Halloween and Hockey

Aiden's new jersey for his North Stars team this year

Let's GO!

Aiden is #87 this year (Luke was 87 last year)

Pumpkin carving

More pumpkin carving

Liam's pumpkin design

And the finished products from left to right: Hockey sticks, NHL logo, Skeleton, Witch on a broom

Luke and his sorted candy!

Sorting their loot!

Our band of pirates

Finn and his buddy, Kathleen
 

Liam and Luke at their first squirt B1 practice

Exactly three years after Luke and Liam started hockey as first graders, they had their first squirt hockey practice (Nov 1, 2014 to Nov 1, 2017).  What a difference three years makes!

We have had a big week since the last time I wrote a post for the blog.  Aiden began his 2017-18 hockey season as a Supermite One.  He moved out of the Mite category and onto the Supermites which are a bit faster, stronger, and a more experienced group of kids.  He is on the North Stars team with one of his best buddies, Anders.  He has an awesome green and gold uniform and proudly wears #87.  We are excited for an upcoming fun and challenging season!

Luke and Liam survived their first year of travel hockey tryouts last week.  They began on Sunday (for Luke) and Monday (for Liam) and didn't finish until Saturday.  It was a stressful and grueling process; albeit, perhaps more stressful on the parents than the kids!  Everyone was given a random number at the beginning of the week and each night they posted the numbers and which groups each child would be placed in based on their overall abilities and how they performed at tryouts.  We had to be at the rink each evening sometime between 5:00 pm and 8:30 pm and not always at the same time for both boys.

On Sunday evening, we received the results of their tryouts.  Luke and Liam were both placed on the same team which was our primary concern since they are now entering the world of travel hockey which means they will have a few travel tournaments, one overnight trip, and twice the amount of ice time each week.  The time and money commitment just increased substantially.

They competed against 4th and 5th grade peers and ended up being placed on the B1 Gold Squirt team with Luke as a goalie (first year for this) and Liam as a skater.  The highest level team is the A team followed by B1, B2, and C.  The majority of their peers fell into the B2 or C category which are good hockey teams, but the B1 teams are harder to get on particularly as a 4th grader.  Luke and Liam were among 9 fourth grade kids who made a B1 team.  A total of only 16 fourth grade kids made either an A team or B1 team.  We were very proud of them for working hard all week and doing their best each night.  Making the same team at a B1 level was icing on the cake!

One ironic twist, we are on the same team as Finn's godparents son (Jack) who is a 5th grader.  Luke and Liam have been skating with Jack since they were two years of age in the backyard at our old house where we shared a rink with Jack's family.

Lastly, we all dressed up as pirates for Halloween.  John and I had random pirate costumes while Luke and Liam dressed up as zombie pirates.  Aiden was Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean and Finn was a basic pirate.  It was a fun night trick or treating and running into several friends.  The weather was quite cold this year, but the boys didn't seem to mind much.  They ran from one house to the next without stopping for at least an hour.  We have more candy than I know what to do with at this point....