Canada Hockey Trip

[monster]

Pictures soon, meanwhile, the story....

so.... Way back at Thanksgiving, Thor's Hockey team got invited to a tournament in Canada.

Thor plays on a house team, it's a small house program (one team) which previously has had only MiniMite (<7yo) and Mite(7&8yo) teams. Plenty of good travel teams for the older kids, but no house teams. There were many Mites ageing up who wanted to stay at house level and stay at Compuware, so they started a Squirt House team (9&10yo). Problem is, the league the mini-mites and mites play in doesn't have a squirt division. So we had to join another league. A much more ferociously competitive league (House no longer means "house", it's just a level). We were playing against teams who practice 3 times a week -we do one practice one game. And all our players were first-year squirts (9yo). So we lost every game. Badly. Even the non-league games the manager set up agaianst teams of equal standing.

So then.... we got invited to a "tournament' in St. Mary's, Ontario, Canada. About three hours driving. They wanted teams with a similar record to their house team i.e. no wins by Thanksgiving. They went through amazing paperwork hoops to ensure that the team could not add ringers or leave dodos at home.

[monster]

So our team manager decided we should make a party of it. Team bus to Toronto Friday Night (Toronto is 90 minutes past St Mary's), Hockey Hall of Fame followed by team chill in the pool on Saturday, early bus to St Mary's for "Hockey Day" then bus home late Sunday.

We decided to join all the stuff but drive ourselves.

We pulled the kids from school Friday (last day before Spring break, not much learning done) and headed up to Toronto as soon as we could get away with the idea of showing Banana lady (MIL who just got in from UK) some sights before the team arrived. Great plan, except we failed to notice that Friday was the home opener for the Toronto Blue Jays. Normaly free/reasonable parking was $25-$40 -and spaces were few and far between, and we couldn't get in the semi-reasonably priced multi-storey lots because we had the roofbox on the car and excedd the height restriction.

[monster]

We drove around and around and eventually decided to follow the trolley/tram lines out of the center to a point where we could find parking and take the tram/trolley back in. All we wanted to do was go up the CN Tower. Visiting Chinatown was second on our list. Soon we were driving through China town (so interesting) and then we saw a private parking lot that said "whole day $6". we were a little apprehensive. We pulled up outside. There were two spots. Suddenly an SUV zoomed into one, so I took action and zoomed into the other. The guy in spot 1 looked mad. he started yelling. we asked him if there was a problem and he said no, he was just telling his friends "tough luck, they beat you to the spot". We asked if we were OK there and he said yes, best spot in Toronto. We said we had no canadian $ will American be OK and he said "Hell, yeah, just pay my man Ralphie over there and it's fine". So we did and it was.

[monster]

It was quite a long walk to the CN tower for Banana lady, but we made it, and the walk through Chinatown was great and the atmosphere created by the BJ fans heading to the game made it really cool. i've been in many Chinatowns, but this one was the most truly Chinese -all the store signs were Chinese first, English as an afterthought if at all, no French.

So, up the tower... We've been there before, but the kids were tiny and don't remember and BL hasn't. BL took time but eventually looked out at the view. Thor had no problem runnning all over the glass floor, Hebe worked up to it but eventually jumped up and down on it. I worked up to half-lying and eventually fully standing on it and beest worked up to taking my picture lying on it.

Then we went for dinner. It was nice, but we were ripped off tourist-style which spoiled it a little (Oh yes, we have great meals for kids, stuff they love like pasta and cheese, grilled cheese sanwiches.... once inside: Kids? well the can order an adult portion and not eat it all..."

then we went to the hotel and arrived about the same time as the team bus. and found out the hotel had fucked up. Quelle surprise. Have you ever come across a hotel that will allow 3 adults and 3 kids in one room without surcharge? And yet the Hilton Garden apparently had this booked for us. (We had booked two rooms). It got sorted, but WTF?

[monster]

After the parking fiasco the day before, we decided to hop on the team bus to the Hockey Hall Of Fame. After the HHOF, the team went to lunchand then bck to the HHOF gift shop. Suffice to say, we became even happier about our decision to skip the bus.

So, to the tourney.....

We arrived a little after the team bus, and found they were all panicked because they saw winner pennants all over the rink, and Canadians play hockey way better/harder than Americans. So I pointed out that Ann Arbor (where Hector plays) has banners everywhere and is the host of the USA team, but still has house teams who win nothing.

Then we found out we're playing Canadian Rules. Slapshots allowed, soft offside, running clock..... Oh Fuck. We've been invited to be the laughing stock. Coaches spend the 30 mins before the 1st game explaining the new rules

[monster]

So we head into the first game. The oppo are twice the size of us. But they're crap. Crapper than us, even. We're actually winning! And then their players start going down and staying down (Squirts don't check but it's OK to "get in the way") Refs made no calls, we couldn't see why the players were down (srsly, our players don't have the wherewithall to body-check)

...and then the parents started getting in our face. Turns out it was a girls team and they expected girls team rules. No contact whatsofuckinever. HELLO? AND.... our players are so crap, none of the contact they were complaining about was intentional.

They got really shitty including "This is nnot how we play hockey in Canada, if this is how you play hockey in the US we don't want to know" Did you bring much baggage to the tourney, honey?

[monster]

So, maybe I should backtrack. When we got to the tournament, we found out that we were called the "Detroit" team. That has a connotation that sooooooo doesn't apply to us and our rink is 20 miles from detroit. There are probably 1,000 house teams closer to Detroit than we are. But it turns out that the "Detroit" tean is actually considered to be representing the USA in this tourney. No Pressure. And fuck you re the reputation.

[monster]

more (and pics) later, it's late and dinner's ready...

[infinite monkey]

*taps toes*

Awaiting pictures. I bet the HHOF is neat.

I liked this:

They got really shitty including "This is nnot how we play hockey in Canada, if this is how you play hockey in the US we don't want to know" Did you bring much baggage to the tourney, honey?

As my dear old dad might say "Well HOO HA!" It doesn't mean anything, it just seems dismissively snarky enough to say. (Actually he said it when my brother and I were arguing with the "Huh-UH. Uh-HUH!" He hated that, so would mock us with "HOO HA!")

Did you tell them "Take off, eh?"

[monster]

Sorry, I have to get the kitchen clean for Beest's birthday dinner now. Will finish story and post pics later.

[glatt]

Where are your priorities?

[Beest]

Later on the tournament organizer gave us a map and directions labelled, 'fastest way to the US border, gauranteed'

[monster]

Originally Posted by Beest

Later on the tournament organizer gave us a map and directions labelled, 'fastest way to the US border, gauranteed'

he did too. (That's the Canadian way of spelling it, eh)

[monster]

So anyhoo, we went to the the tourney managers about the body contact/parent anger thing and they told us we were fine and they would talk to the other team. Our coaches talked to the girls' team coach and apparently they had been under the impression it was a girls' tourney....

[monster]

Second game, against the home team. tie 2:2. We shoulda won, but probably good that we didn't.

Third game we won 6:0 shutout. Thor played like a maniac on fire! He had so many shots on goal it was unbelievable that he didn't score. All the parents agreed he got so unlucky

Fourth game. Well fuck. another girls' team. hopefuly, they now know the rules. Oh fuck, the team we slaughtered in the first game slaughtered this team. We told the boys and girl to be on their best behaviour. We got the first goal in three seconds. the officials didn't bother scoring or announcing after that. Thor got his first goal ever (third in the game) ...about two minutes in. After that, the order came that none of the regular scorers were allowed to shoot on goal -they had to pass to Thor or Nolan or Alex. Alex eventually figured it out that the cool kids weren't shooting, so also refused to shoot. Nolan's dad thought this was fantastic and what hockey was all about, I was less impressed. But at least Thor got his goal before this was the order of the day. It was a nice goal, would probably have been stopped by a better goalie, but it was a real goal. just.