I have been using fake names in this blog, but I can't even personally remember who these people are supposed to be. I was reading my oldest posts, and I had to think hard about who those people were. I have a series about old friends called "Chum Bucket" and I had to read on to eventually recognize them and say, "Oh yeah...."
Anyways, I'm just gonna call my kid Rusty. It's an inside joke. We used to be really into tennis, and of course, we wouldn't get much time to play during winter. When we would get back into it in spring, I would always say, "You're rusty." And then I would just call him Rusty.
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It's funny how some simple decisions can change your life. We were really into tennis in 2016. I had tried to look for an indoor facility, but I think St. Peter's was full, and I didn't want to travel all the way to West Orange. There were some indoor tennis sessions but somehow I didn't sign him up for them. I didn't really look much more than that, I think. I thought about soccer but didn't follow through. With what we were learning about concussions, I had decided not to get him into football. And I wasn't crazy about baseball because of all those viral videos of crazy parents.
One day I read on Twitter about this program called Hockey In New Jersey. Actually, I read about it the previous year as well. But I figured, my son can hardly skate so he can't be ready for hockey. This time, I read the details, and it said: "no experience necessary". Like, even if he can't skate? It's okay? So I took a chance and went to sign him up.
My kid and Bert were classmates in the first grade. There was this parent who gave another parent tickets to this circus show in Bayonne, and that parent told us about it, as well as Bert's mother. The day of the circus, it was all packed and we couldn't get in - actually, we didn't even try as soon as we saw the parking lot. Also it was a cold and windy day in spring. So via text, we agreed not to go, and we decided to try Chuck E. Cheese's, which had just recently opened. That was one of their first playdates, and eventually we learned that the two considered each other best friends.
So when we signed up for hockey, we told Bert's mom about it. She said she didn't want to sign him up because he was already doing soccer and other activities. But on the first practice, as I was tying Rusty's skates, we saw Bert walk in with his dad. And his dad was like, "We changed our minds." So that's how Bert got into it.
And I think the next week, we were in the locker room with Bert, and in walks Ernie, and Bert was so excited to see him. Apparently, the two had known each other since they were babies, and they told Ernie about the program. And that's how Ernie got into it.
That first year, Bert was the fastest of the three of them. And Rusty was the slowest. Bert's dad found out about the ice rink in Secaucus, and Bert came up to me one week to ask if I can take Rusty to open skate. That time I had a cold, and I felt bad saying no. The next week, we did go. If I remember correctly, the HNJ session was from 12 to 1pm, and Secaucus public skate was at 1:30. So after the session, we would rush to take their skates off. They would be dressed in gear, and we would hurry off to Secaucus.
One time, Bert and Rusty raced around the rink, and Bert was so much faster that Rusty got down on the ice and cried at the end. I was with his little brother Dusty watching from outside, and I was like, "Really? Another meltdown?"
Competing against his best friend motivated Rusty, and I helped him as much as I can. I wasn't a great skater, so it was tough at times. "Do as I say, not as I do." But I am proud to say that I taught him how to hockey stop and power skate, despite it all.
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Anyways, where was I going with this? Well, the next year, HNJ decided to move up some of the kids and group them with the older ones. They would play a lot of full ice scrimmages, and you could just see that Rusty did not know what was going on.
At that point, I was just happy that he had a winter activity. But the more advanced the drills got, the more frustrated he got. One time he whacked a kid with his stick, and yes they have full gear and the kid was okay, but it still upset me that he did that. Another time, there was this kid Serenity, who was very fast and could lift the puck and score at will almost anytime. Well, that got to Rusty and he just focused on stopping that kid and constantly frustrated him. Well, eventually Serenity did score. Rusty got down to pick the puck out of the net, and Serenity taps him on the helmet with his stick. Rusty stands up and screams in his face, and you could hear it across the rink. I can't remember what he said. So Serenity runs off crying in the locker room.
Eventually they did make up and they are kind of friends now to this day.
But it was at that point that I asked him, if you want to be able to compete with these kids, you will have to work hard for it. You can't just scream at them and whack them with your stick if things are not going your way. So we kind of made an agreement, and that's how all the extra training started.
I just watched YouTube videos and read up on skating and hockey skills. And I would demonstrate as best as I can although I couldn't show it properly. It was very frustrating a lot of the time, but we learned to be patient with each other.
One time while we were at Secaucus, the facilities guy there told me about this teenage kid who was looking to make extra cash coaching younger kids. I scheduled time with him and paid him $25. I was watching the session, and I thought, I could do this. The kid was nice enough so I gave him a good tip, but after that, it was just me and Rusty.
At the end of the HNJ season, some kids were being considered to be in Spring League. I was really hoping Rusty could make it, but he did not. The director told me he was the last one they considered. Or I can't remember his exact wording. He was the first of the ones who did not make it. As in, of all the ones they cut, he was the best out of all the rest. Does that make sense? Did I explain that right?
I ended up looking around online and found out about Bayonne Spring Clinic. $25 for about 4 months. Not too bad. We then ended up telling Bert and Ernie about it. And the three were happy to be playing hockey together some more.
Actually a few weeks earlier, I also found out about Bayonne tryout clinics. The sessions were free. But I didn't take Rusty there. I just didn't know if he was ready for them I guess. There was just so little I knew about hockey at the time.
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Year 3, and the kids were finally old enough to be in the HNJ House League. As they had become good friends through the past couple years, we hoped they would be put together in the same team. But the director told us that they would have to be separated as they were the best players in their age group, and it would be an unfair advantage.
It was a surprise to hear that. I was always comparing him to the older kids they had been grouped with, and I didn't realize he had surpassed the other kids his age.
In the fall of that season, there was travel involved with the rec league, and they actually called it the Super League. Teams would be playing against Englewood and Montclair.
Ernie's dad did not have a car, and so they managed to convince the director to have both he and Bert on the same team for the sake of carpooling. And Rusty was on his own. And that pissed him off.
Their games against each other were intense (at least for their age and skill level). And Rusty hated losing to them. And he would see Bert at school everyday and they would always talk about the past or upcoming games.
So that motivated Rusty even more. While at Englewood, we saw that they offered stick time, and we kept coming back to that rink to practice.
Rusty became the leading scorer for his age group in that Super League. In the winter, there was a different house league with new teams, and I volunteered to be the coach. We had a different group of kids, and there was no longer travel to the other two towns.
Bert had decided to try playing goalie. Rusty and Ernie were the leading scorers in their age group. Our team went undefeated, and I am proud to say we had the most number of kids with goals.
In the championship final, of course it was Rusty's team against Ernie's. Things did not go very well right from the start, as Ernie got a goal in the first few seconds of the game, taking the faceoff and scoring unassisted. After that, Rusty kept forcing bad shot after bad shot and had a meltdown on the bench.
After that was the older group's championship. While the kids waited, they calmed down and forgot about the intensity of the game and everybody was friends again, running around playing tag and hide and seek around the rink. And then there was free skate and they were all just having fun again.
By the way, during this session, one of my team parents came up to me and asked, "Are you Rusty's dad?" I guess he didn't realize that throughout the whole season? I hope that means that I was being fair with everybody's ice time. (That is actually one reason we lost the championship as I gave an even amount of ice time to everyone instead of just putting Rusty out there, even while the kids begged for me to do so. I told them I want the team to win it, not just Rusty.)
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We quickly decided after that that the Three Mosquitoes needed more competition. Bert and Ernie's dads and I agreed that we would sign them up to a travel team that would take all three of them.
Gonna save some details for another post, but the three eventually made it on the same competitive team. They went to the championship game and lost. The next season, which is now, they are sitting in first place in the standings.
It's funny how that one decision to try hockey changed things. I could instead have looked into indoor or winter tennis. I could have found a professional coach and put Rusty into competition matches. But instead I chose to save money and try hockey for free. But tennis was getting too boring for him because we didn't know other kids close to his skill level, and it was just me and him all the time. So I decided to give him a break.
It's good when your kid excels in something. But the main reason we signed up for hockey in the first place was to be around other kids. And no matter what happens this season or in the future, it's really all about making friends at the end of the day.
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