Jun 02, 2015 | astanley | 1561 views
Farewell Spring Hockey Season
"Farewell to pucks and skates and sticks,
Farewell to buzzers, ice and boards,
Referee, look your last at us,
For we play hockey this spring no more."
- A.E. Housman (........sort of)
It's hard to believe that another spring season has come and gone already!
I know I speak for all of the coaching staff when I say that we enjoyed every minute........uh.....well......actually, I can think of a couple minutes in Wasaga Beach that maybe don't apply (Mr. Referee you are still #1 in my books)............but we will say most of the minutes, we had together as a group. LOL.
I really could not ask for a better group of players and their families to be a part of this team. The abilities, personalities, willingness to learn and love of the game burns bright in each and every one of those kids. Almost as strong as the smell of their hockey equipment, which is saying a lot!
The parents and siblings all made our downtime between games very enjoyable. As a group we had so much fun travelling around, disrupting hotels, playing mini-sticks, ball hockey, soccer, baseball, picnicking, BBQing, camping, eating at restaurants, fishing and yes we even found time for a bit of ice hockey in there.
I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach with such an awesome group of guys. Greg, Rob, Grayson and last but not least Nick, brought a lot of valuable knowledge to the table this spring. I cannot take full credit for any of the positive results that were witnessed on the ice, because these guys had a lot of ideas and energy invested into our development program as well. And if you were unhappy with this spring season in any way, shape or form, let me be the first to say that it was all Nick's fault. Blame him. Hahaha. Just kidding............but seriously, you can blame Greg.
As we head back to our home centres in the fall, no doubt we will meet again during the winter season. It will be at some freezing cold arena, some stupid early hour in the morning, in the middle of a sideways snowstorm with a Tim Horton's in hand (I know most of you probably chuckled right there, because you all know that it's true). But for now we will depart and enjoy what's left of spring and then, best of all, SUMMER!
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank-you to all the players, coaches and families from our team this spring. I know everybody put in a lot of time, effort and resources to make this season a reality. A special thank-you goes out to the Elzingas, Tara for her awesome Managerial skills (who knew managerial was actually a word recognized by spellcheck?) and Jerry for coming out and pushing pucks and pylons around in practice, usually with little or no notice.
Here's hoping for many more great spring seasons to come!
We will be having a team banquet and BBQ at the Elzinga's place (thank-you once again) on the evening of Friday, June the 12th, in the year of 2015. Details will be emailed out in the next day or two.
See you all soon.
Adam
P.S. I am serious about the smell of your equipment guys. Now would be a good time to fumigate it.............or perhaps consider incineration.