Lauren's 1st Hockey Tournament and Another Lost Tooth

During the first weekend of March, we headed to York, PA for Lauren's first ice hockey tournament.  She was playing as a mini mite for the Piedmont Predators and we were not sure what to expect.  We arrived late Friday night, ordered a pizza, ate on the floor, and quickly put the kids to bed.

The next morning, Lauren and Chad had to be at the outdoor rink for a 7:30 am game.  It was about 15 degrees and quite an experience.   Charlie ran around a lot to stay warm, and I made sure to have a nice hot coffee in my hands.  Lauren's team were much younger and smaller than the other team and the score was somewhere around 31-0.  But Lauren and her teammates had a lot of fun and did not even realize that they lost the game!

Afterwards, we went to the hotel's restaurant and ordered some breakfast before heading to the local ice rink for an 11 am game.  The kids played better, but lost.  Once again they were younger and smaller, and didn't seem to care.  It was so much fun to watch them play as a team and race after the puck.

The last game of the day was around 4 pm.  Lauren was the goalie and I realized how stressful that is as a parent.  She loved it.  Me, not so much!  =)  Once again, they lost but Lauren played so well.  She let in a lot of pucks, but Chad only asked her to focus the entire game and keep her chin on the puck, which she did!!

That night, the entire team went out to a fun restaurant for dinner.  The kids downed their meals and headed into the large game room, while the parents enjoyed dinner.  When we finally walked down, we realized that there was a large 2 story ball pit room and a ton of arcade games.  The kids all got a ton of tickets to exchange for prizes and we were out pretty late.  Most of the team left around 10 to head back to the hotel, but everyone had a great time.

The next day, the kids had one more game around 11 am.  They played a team of equal size/age and it was a much closer game.  We still lost but everyone played hard, and Lauren even went after the puck for most of the game.

Charlie had a great time playing with all of the other siblings at the games.  He brought his rescue bots and trains, and at first was a little shy.  But that quickly evaporated and he spent most of the games playing and completely unaware of what his big sister was getting up to!

Chad and I were very proud of Lauren and happy with her first tournament experience!!  And Chad did a great job coaching her team all weekend.  He was certainly exhausted afterwards but I am glad he had that experience with Lauren.  And Lauren loved that she got a cool medal after the tournament and a celebration ice cream on the way home!