from coach Mike...He wants a cherry Coke after his lessons.

He continues to have fun with it....every Sunday morning he shows a little improvement...gaining confidence with little triumphs.

Max and I are playing street hockey in the driveway almost every day now, and our garage door is showing the effects! Every now and then we will walk over to the park by our house that has an inline rink and goof around there as well. Max always has to be in his gear of course...shin gaurds, gloves, elbow pads.....he is a male you know.....we all love the gear!

Sitting in the rink, watching Max's lessons and to be more specific, the coaches skating, has really started to spark alot of desire from me to learn to skate and play hockey. So I have a talk with my wife telling her that I would like to be able to skate with Max and eventually play a little mens leauge hockey at some point. God bless her...she tells me to go for it! The advice I got from alot of people was that without ice time, Max would not progress. One day a week would not be enough for him. So, my first thought was, I can take him to open skates and just let him go alone...yeah, that sounds fun for him.....or I can get out there with him. It also would be good to see his dad struggle with the learning process also. Max wants to succeed at all he does, and he gets frustrated very easily, so I thought if sees his old man trying hard and practicing, he might do the same.

So it's of to the hockey shop I go!

Now, I have to tell you, I am totally nervous about doing this because a previous attempt at skating was a complete failure. Could not even stand on the ice...ankles turned in....falling...total wash. As I learned when I went in to get fitted for skates, I had the wrong size skates.....I wear a size 13 mens, so that's what i thought I needed. Nuh,uh.....wrong....The guy at the store tells me I need a size 10.5 E in a CCM Vector 6.0

Seemed tight at first, but with the proper fit and a heat mold he said they would not be as bad as I am thinking...OK we'll go with that...what the hell do I know. So he comes back after baking the skates, laces me up and had me sit there for a few minutes....wow do these things feel great warm!!!! I am totally impressed with the level of service at this place...goes to show you that prices may be cheaper on the web, but you can't get the kind of personal service that your local hockey shop provides.
I pick up a helmet.

Shingaurds

and some new gloves

and prepare to go home and explain the credit card bill to my wife.

Next time we hit the ice!!


Keep your stick on the ice.

First day of classes.





I remember not being able to get to sleep the night before Max's first lesson, because I was so exited for him! Or maybe it was me I was exited for...either way, we (or should I say "I") woke up at about 6:30 am to get breakfast ready and get all the gear packed. I told my wife I wanted to leave no later thatn 7:15, to get to the rink at 7:30 for his 8am class. I wanted enough time to get his gear on and to make sure that we were where we were supposed to be. We arrived at the rink and got Max all suited up and I walked him to the ice where coach Mike was setting things up. Who is coach Mike you say? Well let me tell you...

The day before we had gone to the rink to check the lay of the land and we wandered into the East rink and there happened to be a practice going on for one of the older kids teams...We stayed and watched for a while and when the kids and coaches were coming off the ice a coach came up to us and asked if we were going to skate today. I said that we were there to just observe and that my son was starting his classes tomorrow. He said his name was Mike and he would be coaching Max...he really engaged him and got him all reved up for the next day...all the way home Max could not stop talking about how crazy coach Mike was.

So, after we walked in, max was invited to come out on the ice....as you can guess, as soon as stepped on the ice he fell. He was very nervous from this moment on...I don't think he was expecting the sensation of steel on ice. Mike quickly got a traffic cone for Max and off he went, very scarred at first but by the end of the hour he had some decent push and glide motion going. At the end of the lesson coach Mike plays some dance music and does goofy skating routines with the kids to always end the day on an upbeat note. Also he gave the kids rides on the net pulling them around the rink and stuff.

When Max came off the ice, we took his gear off and he was smiling from ear to ear, drenched in sweat!

I think he likes it.

Keep your stick on the ice

Since we started our foray into hockey land over 6 months ago, I will try to recall all of the memorable and significant events to the best of my ability.


It started with a conversation betwen my wife and myself regarding what Max wanted to do durring the spring of 2007. We had a very bad experience with soccer and tee-ball the previous spring/summer, so we gave Max a choice of sports he wanted to try this year. His choices were soccer, tee-ball, karate, and hockey. Max jumped at the chance to play hockey. We asked him several times over the next week that hockey was what he wanted to do....due to the cost that we were expecting, we wanted to make sure that hockey was what he really wanted to do. He kept saying "yes dad, hockey is MY sport". Alright, if that's what he wants to do lets start looking for learn to skate classes.

Now, our first concern with Max skating, is his feet. Max was born with severe bi-lateral clubfoot. At just a few hours old he underwent the first of two surgeries to correct his feet. Imagine if you will the bottoms of your feet turned up and in...his toes were pointed in towords each other and the bottoms of his his feet were where the tops of his feet should have been. In a condensed version, his surgery was a tenotomy...his achillies tendon was snipped, loosenening his foot to facilitate gradual repositioning of his feet with stetching casts and braces.

So with that in mind, I set out to try and find skates for him.

We are fortunate enough to have a great hockey shop very close to our house, so I took max there to get fited for his first pair of skates, The criteria had to be wide forefoot and stiff boot. He was fitted in a CCM Vector 10.0. We also got gloves and a CCM helmet there as well. We went to Play It Again Sports to pick up some shin and elbo pads, and while we were there we found a pair of hockey pants, hockey socks, suspenders, a wood stick for Max and me, tape, street hockey balls...good lord this is getting expensive fast...


We next went in search for the right class for him...We again are fortunate to have 4 rinks with multiple sheets of ice each within 5-10 miles of our house. We ultimately chose the Little Hawks program at the Darien Spotrsplex.

Untill next time....

Keep your stick on the ice.

Here we are skating together for the first time......My first time on skates!




As I get my thoughts together I will tell the story of how this blog came to be.

Keep your stick on the ice.