Hockey Wife / Hockey Mom

It took about five minutes to get Ethan's skates on. You have to get them on real tight. Brian tied and taped the laces and it was up to me to help him with his shoulder, elbow pads and his helmet. While Brian was getting dressed I walked off to the rink with Ethan and Carley outside. He stood at the door staring at the ice. An older boy there to help out and a couch came over and said "come on buddy I'll help you come out onto the ice". "Are you ready"? As Ethan attempted to go out there putting his itty bitty skates on the ice I had to take a deep breath. I drew back the tears and could only smile to see my little guy begin his hockey journey at four years old. Ethan has started the learn to skate program.


After two years on a backyard rink off and on the ice I have watched and participated in the one on one hockey. I have watched Brian play with Ethan and witness Ethan's overwhelming love of his dad and the game (if you want to call it a game). The program is every Saturday morning and here he is with his dad as his coach. You can see him pushing a chair which seemed to really help. Brian is on the far left if you can't tell. Occasionally he would push the chair out of the way and skate and then ultimately fall. Other times I caught him actually sitting in the chair and taking a break! It was cute. In our backyard the ice is obviously not as smooth so he didn't fall that often. Here he fell a lot! Brian has been working with him on how to get up with his pads on off the ice and he was able to work on that out here with the ice. The instruction seemed to be paying off as he is learning what he needs to do to actually get up on his skates once he is down. He will be getting a lot of practice. After about 3 weeks the kids will be bringing out the sticks and thats when the real fun for Ethan will begin.



So as our family begins this new journey together it means much more to us than Ethan learning to skate. It is completely about all of us continuing to be a family. Loving eachother and eachothers company. Learning devotion, love and commitment to oneanother. Lastly, it is about having a blast! Whether or not Ethan decides to be on a team or not, we don't know. What we do know is that we will still build the rinks, we will still have a blast and we will still love hockey!