After his last round of soccer lessons, Thomas decided that he wanted to try hockey next. I think his best friend at daycare has been taking skating lessons and of course Thomas wants to play hockey like his best buddy!
We took him down to a frozen pond near the house a few weeks ago to try standing on skates and he actually made it up a few times. He didn't make much progress with locomotion, but he seemed pretty impressed by his friend's skating ability! Then his dada took him to a hockey game, so he has been talking about playing hockey nonstop!
Although we have been telling him it's hockey lessons, it's really just learning to skate at his age. But he has to join the US Hockey Association and the program requires full hockey gear, so it's not *that* much of a difference. As a side note, I had no idea so much gear would be required and we have been scrambling the past two days to get all of it when there is a limited supply for tiny kiddos (somehow we managed!).
The coaches had emailed us that a hockey jersey and socks would be provided. We had no clue that hockey socks are full leg covers and apparently we need to get something to help hold them up. Hockey suspenders or garters? We are totally hockey noobs... "/
All geared up and ready to get skating! The only thing he isn't wearing in this photo is his gloves, but he has a helmet, shoulder/chest pads, elbow pads, padded hockey pants, shin guards and his skates. And the jersey is obviously a bit too big, but they were just temporary jerseys today, we'll see if the real one is any smaller...
And he's probably one of the smallest kids in the class! Look at the other #3 who was waiting next to him for class to start! The class is for 3+, but I think the majority of the other kids are 4+ or more. There were several who had obviously taken lessons already and the coaches split the skating rink by ability so none of the crashers would take out the skaters. Whew!
Before they got on the ice, they practiced sitting down, standing up, kneeling down and standing back up. They are trying to teach them to stand up without using their hands since they will have a stick in their hands when they get to the playing hockey part.
And the mass of kids moves toward the ice! The coaches told them to get on the ice in single file but it was a bit more chaotic than that... Thomas is just to the right of middle in this picture. He managed to get on the ice and take that first step!
Then he was down. He managed to scoot out of the way of everyone getting on the ice, but that was as far as he made it. One of the helper teenagers ended up pushing him down to the goal line because Thomas was not going to try to stand up just then.
Or at all for the first 15 minutes. A few of the helpers tried to get him to stand up, but he was not at all interested. It was a struggle for me to watch him sitting all alone, I am used to being able to help him and coax him into trying things at tumbling and soccer, but we were on the sidelines for this one. Then Coach Allen got down on the ice next to him and talked to him for awhile.
I don't know what was in the pep talk and Thomas was not very enthused at first, but Coach Allen didn't give up on and he got Thomas up on his feet. Thomas even managed to slowly glide over to us on the side before the Coach backed him up and had him try again (and again!). I'm not sure he liked any part of the lessons at the time, but decided later today that part of the skating lesson was fun. Hopefully he'll get the hang of it in the next few lessons and will start to enjoy all the fun activities they do to get the kids more comfortable on skates. Then Matt and I will probably need to brush up on our skating abilities...!
I'm sure you are all wondering how Henry took his brother's new activity. He honestly didn't see to mind all that much. Nonni came with us as well and the two of them watched from the sidelines for a little while before Henry got a little antsy. Then they wandered around the mall for awhile. Henry likes hanging out with his Nonni, so he didn't seem to mind not being able to fall on the ice like his brother. Ha!