Hey, thought you all might like a "short story" of a 6yr old coming into his own on the ice
8th game of the season for the Blue Sharks. Owen had 7 goals in his first 7 games (the top two kids probably have 20+ goals each). but until last week (two weeks after we started power skating lessons again--learning literally to skate like the pro's skate) he wasn't really covering the entire ice like i thought he could. Today we played the best team (they have 4 kids who are on the Selects travel team, these kids play 30+ add'l games around DC, Philly, and Balitimore) and 3 of the kids i swear to gosh shave! (they also have a full-time goalie who plays travel--whereas most teams like ours rotate each kid each week) anyway, i told Owen w/o two of our best players this morning, he might need to step up and fill their spot. we had 9 skaters, they had 13. it's a shift every 2min for our two lines.
this Red team plays super aggressive which in Mites translates to out of control. on his first shift he raced down for a loose puck and a kid literally checked him up against the boards. this is suppose to be no "purposeful" contact until the age of 11yrs and up. he got up and skated after the puck to disrupt their offensive flow, shift ended. on his next shift, he was all over the ice w/ a couple of breaks out of our zone stick handling (side to side w the puck while his stick was being hit) and got a shot off twice. at this point Red has scored twice and it's 2-0 w/ 8min gone in the 1st 15min period. Owen has two shots on goal and a couple of good chase downs on defense. his line hasn't given up a goal yet.
before the game Owen tried to grab a sip of my coffee..i said "back off! coffee's for closers" (for you Glengary/Glenross fans). he said, "i am going to score our first goal today", i said, "if you score the first goal, i'll buy you a coffee." next shift the puck goes down by our goalie, one of our players gets it, Owen breaks toward the other team's net (as our Head Coach has practiced w/ our kids every week) but the pass goes wide, Owen races to the right of the goalie, grabs the puck w/ a guy on him, skates around the net, makes a stick move on a guy waiting for him on the other side, surprises the goalie and rips it in for our 1st flamin' goal. Starbucks it is! (don't worry, we all went to Saint IHOP's afterwards). the Red team scores 3 more goals to end the period to make it 5-1. they are bigger and more aggressive, we have to be relentless on the puck.
but before the period ended, Owen brimming w/ confidence now jetted for another puck in their end. he was suppose to stay on defense, but no one else moved. he beat the Red team to the puck, but the kid behind just clobbered him down. he was slow to get up, shift ended and he motored back to the bench. i asked him if he wanted to chase that kid down. he started to cry, apparently the kids skate had hit the back of his leg. i got him calm pretty quick and said, "hey, you are leading this team today, they need you to stay aggressive, keep after the puck." he wiped his tears and headed out for his next shift and kept his skating up.
he ended up scoring another goal in the 3rd where he stole the puck from the other team at center ice, dragged the puck in front of him, chased it down as it skittered ahead, faked left after he gained control w/ his stick and shot right about 10 ft from the goalie, a rising wrist shot while on the move. at this point we were down 7-3. we were only outscored 2-1 in the 2nd period. Owie did okay on the puck, but his line did give up the two goals in front of our net in the second, as they started to watch the Red team w/ the puck instead of going right at them.
the end of the third was the best, the other team had only scored twice on us, we again had scored once, but Owie's line really got a second wind and didn't give up any goals that period. OwieVechkin (as i will now refer to him) was all over, he had a bunch of good breaks, would get skated down, but he kept driving up and down the ice. if the puck went against the boards, he was after it to chip it out. if it shot across ice from the scrum he was the first Blue Shark after it.
anyway w/ 5:30 left the puck went deep and left of their goalie. Owen went after it w/ one of his teammates who was quickly chopped aside by this giant kid from the Red team. anyone remember the movie "the Sandlot" where the dog on the other side of the fence had through imagination and myth become the equivalent of a canine T-Rex? well this kid was bigger! twice the size of our hero. but that little son of buck would not move, he kept kicking the puck against the boards w/ his skate as his stick was being pinned against the boards by Kidzilla. he finally chipped it toward the goal away from the direction the big kid was pushing, he grabbed the puck w/ his stick while his line mates closed on the goal. Owen cut out toward the front of the net and slammed the puck at the goalie. it hit his stick bounding out front and center of the net, where big Sam (as opposed to little Sam) was there to collect the rebound and he slapped it home.
an assist for Owen and 2 goals--a 3pt morning. the Blue Sharks lost 9-4, but that's 75% of our offense, a very proud assistant coach and our Head Coach who was really glad the "kid who can stick handle around 5 guys in a phone booth" stepped up!
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