Sometimes that happens

Tags

competing, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, junior hockey, training, working out

Parenting isn’t rocket science or brain surgery, but once it starts it’s a life-long commitment. Obvious, but true.

The front end is heavy lifting, the back end is more fine tuning. And after about 15 or 20 years – if you have any honest self awareness at all – you start to see how things are really going.

This will not be a soliloquy on the brilliance of my kids or our greatness as parents. There always things to do better, things we might have done differently. They still don’t know how to cook, do laundry, shovel snow, pickup clothes, or buy beer if there’s someone else in the house to do it instead. But, overall they’re better-than-okay kids and we love them.

No, today is about understanding that your kids will look at your example for a long, long time. The paths you choose, your conduct, your lifestyle, your generosity, honesty, work ethic, kindness, friends, choices. In short, your character. As the old saying goes, the way you behave when you think no one is looking.

Sweating it out today on a spin bike with 23 other people at 6am, I reflected a bit on this if only to distract myself from the heat of the room and punishing regime to be completed.

Sentimental Xmas Memory #2

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christmas, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, ice wolves, junior hockey, kids hockey, la ronge, pond hockey, training, working out

No five for Friday today. Instead another holiday flashback.

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With temperatures in southern Ontario hitting double digits for most of the last week, it doesn’t feel like Christmas is barely two weeks away. It makes it more palatable to drive a car in flimsy Under Armour shorts at 6am, without benefit of heated seats, and it sadly makes it impossible to skate on a pond on natural ice.

Which brings me to Sentimental Christmas Memory #2. Pond hockey.

Climate change deniers can deny all they want. The winters are shorter and warmer now. If you want to argue about something, argue about why that has happened. But the fact that it’s going on around us is irrefutable.

I remember as a kid practically exploding at the prospect of Christmas vacation. Christmas was, for sure, a very big deal in our home and my parents deserve a lot of respect and credit for making it that way for us. We didn’t have a lot of money but I never went without anything I needed. A lot of things I didn’t have, well, I didn’t need. Some of the traditions around my Christmas at home survive to this day with our family and I suspect some of them will move along with my sons when the time comes.

A weekend in Parentland

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4k tv, AUS Hockey, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, hdtv, hockey, junior hockey, kids hockey, training, working out

It was a pretty decent weekend, all things considered. I had two grueling workouts, we bought two TVs, Chris came home for the weekend, the peewees had TWO big wins and we had a couple nice meals.

If it wasn’t for Pad getting crosschecked in the mouth Friday night with 90 seconds left in the game, I might have elevated the weekend to great. But that’s how it goes in Parentland.

On Friday we replaced the late, lamented family room TV with a new 49-inch LG 4K model. I honestly wasn’t in the market for 4k — new technology with four times the resolution of a 1080 screen — but the price was good, we like LG, Chris approved and the rest is history.

A sporting life

Tags

AUS Hockey, baseball, blue jays, cycling, cycling in cold weather, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, junior hockey, kids hockey

Too much on the calendar this weekend. A high-quality, first-world problem.

There’s a junior A game in Milton tonight that I would like to see, because it’s Milton vs. Cobourg and there will be several kids in the game I know, not the least of whom is Will the Thrill.

But.

The Dal Tigers are on the road this weekend, playing at UPEI and that game will be webcast. Through the miracle of Apple TV I can stream the webcast from my iphone to the Apple TV box and onto the big screen in the family room. While it’s not HNIC, it is to us, and it’s free.

UPEI also has the best and most entertaining play-by-play and colour commentators in the Atlantic university conference, and that coupled with my personal interest in the game makes it must-see TV. Sorry Will.

Then, there’s also a baseball game of note tonight – the Blue Jays open the ALCS in Kansas City tonight and that is also must-see TV. And the Leafs host Columbus in what will be perhaps the least-viewed Toronto hockey game of the season. Both teams stink and the Jays are in the ALCS? Good luck.

So, tonight I will be grateful for the invention of time zones. The 7p start for Dalhousie in Charlottetown is 6p here and the hockey game will be almost over when the Jays take to the field for a scheduled 8:07p start.

A bus, a boat, a birthday & a truck named Patrick

Tags

cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, junior hockey

You never stop being a parent but it seems your kids can make it a challenge to keep an eye on their lives. Thank goodness for technology. Our weekend was basically sponsored by SnapChat.

With a busy September behind her, Laura was content to try to have a quiet, normal weekend. Chris was leading a crew of friends/classmates on a run through the Nuit Blanche arts festival all over downtown Toronto, and Pad was with the Dal Tigers hockey team on its annual run to New England for a couple exhibition games.

There was a time when parents would really have to wait for the morning papers or a call for bail money to understand how their kids’ weekends played out. Social media let that cat out of the bag long ago and Laura and I stay pretty alert to the boys’ digital footprints.

SnapChat – an instant photo and video app – and text messaging kept us in the loop all weekend.

Commitment

Tags

cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, hockey, journalism, junior hockey, kids hockey

The people who show up for 6a workouts on weekdays aren’t special, but they are motivated.

Where I sweat, there is a core of about a dozen men and women — give or take — who make it at least four days out of five. Saturday is an optional throw in, but I understand that people with young families need to actually spend time being a dad on weekends. At my age it’s easy to forget the whirl of birthday parties, play dates, minor sports, and general hanging out that comes with that territory.

Monday to Friday has to occasionally suffer the intrusion of early meetings, GO train schedules, work travel, illness and family commitments, late business dinners, and more. No one in our group is being paid to train; everyone has to figure out a way to be there.

It’s commitment, but it’s only a commitment to yourself. No one is going to call if you don’t show up. If you sleep in and don’t train, the only one who loses is you.

Fifty minutes

Tags

cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, junior hockey, kids hockey

Lately I’ve been thinking about sports and kids and why we go to the rink. It’s no surprise that it’s on my mind – minor hockey has started again (does it ever stop?) and I’m fortunate to be part of that familiar parade.

I’ve got a son on the east coast playing Canadian university hockey; the son of one of my best friends is on a top junior A team. And I’ve got 16 house league kids to help coach this weekend in peewee for 50 minutes that mean more to them than I allow myself to remember sometimes. So I have lots of exposure to the hockey development spectrum.

We adults should never, ever lose sight of the importance of those 50 minutes, ever. One hour, less 10 minutes to flood the ice. Fifty minutes.

Way back in the last century, I took my first coaching clinic and something the instructor said to us has stuck with me through nearly two decades, dozens of teams, hundreds of players, and moments of punishing heartbreak and soaring, screaming triumph.

He said that the time those house league kids get on the ice each week is, with very few exceptions, the highlight of their week. It is the most important hour, or two, in their lives for seven days. They may not look or act engaged but they are looking at you as the most important voice they hear outside of home.

Run, Forrest, Run

Tags

hockey, junior hockey, running, training, working out

One of the most challenging parts of trying to get fit — big emphasis on trying — is the running that is incorporated into our daily training where I work out.

Not only am I not a runner, but my knees are a mess, the legacy of stone-age orthopedic surgical techniques and some seven procedures over the years on both legs combined.

So, when I run it looks a bit like an aged, wounded giraffe hobbling across the Serengeti hoping to avoid dentists from Minnesota and becoming lion food. I’ve always envied those graceful athletes with the effortless loping stride. I was never one of those and it won’t be coming my way at this stage of life.

Add to that the fat I was carting around and running was not a comfortable fitness option.

Rep tryouts: How do you make a rep hockey team?

Tags

how to make a rep hockey team, junior hockey, Minor hockey, MOHA, rep tryouts, tryouts

Rep hockey tryouts started last night.

So I am going to repeat a lightly edited version of what is easily the most popular post I have ever written: the FAQ on rep hockey try outs. This is version three of this over the years, and it really is just a cut-and-paste job but it is a worthy one. There is also a brief 2014 addendum at the very bottom worth reading, I think.

Literally hundreds and hundreds of people find this particular post every month so welcome, and here’s a little about us. Happy suburban Toronto family, two boys. One was a house leaguer (1996) the other (a 1993) relentlessly chased the dream to always try to get to a higher level.

Starting in rep at major peewee, Pad played AE, A, AA (in Oakville) and AAA (in the GTHL), then 200 games of junior A in the OJHL and the BCHL and a very brief stop in the CCHL. Next fall he will be playing university hockey.

What follows is some of what I/we have learned along the way. (Ironically, Pad, who never made a AAA team in Oakville, is now running some on-ice AAA tryouts for the local association. Smart move on their part.)

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How do you make a rep hockey team?