No Pleasure Cruise...

I've had the song "We Are The Champions" stuck in my head all weekend, and it has nothing to do with the Super Bowl. It's because I heard the movie The Mighty Ducks playing on repeat in my van all weekend while driving to a hockey tournament in Saratoga, NY.

And it's probably no coincidence that the particular line "its been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise..." has stuck with me. The trip featured my hubby with a fever, chills and the stomach flu, weather that could only be described as a "wintry mix", opposing parents who were CBWI (cowbelling while intoxicated), and a swinger party sharing the hotel with us. Kind of like a Carnival Cruise with the Noro virus.

Unfortunately, it was no bed of roses for my daughter's Mite A team. It was no pleasure cruise straight into the boards for the kid my little girl jacked up for her "roughing" penalty, either... but unfortunately that was the most interesting part of their tourney. They got beat, and they got beat bad- four games in a row. Oh well. It happens. You lose some, you lose some, you swim in the pool some, (get a wierd skin rash) and torment the hotel staff some. It's all good.

Lucky for me I got to see our B team show up and quack all over those Upstate New York teams, Mighty Ducks style. Those little buggers skated their hearts out and won all of their games- the championship in a quardruple overtime! A Mite B game can be more exciting than the NHL, because absolutely ANYTHING can happen, and the slow pace just adds to the anticipation. I laughed, screamed and had tears in my eyes, remembering my son's State Championship Mite B game. When they won that game, we moms screamed, cheered, cried and some of us peed a little. Now that the kids have gotten bigger and skate faster, we all still miss the magic of that season, when they were small and clueless and mostly off sides.

Today when I heard a hockey mom scream to her youngest child, as he took the faceoff in overtime "You got this baby!", I realized my baby- my 5 year old- could still be a Mite B someday and I'm already looking forward to it. But if they ever play "We Are the Champions", be prepared for me to bawl my eyes out.