Thanksgiving and Tournaments

Luke's Squirt A white team vs. the Squirt A Crimson team in the championship at Thanksgiving

Lining up at the start of the game (Luke is in the net)

Liam on the ice (#15)

John went to lunch at school with Aiden while he was off last week

Followed by lunch with Luke and Liam at school.  John was not ready to sign up for lunchroom duty anytime soon.

Aiden attempted to eat an entire turkey leg on Thanksgiving!!

Jack (on the end in red sweater) also ate a turkey leg

Face-off at Liam's game (Liam is bottom left)

I don't have many Thanksgiving pictures this year, but we did enjoy a very nice Thanksgiving day with Kevin and Melissa Weigel and their son, Jack.  We have been over to the Weigel's for Thanksgiving for the last couple of years.  I think it began when Jack started playing travel hockey three years ago because there are almost always hockey tournaments the day after Thanksgiving which makes it difficult to travel.  Kevin and Melissa's extended family are much like family to us as they have know the boys since they were born when we lived directly behind the Weigel's (in our old house).  Jack is an only child, but has grown up with our boys and they have played together for many years.  It was a fun and relaxing day with lots of delicious food.

Early on Friday morning after Thanksgiving, we began a hockey tournament for both Luke and Liam's teams.  We are extremely fortunate this year because all of the in town/local tournaments are the same for Luke and Liam.  There are only two teams in their association that have the exact same in town tournaments and thankfully we happen to be on each of those teams.  It makes for a very long day at the rink, but thankfully we are all in one location.  We attended a total of 8 games in three days.

Liam's team had the unfortunate draw of playing three Canadian teams from the Thunder Bay area.  While they didn't win any of the three games, I would say they improved a lot over the weekend and finished respectfully considering their competition was quite good!  On a positive note, Liam's team was the only team to score any goals on their Canadian opponents who managed to shut out all the other B1 teams in Liam's bracket.  And, we won our final game 9-0 against a local team so I think we finished well.

Luke's team also did well winning their first three games relatively easily.  They ended up playing in the championship game for the Squirt A teams and finished second.  They lost to the other Squirt A team in our association which was a hard one to swallow, but a good learning lesson for the boys who have several things to work on before their next tournament.

All in all, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We are all preparing for Christmas and excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus.