I think I've mentioned this before but my nephews started their first season of little league hockey recently. Hockey is a religion in my family although none of us have tried to actually play it due to a general lack of coordination (I think it's genetic). The boys decided hockey would be their sport last year and they look adorable in all of their little gear. Earlier this month I took them to the NHL All-Star Game in Montreal and they had the time of their lives. However, hockey has not come without its issues.
One of my nephews was born prematurely and has hearing issues in one ear. There were attempts over the past few years to try and fix it so he wouldn't have to wear hearing aides but they were painful for him and didn't seem to help much so his parents decided not to have yet another surgery. Instead, we all learned sign language and he occasionally wore his hearing aide and moved along just fine. Then he found hockey. And hockey required him to be able to hear. So once he decided he was sure he wanted to play, he went back to the operating table and, amazingly, this time it took. He still has to improve his speaking skills but he's doing very, very well off the ice. On the ice....well, the boy can't stop on his skates. His coaches decided he should try to play goalie because he has no trouble throwing himself in front of things and it requires less stopping than any other position, although he has to learn how to stop while moving back and forth. He's becoming a great goalie and we hold out hope that, someday, he will learn how to stop while moving at full speed. (Sounds do dramatic, doesn't it?)
The other nephew threw us for a loop when he decided to play hockey. His dad is a baseball player and his mom plays volleyball. He's been learning volleyball since he was born and he spends most of his time with mom while she trains. He's extremely good at volleyball. Baseball does not interest him in the least. The only reason he like the ballpark is because of the food and the playground. No one was forcing him into either sport, we were just kinda waiting to see what he wanted to do since he's a boy with many interests (seriously he's like my clone). He wanted to play hockey and it turns out he's really, really good at it. He's a forward and from the day he stepped on the ice, he could skate and stop and shoot like he'd been doing it his entire life.
It is hockey amongst 6, 7 and 8 year-olds so it's not expected to be a very violent thing. But our boys...they like to hit and hitting is legal in their league because I don't think the powers that be expect any of the hits to be very hard. They might wanna reconsider that. Our little forward went screaming into the boards last night and put a hit on another kid. They went into the boards at an odd angle and both ended up on the ice. The other kid has a broken nose. Our kid has a fractured arm. Thankfully, no parents got out of hand about the hit, it was kinda laughed off once they realized it wasn't super serious (I wasn't there, but I hear it was a good, clean hit that I woulda been proud of). He'll have to sit out about a month of his first season of hockey but he's pretty excited to have had his first big hit and injury all in one shot. If the two of them stick with this, it could be pretty entertaining. And now my 9 year-old niece wants in on hockey. Apparently soccer isn't violent enough for her.
