Pittsburgh Tournament Weekend

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I know I’ve been absent for a week, but JJ’s hockey team had a tournament in Pittsburgh last weekend!  What follows is a very long and picture-heavy recap of the tournament and my attempt to navigate the trip while trying to stay healthy.

The biggest challenge to the weekend, for me, was the fact that the entire team rented a bus that we all took to Pittsburgh. I’m not one who enjoys giving up control of my road trips, especially now that I’m trying to eat better. One of the ways I try to stay health-conscious and save money is by packing healthy snacks and bringing a lot of food with me. I was worried that there wouldn’t be room for my cooler and all my other food prep necessities, along with 16 hockey bags, but there’s a surprising amount of room underneath that bus!I was able to pack a cooler full of milk, fruit, sandwich fixings, and all the ingredients to make dinner on Saturday. I also recently purchased two Thirty-One utility totes, with inserts and lids. I managed to fit lots of good snacks like granola bars, Thinwich buns, pretzels, nuts, and okay, and some Rice Krispie treats for JJ. In addition, I managed to fit in a crockpot, toaster, and cappuccino maker. Because there was no way I was living without my coffee and an English muffin every morning! 😉 I was really amazed at how much the two totes held, and how easy they were to carry.IMG_7958

Not to mention how stylish they were with the monogrammed hockey logo. 😉 One of our school moms is a distributor for this product, and it was her idea for me to get this when I asked her for suggestions on how to navigate hockey tournaments while conserving space. I absolutely love them!

OK, enough with the Thirty-One advertisement. 😉 I was, as expected, the last one to show up for the bus, but I made it! One of the moms had joked during all the pre-trip communications that someone needed to bring the ingredients for mimosas, and everyone was thrilled to discover that I took them seriously.

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Yes, we were the party bus, for sure. 😉

Once we got on the road, it was nice to be able to work on my blog as our driver, Darnell, navigated the route. It was going well until we got a couple of hours into the trip. Darnell had been concerned about something mechanical on the bus, and when we stopped at a toll road travel center, he determined that the bus would not make it all the way to Pittsburgh. Oh dear. 😮 That meant we had to stay at the travel area for two hours while we waited for another bus. I’m sure the people at the travel center were thrilled to have 30 kids ages 10 and under running around for two hours, plus their parents. :p Still, it was better than being stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and we made the best of it. When we learned that the bus was close, we all went outside and started unloading the “old” bus and waited in the parking lot. As kids will do, they managed to find a way to entertain themselves.

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Remember when you were nine, and your greatest goal in life was to get a trucker to honk his horn? 😉 I saw a lot of smiling truckers drive past, all sounding their horns for the 30 kids waving at them. 🙂

Soon we were back on the road, and headed to Pittsburgh. Thankfully, the rest of the trip was uneventful, and our two-hour delay simply meant that we couldn’t stop at the hotel before heading to the ice arena.

As we prepared for the first game, I wondered how our boys would fair this weekend. I’m not going to lie, both of my boys’ teams have had very difficult seasons. In fact, between the two teams, I think we have four wins, and about 40 losses. No lie. 😮 For JJ’s team, this is been especially challenging, because we know these boys have a lot of talent; they just haven’t seemed to be able to get it together. In their first tournament last fall, they got smacked down pretty bad. 🙁

Unfortunately, as often happens when a team is losing, there’s been some grumbling, and some outright dissension among some of the parents and coaches.  However, everyone agreed to put their differences aside in hopes that the boys would have a good weekend–even if they didn’t win a single game.

The boys actually played well the first game, but the goalie from the other team was pretty amazing, especially for a nine or 10-year-old. It was definitely a good, close game, but our boys ended up losing 3-2. Still, most parents were actually pretty happy with that, considering we lost by a lot more during most of our games that season.

After the game, we finally made it to the hotel, which was right in downtown Pittsburgh. We had a great view on the way in.

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Not that you would know by that crappy cell phone picture. 😉  Sorry, I tried.

Unfortunately, the downside to staying “downtown” is that the hotels are pricier, and have less free amenities. They’re catering to business travelers, not hockey teams. So, no fridge, no microwave, and no free breakfast. :/ Thus, the reason why I was so intent to pack as much food as I could. On the bright side, the hotel was beautiful, and everything was very neat and clean and new. For the heck of it, when I checked in, I asked what type of room I was getting, and then I asked what was the next level up from that type.  The clerk told me that a corner room would be next, but that he didn’t have any available due to the Bruce Springsteen concert and the bridal show in town. I told him that was fine, it didn’t hurt to ask, but the next thing I knew, he was handing me two keys and saying, “You know what, I think I can work something out.” The next thing I knew, I had a corner room, at no additional charge. Since it was free, I didn’t expect much, but when I got to the room, I was pleasantly surprised: it was much bigger than everyone else’s room!

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It also had a fantastic view.  Like I always tell my kids, it never hurts to ask, as long as you do it in a polite, friendly manner! 🙂

A good majority of the team went out to a local restaurant for dinner, but I asked JJ if we could stay back, so that I could unpack, and we could get to bed early. Our Saturday morning game was at 7 AM, which meant we had to be there by 6:15 AM, which meant I had to be ready and on the bus by 5:45. Me, the chronically late hockey mom of the universe. :p  JJ agreed, and we had turkey sandwiches with some fruit and some pretzels, with a Rice Krispie treat for JJ’s dessert, and a chocolate chip cookie from my friend Jen for me. (Jen makes the best chocolate chip cookies on the planet!)

The next morning, I was once again the last person on the bus, but I was there on time, bowl of coffee in hand (my coffee cup is…big). I got a lot of good-natured ribbing for my coffee, as everyone else grumbled about having to endure hotel room coffee at oh-dark-hundred.  😉

We made it to the first game on time, and the boys seemed pretty alert and ready to go. I’m thrilled to say that they were on fire Saturday morning, and ended up winning by a score of 7-0!

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Lots of good passing and skating, and JJ even got an assist!

After the game, we headed to a local breakfast place, which was surprisingly able to accommodate all 50 of us!  I actually didn’t stay for breakfast; since I had left my GoPro charger back at the room, I went back to the hotel with the bus driver to get the spouses and siblings that had chosen not to be ready at 5:45 AM. :p

Game two was at noon, and because the restaurant was challenged to serve 50 people at one time, things were a bit slow. Poor Dominic, for instance, ended up being the last person to get a meal, and he was last by quite a bit. He was getting understandably frustrated as meal after meal came out, and his still wasn’t anywhere to be found.  Of course, that’s going to happen when you have a group that large, and all the kids were so generous in letting Dom have parts of their meal.  A couple of the dads joked with Dom that if he scored a goal in the second game, we’d let him eat dinner. 😉 He did end up getting his breakfast, but the poor kid had to scarf his meal down quickly before rushing to the bus.

We were running just a little bit behind as we finished breakfast and got on the bus, but thankfully, the restaurant was just a short ways down the road from the rink. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the bus driver that there were two roads with the same name, and he ended up taking us 20 minutes away to the wrong road! By then, we were really cutting it close, but he turned around and got us back as quickly as he could, and the boys rushed into the rink, hurried up and dressed, and we’re out on the ice with a couple of minutes to spare.

That game was very intense. It didn’t start out that way…we were actually leading 4-1 with about 3.5 minutes to go in the game. Unfortunately, our boys tend to be a little feisty, and the next thing we knew, we had back to back penalties, which meant a 5-on-3 for the other team. 😮 The team was good, and suddenly, it became 4-3 with 2.5 minutes to go. The next 2.5 minutes were incredibly intense, but our boys, who have had games fall apart at the last minute before this season, managed to hold it together, stay out of the box, and win their second game!

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And guess who managed to score not one, but two goals?  No, not JJ… Dominic! 😀 I guess he wanted to make absolute sure that he got dinner Saturday night.  😉

As you can imagine, it was a pretty happy group that boarded the bus at 1:30 that afternoon. 🙂 Plans had already been made for a late team lunch at 3:15 at a local restaurant, but I knew that I wanted to get in a short run before dinner, since the super-early wake up call had eliminated any chance of my usual Saturday morning run. My awesome friend Jen agreed to take JJ to the pool with her kids while I went out and ran for fun miles in Pittsburgh.

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If you’ve never been to Pittsburgh, it’s a pretty neat city, especially in how it’s the meeting place of three Rivers. Lots of cool bridges, and I enjoyed being able to run over the Allegheny River and then back.

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I even got a chance to get my picture taken at “the point,” the spot where all three rivers meet.

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I believe that’s Heinz stadium in the background.  But don’t quote me!

My run was slow, but I stopped to take lots of pictures, and I still managed to burn 400 calories, so it was a great experience all the way around. I would love to do a race in this town sometime!

I managed to get back and take a quick shower, and still be on time for the lunch date. It was quite an experience, herding a couple of dozen kids through downtown Pittsburgh, but we got them all there in one piece. In fact, we even had a brush with fame: at one point, we got to a corner, and there were dozens of people milling around in front of a building, presumably a hotel.

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We found out later that Bruce Springsteen, who is in town for a concert, was supposed to be coming out at any moment. The kids couldn’t care less, but the parents were pretty impressed. 😉

At dinner, one of the dads bought a round of drinks, but I didn’t know that until after I’d already ordered one of the most expensive drinks on the menu. 😉

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That’s a cognac Cosmo, and it was quite good. Though most of the team treated the meal as dinner, I had food back at the room, and I knew that if we were eating at 4 PM, JJ and I would be starving by 8pm. So, I chose to get a salmon salad.

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The salmon was delicious, but I was rather disappointed that there was so little greens. :/ (Sorry it’s turned wrong…it’s late and I’m tired, lol!)

All the parents and kids had a great time at the restaurant, and they accommodated us pretty well.  After we were done, we went back to the room, where most of the kids went swimming. There was a hot tub, and I had brought my bathing suit, so even though there were a ton of kids in it, I had to go down and give it a try.  And I want you all to know that even though I had to walk into that pool area in front of dozens of hockey parents, including all the ones on my own team, I still wore my two-piece black bikini.  I won’t lie, it’s still hard to wear it in public without feeling self-conscious, but I’m getting better at it, and I was really proud of myself for going so far out of my comfort zone. 🙂  (And I’m sure the reality is that no one cared.)

I didn’t stay in the pool too long, but I did stick around long enough for a shot of some sort of Rumchata Fireball beverage. Way too strong for my taste, but it was fun to toast the day with the rest of the hockey families. After I’d had enough of all the kids, I went back upstairs, where I changed into my comfortable clothes and worked on pictures and video.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I had managed to snag a corner room, which was bigger than anybody else’s. A couple of JJ’s friends came down to find him, and when I opened the door and they looked inside, their eyes got really wide. “Dude!” they exclaimed. “We could ALL play mini sticks in YOUR room!”  Like most hotels, they forbid the kids to play mini sticks in the hallways, but they are less concerned if it’s confined to a room. For most people, the rooms would be too small, but not mine. Uh-oh…

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Yes, they all ended up in my room. One point, I had 17 kids in my room. Say what??? I kept sending out Facebook and text messages to the other families, telling them that they owed me for being the tournament babysitter 😉 , but the truth was, I had a great time. The kids were so excited to be able to play mini sticks, and they were so geeked about how much room they had. I had a ball watching them and listening to their crazy antics. I only had to break up one or two fights, and everyone had a blast. I would actually say that was probably the off-ice highlight of my weekend. 🙂

By the time they all got bored with many sticks and went off to do other things, it was about 8 PM, just in time for me to have dinner.  Thanks to my forethought of packing a crockpot, a large cooler, two jars of my homemade spaghetti sauce, and the meatballs my husband had made the night before, I had a delicious dinner of spaghetti, homemade meatballs, and pasta, as well as fresh crusty bread I’d brought from home. Way better than going out to a restaurant in paying too much money, and trying to wait for 50 people to be served. :p JJ also enjoyed his late dinner, and I’ve decided that I will definitely be doing that for the next tournament.

The next morning, we had the “late” game…late being 8:30. 😉 However, I still had to be up fairly early, because we had to pack everything in the bus, since we weren’t coming back to the hotel, regardless of the outcome of the game. At that point in the tournament, we were 2-1, which was pretty awesome in its own right for our boys.  However, if we won our last game, we would actually go to the championship. For this team that has struggled all season, this was a pretty big deal!

I was able to get us packed up and ready to go, and still managed to get my coffee and English muffin. I tell you what, I’m getting better at this hockey tournament thing. 😉  At the rink, once again, the boys came out firing strong, and although they letd in a few sloppy goals at the end, they still managed to win 8-4, and well, what do you know? The struggling team from Michigan with only two wins all year was headed to the championship game!

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Say what????

We had several hours in between games, so we found another location of that same restaurant we had dined at the previous morning, and descended upon them, all 50 of us, for brunch.

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It was a crazy, celebratory atmosphere, and I decided to splurge:

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I probably shouldn’t have, but when you find a little diner that has eggs Benedict, you have to get it! It was delicious. Every last bite. 😉

We made it back to the rink with a lot more time to spare at this time, and the boys headed into the locker room, ready to gear up for one last game in Pittsburgh. We were playing the same team that we had lost to on Friday evening by one goal. That team had gone on to win all of their qualifying games, while we had gone 3-1. Many of our parents had actually hung out with parents from that team the night before, because we were all staying on the same floor. A lot of good-natured rivalry talk had already started, since that team knew they were going to be in the championship, and we were feeling pretty good about our chances as well. And lo and behold, there we were, at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, facing off at center ice for the championship!

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That game definitely lived up to the hype. The other team was very good, especially their goalie. It was a battle all the way through. They scored first, and then we scored to tie it at one. Then we scored again, going ahead 2-1, but they scored right before the end of the first period, so the period ended at a 2-2 tie.  My heart was already pounding, and I still had two periods to go!

The second period was an all-out battle, and our boys had to work extra hard, because they couldn’t stay out of the box! If you know anything about hockey, you know that even the best teams can defeat themselves by getting stupid penalties, and that’s true even at nine and 10 years old. :p I believe our boys killed three penalties in the 2nd period, and in fact, they even managed to score a shorthanded goal! (For the non-hockey people, that means that we had a player in the box and therefore were down one man, but we still managed to score even though we had fewer players on the ice than they did at that time. Those are pretty hard to do!) The period ended with us ahead, 3-2.

We started the third period strong, but once again, penalties threaten to do is in.  About three minutes into the third period, the other team scored on a power-play. :/ With nine minutes left to go, it was 3-3. On the next shift, the puck came into our zone, but our goalie made another great stop. When the puck dropped again, our boys were able to get the puck into the offensive zone and get a quick shot on goal, which their goalie blocked but couldn’t cover. It bounced behind the net to one of our forwards, who sent it back out to our center, who was wide open. It took him only a second to set up his shot, then he sent the puck flying, whizzing a shot right over the goalie’s left shoulder–straight into the top corner of the net!!

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Our kids went crazy celebrating.

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But of course…there was still over 7 minutes left to play.  With 6 minutes to go, we got another penalty. :/ Thankfully, we killed that one. Our little goalie was amazing in net!

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Still almost 5 minutes left to play. Both teams really battled it out until about 1:30 left, when the other team called a time out. So, everyone talked things over while we parents sat on the edge of our seats in the stands. Well, except for me; I was on the glass, camera in hand, close to having a heart attack. 😉

When the play started again, there was 1:36 left, and the face-off was in their zone. With exactly 1:01 left, they cleared it, and their coach waved their goalie off the ice. Now they had six skaters to our five, and things were crazy. Our boys tried again and again, but they just could not clear the puck! Finally, our star skater got the puck in the corner and hoisted it down the ice, straight toward their empty net! But, just as the puck slid into the crease in front of the empty net, one of their super-fast defensemen reached it and scooped it out of the way. Argh!! More back and forth, they finally cleared it out of their zone…and then the buzzer went off! We won!!!

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After I took those pictures, I raced around the boards to take the trophy presentation photos, and I can still remember saying under my breath, “I can’t believe they did it!!” 🙂

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It was a great weekend, all the way around, as you can imagine.  The five-hour ride home was a pretty happy one, though we were all tired from a busy, fun-filled weekend.  I’ll admit that my food choices pretty much took a nose-dive on Sunday.  I got caught up in the moment, and when the dad sitting behind me on the bus pulled out the industrial-sized box of GFS chocolate chip cookies and started pushing them on me…well…I caved. :p  I only had two, but that, along with having two dinners thanks to the odd timing of the trip home, made my Monday morning weigh-in less than ideal.

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That’s a 2.4 pound gain from last week.  But I’m not to worried about it, because bright and early Monday morning, I was out running 3 miles at a 9:51 pace at 9 degrees!  I didn’t even hesitate to do it, either, which tells me, more than anything, that I’ve got this weight-loss/maintenance thing under control, and a little hockey celebration isn’t going to derail me.
The most important part of the weekend was that JJ and I had a blast.  Despite our team’s troubles in other areas, this tournament was great, and every kid went home with a championship medal and a big smile.  Personally, I think the happiest kid on the team may be the one who, when handed the trophy to hold for a photo with his coaches, just had to do this:

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I love that kid. 🙂 He played absolutely outstanding at this tournament, and really showed what an amazing little defenseman he’s become. He made a ton of great plays, had several shots on goal, blocked a bunch of shots, and even had two assists. (And only one penalty, ha ha!) I was so incredibly proud of him and how far he’s come since last season, and I can’t wait to see what great things he does next. 🙂

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Thanks for reading!!

4 thoughts on “Pittsburgh Tournament Weekend

  1. Kathy

    I read your blog regularly and am so excited to hear you were in Pittsburgh (my home town). The picture of the football stadium is Heinz Field (where the Steelers and Pitt football play).

    It was fun to read an account of someone visiting my home town! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  2. Cindy R

    Congratulations to your son and his hockey team! What a fun weekend for the team and the parents. I am really impressed by the amount of food along with a coffee maker and crockpot that you packed for the weekend. Now that takes organization and planning!

    Reply
  3. McRuth

    Congrats to JJ! What an exciting tournament win after a tough season – I was dying of excitement and all I was doing was reading the play-by-play!
    And, might I add, you look fantastic in that last picture with JJ. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Meg B

    Oh man I feel like I was reading a recap of a Red Wings game. Go JJ and his team! That is awesome!

    I am super impressed by what you packed. How did you boil the noodles? Or did you bring them pre cooked? That is a genius idea and I will be stealing that in my not so distant hockey tourney future.

    Reply

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