Over A Year Of Hockey

It’s been over a year since my daughter started playing Hockey. When she started she could Hardly skate or handle the puck very well. Heck, she could hardly hold the stick correctly – and she fell down a lot! That’s one of the things I have noticed the most about her current performance. She almost never falls now, she can go a whole game without falling.

Tonight she started her 4th season of In House Hockey and it’s kind of a big deal. We almost did not do it because the games are on Sunday during church, but they moved the time (not sure if my complaining helped or not) to early enough to catch church after. Now it sounds like they will be moving the game days to Saturday’s which is even better.

I am so impressed with her tenacity. I mentioned before she just decided to start hockey out of the blue. It was rough, expensive to start (and is still horribly expensive for each 10 week season), and I had a lot of doubts about it all. But she has done really well. I’d like for her to make more connections here, but that’s been an issue since we moved here. This is a difficult place to break into as most of these families have know each other for generations, or they just have no interest in being open to knew folks, but hey … we will wear them down – I mean we will win them over with kindness and always being around. 🙂

Fresno Monsters

About 8 months ago Camee started her transformation into a monster. Well a Jr. Monster. She is not quite there yet, but has come a very long way. When she started she did not have any experience on the ice at all, and certainly no hockey experience. (She does have one San Jose Sharks game under her belt!) She just got it in her head that she wanted to play hockey, and through sheer will and determination, she has made a way for herself.

She started with Try Hockey For Free and then moved to Learn to Play. She has just now started on the In House team! Try Hockey for Free was just that, a great way to get started to see if it was a good fit. Basically just borrow all the needed gear and get out on the ice. The rest is up to you. The next step was Learn to Play. It’s basically the same as Try Hockey, but with the payment you get a few additional things. You get a jersey that allows you free admission to skate times during the week, which is a huge savings, and it allows you to track your progress and start to build on your skills. Camee will continue in this class for the foreseeable future in addition to the In House team.

The In House Team really steps things up. There is a practice each week for an hour, and then a game each week as well. Just like with coaching the boys soccer team, I am able to help out, not coach of course, I don’t know what I am doing and I can’t skate, but I can volunteer. Just took a course for safety and got a background check. Easy peasy. It was $500 for the 10 weeks of in house, which I think will be totally worth it.

The next step is Travel Team, which is being an actual Jr. Monster. Camee is driven to get better, she says she wants to go to college on a Hockey scholarship. I believe she can, I am more than happy to invest in this with time and money. The gear is not cheap and the time commitment is no small thing with my career and side business, as well as the other 8 kids, but it’s totally doable.

I am really excited for my daughter! And I am excited to get to know some more people here in Fresno.

Sharks Game

My youngest daughter is really into hockey. She started playing several months ago. I wanted to encourage her in the sport and have some fun, so I suggested we go to a Sharks game. I reached out to my buddy Sven who has been to many games and is a huge Sharks fan to see where we might get great seats on a budget. He is a season ticket holder and offered to send me some tickets to seats right behind the goal. So we are headed to a game in a few weeks and my daughter is super excited!

Of course we grabbed some fan wear to show our pride.