Isn't a spear a kind of pickle?

Little Big-Man had a hockey tournament this weekend. I usually go to his home games because it's kind of fun to watch him skate and see how much he's improved in the 3 years (or so) that he's played. I don't usually go to the away games because it's a little painful to travel for over an hour each way to watch his team get shellacked. Anyway, we traveled on Friday over 3 hours away for a weekend long tournament.

His team got beaten (not terribly, but they lost) on Friday evening. They were in the process of winning the first game on Saturday when the referee blows his whistle and points at my kid. Then he makes a hand signal that I don't recognize. (Let me just interject here that I've been watching hockey for a very long time, but never really learned all the rules.) My kid skates over to the penalty box and the referee waves him out of the rink. Now I'm pissed. There's less than 2 minutes left in the game, but let the kid sit with his team at least.

Then I hear what the call is, "spearing." I think to myself, "He couldn't have speared the kid, he was hooking him!" (Spearing is when you take the blade of your stick and hit another player with it - usually near the ankle or knee in an attempt to take him down. It is very serious and can hurt someone pretty badly. Hooking is when you use your stick like a - well, like a hook - usually on the arm or body. Sometimes you pull them down, sometimes you just distract them enought to get past them.)

Anyway the referee said he "chased the other player down the ice and speared him. That kid went down immediately." Not true, I was watching and the kid never hit the ice. But, the call was made, a 5 minute major with a 1 game suspension. Little Big-Man had to sit out the second game on Saturday. He took it all pretty well and his team shellacked the other team in a 5 to 0 victory. They let him sit in the penalty box with his helmet on, so at least he was with his teammates.

I was feeling kind of bad because during the second half of the game, his head was bent down and he was sitting in there looking dejected. Then Hub told me, "Yeah, he was a little bored, so he was playing with someone's GameBoy." So much for object lessons.

Here's what I learned this weekend, I really do knit faster and tighter watching my kid play. I had to rip out part of Sassy's stocking, because I was paying more attention to the hockey game than to the knitting. Here's an updated photo:


Sassy checks my progress and says, "Well, let me know when it's done." Should be sometime this week. I also (finally) finished one mitten. Since it's been so cold here, maybe I should finish the second one before spring. Too much to do!