As I entered the Mitchell arena at exactly 7:26pm on Tuesday, December 27th, I felt a little off as I watched the Scotiabank Bantam LL boys skate onto the ice to prepare for their game.
My goal, avoid eye contact with everyone and bee line it to the stands. Of course, this was unavoidable, but I eventually made it to the stands and sat their quietly, yes quietly, awaiting the upcoming event. "Why doesn’t this arena have the bar open", I thought to myself. The team did their cheer and then skated alongside the Minto Maddogs exchanging obligatory pregame fist bumps before they took their spots to start the game. My kid was between the pipes, hence my pregame jitters, where he was debuting as the team’s goalie. Ugh! I don’t know how "real" goalie parents deal with this stress at every game.
The first period got underway and team Captain, Cole WILTON, along with his wingman, Basil VOROS, didn’t waste any time as they put the puck into the Maddogs end immediately after the puck drop and then 23 short seconds later WILTON assisted by VOROS recorded Mitchell’s first goal of the night. I let out a little cheer, "whoot woo"! The boys really seemed to be on their game tonight, this is good. Then, about a minute and a half later, Kurtis "Cheese" DEJONG scored the next goal with the assist going to WILTON. At this point, my nerves had settled a bit and I started to converse with the other parents around me. Minto managed to sneak past our tight D and take a shot on the rookie. Crap, here we go. Wait! He stopped it! "YES!" My cheers rang out throughout the arena. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do have confidence in my kid, but I definitely have a new found respect for the goalie parents. By the end of the first period, Mitchell was up 4 to 0 and my need for a drink had subsided considerably. Josh BEDOUR scored goal number 3 assisted by defenceman extraordinaire Brent "Puff" SMITH and goal 4 was the handy work of WILTON and CHEESE.
Great passing was displayed by the team in the second period. They worked well together keeping the puck out of our end for most of the period. Joey HILL kept the momentum going with an unassisted goal at the front of the period and WILTON closed things off with his own unassisted goal. At this point the scoreboard read 6 to 0 Mitchell. What are the chances that MONDEN would get a shutout goaltending his first minor hockey game? Stay tuned for period 3 to find that out.
The third period was stress-free for this acting goalie mom. I watched the period through the lens of my camera and didn’t even get upset when #32 from Minto took off like a shot and skated end to end destroying MONDEN’s chance at a shutout and getting Minto’s first goal of the night. As the game grew to a close, Minto scored one last time allowing them to win the period, but not the game. Mitchell skated away with a much needed 6 to 2 win!
Great game boys! Nice work rook.