Hockey Day Hopkins

For all of you not in-the-know, Saturday 1/21/12 was deemed Hockey Day Minnesota by Fox Sports North. This brilliant marketing scheme has allowed a regional television station to manufacture a "holiday" to celebrate hockey. Mr. Mom is a big hockey fan. Plus, three cheers for capitalism. So, good for FSN in coming up with this idea. But the marketing blitz surrounding this day can be a little much at times for those of us sports fans out there who are listening to sports talk radio all day. Especially for a sports fan like Mr. Mom, who grew up in a repressed, unfortunate land where, last I checked, was still part of Minnesota, but alas hockey was not part of the local culture/vernacular. Regardless, this Hockey Day Minnesota idea works for Mr. Mom on several levels, and this year, one member of FroFamily, Inc. got directly involved.

Our incomparable B had his regular Saturday morning Mini-Mites hockey practice on Saturday at 8:40 a.m. A little early on a Saturday for Mr. Mom's taste, considering the prep time required by B to get dressed, eat breakfast, get to the rink, and suit up. But B is truly loving hockey, so it is more than worth it. Plus, if we didn't get him there, there would be no way we could stay in the running for the coveted Parents of the Year award.

As usual to start off the day, the kids have about 10 minutes of free skating to get warmed up and let the stragglers get dressed and onto the ice. Then Coach Chad blows the whistle and the kids all skate/coast/slide/crawl in to the pre-practice huddle at center ice. On this day however, Coach Chad tells his group of nodding and enthusiastic 5-6 year olds about Hockey Day Minnesota, and that they will be a part of this special day by helping a team warm-up this morning in preparation for a big game later that afternoon. This appeared to receive only mild interest from the kids until Coach Chad told them that, after practice, they could go home and watch this team's big game on TV. Now we're cookin'. Someone they know on TV? What could be better?

So, the curiosity of the Mini-Mites is piqued. Who is this team? We can watch them on TV? We could someday get on TV for being hockey players? This is greatest thing to hear since last night's "Who wants desert?" The Mini-Mites begin to do some practice drills and fight against their collective ADD by randomly looking around the arena to see if anything is going on off the ice. Then, through the doors of the arena walks in a group of high school boys coming from a bus. It is the #1 ranked Duluth East Greyhounds, last year's state tournament runner-up. The Hounds head into the locker room to change and the Mini-Mites start doing their drills with an added fervor. Then, with about 10 minutes left in practice, the Hounds take the ice and start flying around the rink. The mouths of the Mini-Mites drop and they watch in awe for a moment before they remember they are in the middle of practice themselves.

Coach Chad blows the whistle to signal another center ice huddle, and the little Hopkins Mini-Mites find themselves shoulder-to-shoulder, or should I say shoulder-to-waist, with these high school boys. Hounds Coach Randolph says hello to the Mini-Mites and off they all go to play in one of the most chaotic hockey scenes ever imagined. Pucks everywhere. 5-year-olds trying to score on fully uniformed high school goalies. Mini-Mites passing back and forth with 17-year-olds. 40-inch tall kids doing face-offs with 6 ft.+ giants. Simply terrific. Every face in the arena (coaches, high school players, Mini-Mites, and parents alike) had a huge smile on it. Not to wax nostalgic, but hopefully this is exactly what FSN had in mind when spearheading this Hockey Day Minnesota concept.

Too bad those nice kids from Duluth lost to the hated Minnetonka Skippers later that day. But, at least I hope they take to heart that they made a good impression on our little B and that they probably had about 25 extra Mini-Mite viewers for the game, most of which I'm sure would not have had watching a hockey game on their radar screen for that day when they woke up in the morning.

Good stuff. Plus, someone brought doughnuts for the kids for after practice. Double nice.