Here we go again

It's been said that Minnesota has two seasons: winter and road construction. It'd be more accurate to list those seasons as hockey and road construction. The Mega-project on I-35, bane of my existence, is at last done. Winter isn't quite here. But hockey season is.

AJ's been in a week-long hockey school in Cloquet, and this morning was the grand-finale game. Did I mention this was our last week of calm before the insanity of the regular hockey season begins?
Do I know how to complicate our lives, or what?

And as long as I'm focusing on the inconveniences to me, rather than the joy it brings my child to be back on the ice, let me also complain about the hockey arena. Cloquet has two arenas built side by side. One is really nice and modern. And heated. The other, appropriately, is named "the Barn". Anytime I have to watch a game in there, I feel like someone's pulled a bait-and-switch on us. Last summer's hockey school was played in the nice arena. This school took place in the Barn. (I suspect the summer school has to take place in the nice arena. With the lack of insulation in the Barn, it'd be about as easy maintaining a sheet of ice there in the summer as it would on an outdoor rink.)

Did I mention that some sort of frozen condensation fell from the rafters periodically throughout the game? Good thing the players wore helmets!

But this isn't about me and my frostbitten toes. It's about AJ. And AJ really liked playing this week, and he loved today's game. It was a non-stop scoring fest. AJ had nine goals and a couple of assists. And other kids had similar score counts. I'm not sure if that's a sign the kids are ready for goalies or to play on the full rink (instead of half), but they sure were having fun.

You'd think with all those opportunities, that I'd have gotten a great picture of AJ scoring. Sadly, this is the best I got:

Really, those are AJ's legs. It took me a few minutes to start recognizing AJ on the ice. He's got a new jersey, breezers, gloves and skates. One of the other mom's joked that AJ can't get a new mouth guard, that's her only way of remembering which one he is. Apparently he's the only one with a red mouth guard. Jeff calls it the Cootie guard. (Think of what the tongue looks like in the game Cooties.)

I was really proud watching AJ today. He's started passing the puck (occasionally), and I saw him skate backwards a couple times. His hockey stops are getting better, too. So if nothing else, this school was a good refesher course - for AJ's skills, and my body temperature.