Sunday morning hockey

On Sunday morning, my son and I were up early for his hockey practice. It’s always a struggle to wake him up, but he fights it a little less on hockey mornings.

He asked if I would carry him down the stairs and assumed I’d also transport his favourite blankets, two teddy bears and a special pillow. There was no reason for me to agree to the extra items or carry him in the first place, but I know that he won’t want to be carried downstairs forever and I’ll miss these days.

While putting on his hockey equipment, he asked me if we were early or late and for the first time this season I told him we were early. He reminded me that I said he can put on his equipment by himself when/if we weren’t late, so he took over and only asked for a bit of help from me. He told me that other boys on his team don’t have their mouth guard tied to their mask, like he does, and that some of their mouth guards are blue. He wants a blue one, he told me and I agreed that we’d look into that when his current mouth guard needs to be replaced, which I hope is about 10years from now.

Arriving at the rink, he seemed confused by the nearly empty dressing room, confirming that he really doesn’t know what early feels like!

The practice went well and my son skated quickly when the drills called for it, turned slowly when asked to stop and perfected a full body spinning slide along the ice (this is a new move for him). During the end-of-practice scrimmage, he volunteered to take the first shift as the goalie, despite my repeated requests that he avoid this position at all costs. Leaving the crease on the second shift, he scored a couple of goals and by my unofficial count his White squad outscored Team Grey.

Back in the dressing room, he threw his gloves on top of his bag and sat back with an air of satisfaction about a rare win. I took off his skates and noticed the tremendous amount of snow that caked his laces, likely picked up from a dozen or so spinning slides.

“Daddy,” I heard him say, his words garbled by his mouth guard, “Where’s the weapon?”
I don’t normally bring weapons with me to the rink (likely against league rules), so my mind raced to understand what he was asking for. Someday, I could see him becoming a dangerous scoring threat, but does he already see his hockey stick as a weapon? I know he doesn’t lack for self esteem, but this seemed like a stretch.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Again, he asked about the weapon or was it Webkinz? I was certain we were past the dreadful Webkinz stage and thought I might actually prefer he was asking for a weapon.

“I can’t understand you, Alex,” I said, and reached for the strap on his helmet that would get us one step closer to removing the mouth guard.

“Nooooo!” he said as he pushed my fingers away from his helmet.

“Spit your mouth guard out, Alex!”

He did, then said “Daddy, where’s the button?” touching the side of his helmet near the spot that my fingers had been moments before.

The button?

I finally had it. He just wanted to take off his own helmet.