Well our bags are packed and we are ready to go. Well half of it is true. Our team is ready to go to the SHI this year. But, our bags are not packed yet.
Did I say bags? Maybe I should have said our new hockey bags. We are on our second set of hockey bags. Hockey bags, like other hockey gear, don’t last forever.
After all, how many times can you wheel them in out of rinks before they start to look like the ice after a long skate?
Between Hazel Park and a number of other rinks in the area, Royal Oak, Troy, Fraser, Joe Louis, ONXY, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, Lakeland, and Munn Arena in East Lansing our hockey bags have gotten around again this year.
Thirteen of them just recently came back from a long road trip to the seventh annual USA Disabled Hockey Festival in Blaine, MN, where we played three teams from St. Louis and Minnesota (2-1). After the Festival, they headed back home to join the rest of the team for a trip to Munn Arena to play the MSU Club Hockey team.
One more practice this weekend and they’ll be ready to go to the big Special Hockey show in Marlboro, MA. Where they will help carry our hockey gear to the 17th Annual Special Hockey International (SHI) Tournament.
This will be our team’s 9th anniversary attending these special needs hockey tournaments. They say this year’s will be the biggest ever with 64 teams and 900 players.
When we board the team bus on the 28th of this month, we will be heading to MA with a pretty good idea of what we will be doing the rest of the week. Something we’ve been looking forward to since we started our season last September, another chance to attend the SHI Tournament to play a lot of hockey.
Each of our two teams will play four games this year at the SHI. A couple of the teams we’ve played a number of times at the SHI and USA Hockey Festivals.
Most of our players know the Washington Ice Dogs and Brampton Battalion teams. Over the years, they have lost to them, tied them, and beaten them.
Each of our squads will be playing new teams, too. It will be interesting to see how we match up against the best team in Europe, the London Werewolves and one of Canada’s finest, the North Bay North Stars.
Last year we came back from the SHI Tournament in Orangeville, ON with a 5-1 record. We felt pretty good about that. We played some good hockey against some good teams.
Now none of our games are in the bag yet, but you can bet there’s a lot of hockey and heart left in those new bags!
Coach Ben