Day 156: FRIDAY!!! Got up early, made breakfast... and packed lunch to take with us and headed back to the rink. Needed to catch the Novice in action today. Lawson helped set up the cameras and took video for the first little while of the novice game... eventually he got bored of that and came and took the camera I was using for still photos and sent me over to tend to the video camera. After their session we hopped in the car and headed over to O'Rielys to see if they had some polish for his pads to make him slide better on the wet ice... unfortunately they didn't but They did have some sticks on sale and the old one was on borrowed time (working on it's 4th season)... So I picked him up a stick and a roll of tape, the 'crappy tape' that he makes more money on rather than the Howies garbage he typically sells... I hate the Howies Tape, give me a truck load of the over price garbage stuff any day of the week over the Howies stuff... anyway back to the arena... we got some photos and footage of the Atoms on the ice and when the Zamboni came out (sorry the Olympia) Lawson got ready to go on the ice and I taped up the new stick just in case he wanted to use it... we went up a size because the other one was not ridiculously long enough, I mean people have stopped telling me it's way too long for him so he must need something longer, right? It took a whole roll of tape right down to the last inch, I could have used one more turn around the stick but close enough... and there was some debate about spending another $50 at the shop to get the stick that was 1/4 of an oz lighter, LOL Like that matters after putting a pound of tape on it. But the finishes on they sticks suck... every time a puck hits it the gel coat and paint just blows off it... the tape helps hold it together. They have realized they need to do a little more with him out there, the pucks are coming a little faster and they aren't going in the net behind him, he's got the rebounds covered, still making those sick glove saves and even through out a double pad stack as the coach was trying to hammer in the 3rd rebound... after the pad stack the coach gave up trying to score on him. In the 2nd session they squared off to play a little scrimmage game... OK Peewee at this end, Bantam at that end... the boy was perplexed as to where he belonged... I sent him to the Bantam bench, no point in only playing up one level, might as well make it 2... did I mention some of those Bantam players are starting to grow face hair? LOL, ya, the boy should be fine over there... I'm a horrible parent. LOL The game was confusing as shit... they had on black and red pinnies but I couldn't giver out which team was going which direction... peewees vs peewees and bantam vs bantam but the black and red seemed to switch ends from time to time and the goalies stayed out for 3 shifts which meant they were playing both bantams and peewees and for black and then red... fuck I don't know what was going on... neither did the goalies... at times their own team mates would line up and hammer on in their own net, ya well they weren't expecting that, on a few shots the boy didn't even flinch as the puck went sailing past him... when he figured out which colour he was playing for he did just fine... likely one of the better tenders on the ice, even with the age and size disadvantage. The memory chips filled up, the batteries died and cameras went off line one at a time as his practice wore on... when he got off the ice I packed up the gear, both his and mine and we headed out. Stopped by the BlukBarn on the way home and made it in the door just before heather arrived. I found some leftovers in the fridge that weren't chicken, hmmm.... so when did we eat this last, no fur, has no odd odor... I was tempted to look back in this post to see how long it was there but no one else reads this why should I... I tried some... waited a few hours and wasn't sick... so we had that for dinner. Lawson had Kraftdinner and Hotdogs... not sure who ate the most sketch dinner us or him. We retired to the bedroom for some TV and sleep, boy did the basement thing with video games and then sleep... I couldn't do anymore photos tonight, just couldn't do it.