Ocean City — The Decisive Point

The season wraps up near the end of March with a tournament in Ocean City, Maryland. The first game is at 12:30 on a Friday. It’s a three-hour drive to the hotel which means pulling the kids out of school on a Friday. I will always preach academics and school before sports, but this is a once-a-year opportunity for Brendan and our family. Jill and Sabrina make the trip with us, making it a family event. Given the lack of travel for the past year, a short vacation, even if it’s driven by a hockey tournament is something we need.

Our family wakes up a little before 6 in the morning to get ready for the 3 ½ hour drive to Ocean City. I get the kids up, fed, and dressed while Jill drops off our dog at the kennel the weekend. It’s dark, it’s raining, and it’s windy, but other than that it’s perfect weather. The drive itself is uneventful, although it’s the first time we cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (CBBT). The bridge is a bit over 17 miles long, and about halfway across you get the felling like you are driving in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Observing some rather large cargo ships to our left and right only add to that experience. Brendan asks us when the bridge was built, followed by Jill asking Siri the same question. The CBBT opened in 1964, which serves as a reminder that we are still living off of the infrastructure investments of the Eisenhower administration. I like Ike!

At about 11 we arrive at out hotel in Ocean City. The hotel has a COVID-19 protocol. As we enter, the staff checks our temperature, and reminds us to keep our masks on in all places apart from our rooms. Brendan’s first game is at 12, so we scurry to the elevator, walk into the room, and put Brendan’s equipment on. We walk out onto the balcony which overlooks the inside of the hotel with the ice surface in the center. The best description I can think of when we are on the ice is the atmosphere of a prison. There are people in their balconies overlooking the ice rink cheering for one team or another. All that is missing is flaming toilet paper raining down on us from above.

*Thank goodness nobody threw toilet paper from the balconies*

We hang out in the room until about 10 minutes before game time (another COVID protocol), then head down to the ice for the first game of the weekend.

Each game consists of two 15-minute running clock periods. The rink is smaller than the kids are used to and does not have the high boards or glass surrounding the ice surface. The ice is also a bit slower than the kids are used to, but this aspect is a good thing on the smaller ice surface. Indeed, with a smaller ice surface, kids skate, stop, and turn more often than on a normal rink which will better develop nearly every skill within their games.

The first game has a strange ebb and flow to the contest. The Prowl take a quick 3-1 lead, but then let up a series of unanswered goals. At the end of the first half, we find ourselves behind 6-3. Towards the middle of the send half, our team wakes up and pulls out to a 9-8 lead. Unfortunately, the lead does not hold, and with about 42 seconds remaining, our opponents score the final goal of the contest which ends in a 9-9 tie. There are not shootouts, and just like a tie in every sport at every level, everyone is a bit disappointed. However, the bright side of the match is that most of the team had just spent 3-4 hours in car, and the opening game got the rust out of them.

The noon game is our only game on Friday. We watch the other Prowl Team play their game which they win comfortably. The two Prowl teams then have time reserved in the indoor pool for the kids to play (another COVID protocol, time is set aside for each team to use the pool). It never amazes me how much energy 6–8-year-old children can burn. Children at that age don’t just have a second wind, they have a third, a fourth, and fifth…and probably some more after that. We wind down the evening by watching some more games from our balcony, and I use the time to ask Brendan about what he sees happening on the ice. He points out when players are out of position, and he is quick to identify the better players on each team. Surprisingly he can also pick apart some of the action, calling out players for not seeing an open teammate for a pass. At the Mites level, passing happens, but most players are still comfortable skating it up the ice on their own and shooting. Typically, at the first sight of pressure from the opposing team, the average Mite will either shoot the puck or blindly throw the puck down the ice, and there is no icing in Mites. I get the feeling that simply watching games up close, at a speed he identifies with can help to build hockey sense, which is a sperate skill from skating and shooting. Hockey sense, along with on ice leadership, coachability, and attitude are some of the intangibles you can’t rate in a skills competition but are often what separates the best hockey players from the players with the best hockey skills.

Saturday

The alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning, making this the wake-up time two days running. Our first game is at 6:40 AM, and we are the second game of the day. Brendan and I each have a banana, and Brendan drinks some juice while I sip on my first coffee of the day, knowing I am going to drink coffee by the barrel today. We get dresses in our dimly lit hotel room while Jill and Sabrina continue to sleep. I think about waking them up to see if they want to watch but think the better of it. Two days of waking up before sunrise can take its toll kids, a lesson we will learn later in the afternoon.

Our game isn’t competitive, and we win 14-7, with every player but our goalie scoring at least one goal. We jumped to an early lead and soon were up by four goals. By going up four goals the other team switches to a smaller net, which makes it a bit harder to score. From my standpoint it makes no sense why an 8 and under tournament didn’t use the smaller nets as the norm for all teams. The point when the referee stops the game to change it out feels a bit humiliating. The kids don’t pay much attention, and both teams continue to skate hard, but the disparity of both size and skill between the two teams remains, and the game never really gets close.

Blowout games are never fun. Kids seem to enjoy them when they are winning but hate them when they are losing. As an adult, playing in a blowout game isn’t much fun no matter which bench you sit on. Indeed, when you play teams and skaters with lesser skills it can lead to overconfidence, laziness, and the buildup of bad habits. If skating at 70%, or not executing breakouts properly, and not playing in the right position still leads to victory, players fall into these routines. It then comes as a shock as they advance in age and in levels of the game when everyone else does the right thing, and you can’t rely on the mistakes of the opposition to win.

By 7:30 the game is over, and Brendan and I head to the hotel room to shower and change. We do this, then grab breakfast. We finish eating and its just past 9, and our next game doesn’t start until 2:30 in the afternoon. I have no idea what to do for the next five hours. We walk back to the room as Jill and Sabrina are getting their own day started. They plan on getting breakfast, then doing some shopping in the Ocean City area. Brendan and I lay down on the beds, turn on the TV and just try to chill. I eventually go back to reading while Brendan plays some games on his IPad.

Our second game of the day begins on a high note. Brendan scores the first goal of the game off a feed from Wyatt about 10-seconds into the match. We build an early 4-1 lead and our team hits a brick wall. The kids start watching the play instead of being involved in it. Players don’t skate back to the defensive zone, passing ends abruptly, and at the end of the game the scoreboard reads 12-4, with the Prowl on the short end. We are now 1-1-1, and will have a final game on Sunday. All the kids on the team are frustrated, a few of them yell at each other, trying to find an excuse or someone to blame for the loss. For the first time as a youth hockey coach, I see the kids losing focus and not enjoying the game.

It’s hard to figure out what happened in this game. Certainly, waking up before 6 the last two mornings had an impact, as did playing their third game in two days. For several of our Mites, to include Brendan, this is the most hockey he has ever played over a three-day span. Coach Joe and I talk after the game to try to figure it out, to try to think through a game plan, and to develop a way to motivate the kids after the game. For now, everyone heads up to their rooms to wash off, change, and attend the team pizza dinner later that night.

As we wait for dinner, I have some time to reflect on some of the broader aspects of what I am watching in Ocean City. For Brendan and I, and indeed for many of the families and their hockey players this is the first time we are watching our kids skate against other kids away from the Hampton Roads area. I had some trepidation that other teams would bring in 8-year old Conner McDavids and Sydney Crosbys, but was relived to see everyone hold their own. Granted, we are still playing other communities in the South, where kids can’t go into the backyard and ice skate and play hockey on their backyard rink 6 months out of the year, but that just gives our kids the advantage of being multi-sport athletes. I had the same nervousness when I took Sabrina and Brendan to their first tennis tournament in Richmond. In the same manner I watched both my kids hold their own while they played complete strangers. They won some, and they lost some, and for the most part like all the kids in Lake Wobegon, were above average.

The hotel reserves a banquet room for each team on Saturday evening. We order pizzas for the kids on both Prowl teams which leads to an insight from the earlier games. The theory is that all the kids are burning so much energy, that their normal eating habits just weren’t enough to sustain them through the last game. I think there is something to it, as the large meal seems to reenergize the team. Young kids seem to have an unlimited amount of energy, but that energy needs fuel. The strain of waking up at 5:30 AM on consecutive mornings, with long drives and hockey games took its toll and burned through all the kids had. Word would come down that Sunday’s game would be late in the morning meant the large dinner would be followed by a good night’s rest, and hopefully a better outcome on the ice.

Sunday

Our final game begins at 1050 on Sunday morning. I still wake up at 6, as keeping a steady sleep schedule is a part of managing migraines (more on that later). Waking up at 6 in Ocean City does come with its advantages. I grab a cup of coffee and my camera, walk to the beach, and watch the sunrise. I’m not the only one with this idea, as by 10 minutes until sunrise about 10 others walk out into the sand and stare into the ocean. This is my first time watching a sunrise over the Atlantic since an Anniversary trip Jill and I took to the Dominican Republic. Watching the sun pop out over the horizon, seeing the blend of yellow, pink, orange, and blue is spiritual. It’s calming and serves as a reminder that no matter what happens today there is a tomorrow. The world moves on indifferent to life’s trivial problems.

The entire family sleeps in, giving me the opportunity to sit on the balcony with a second cup of coffee and start reading my next book. I’m jumping into Matterhorn, as a whole lotta people I know and respect recommend it. I’m also able to watch some early games from the balcony. One should always take advantage when an opportunity comes to watch a hockey game in person. It doesn’t matter if it’s an 8 and under mites game, a high school game, high level juniors, or the NHL. At some point in the game someone is going to do something that seems unbelievable. An impossible save by a goalie, a no look behind the back pass that goes tape-to-tape, or a Gordan Bombay style triple deke. And while these ridiculous plays will always be on YouTube for professional athletes, the moment after a young kid does it, it’s gone forever only to remain in the memory of those who saw it.

One of the truisms of youth sports is that you never know how a child will react to the situation they are put in. Following a devastating loss, our kids return to the ice determined to win. Our opponents score the first goal early in the game, but from that point on the Prowl control everything. The puck stays on the opponents end of the ice for most of the game. Our kids constantly attack the puck, we control the tempo and by the end of the first half we are up 9-3. There is more of the same in the second half, and when the horn sounds to end the game the scoreboard reads 12-4, and the Prowl are celebrating like they just won the Stanley Cup, but it’s all the same when you’re 8 years old. Winning is winning, and the size of the trophy doesn’t matter.

The team lines up to receive the medal, and we receive a team trophy for the tournament. We gather for a team photo, and it’s one that I will print out and keep in my office. Jill, Brendan, Sabrina, and I then head up to the hotel room to change, pack up the equipment, and hit the road.

We depart the hotel but stop across the street to pick up some lunch on the way back to Williamsburg. There is a restaurant across the street that makes good burgers and sandwiches, thus we go inside to get some food. Surprisingly, at 12:30 on a Sunday, there is a drunk patron at the bar. The bartender is refusing to serve him anymore drinks, and one of the waitresses asks him nicely for his car keys, which to his credit he hand over to her. As I watch this unfold, I think of the final scene from the original Bad News Bears. It now occurs to me the subtle genius behind it. The Bears and the Yankees just played the most important game of their lives, and as they celebrate and run around the field, the camera pans out showing the traffic in the background. The world is going about its day, completely unconcerned with what is happening on the little league baseball field. All the emotions, all the intensity, the last second goals and the impossible saves, kids skating around the holding a trophy in their hands while parents snap pictures and livestream the game on Facebook. The universe is indifferent.