smaaaaaash

Hayden and I drove 3 1/2 hours up to Charlotte, North Carolina for him to tryout for a team that will be made up of North and South Carolina players. If you made the team, you would need to travel back to Charlotte for 3 weekends for training, then you would have to travel another weekend to Raleigh to play in the SC/NC State games. After this, there would be another training session (2 days) in Charlotte, and then we would travel 10 1/2 hours to Philadelphia to play in a big tournament up there. We would play a scrimmage game on Tuesday night @ 8pm and then the tourny would start on Wednesday and go through Sunday. Hayden wanted so badly to make this team. He made me proud! He went out there very focused, worked hard and did not mess around at all. I think he may have sent home several players with some severe bruising though!

This is Hayden on the "puddle" with a different player from another team. You will see Hayden against the boards wearing white. Yes, he is literally "smashing" a kid against the boards. He is playing in the Squirt league where there is no checking, but because they will be playing kids older than them and they check, this team must also learn to check. No problem with Hayden doing that - he lives for checking! I figured the coach would either pick him for the team because he was tough, or he would tell me to take my child home because he was a bully. Fortunately, he was picked for the team. So, we will now be spending Memorial day weekend and then each weekend through the end of June traveling to train and play hockey! I hope the tires are good on my car!