Player of the Day!!!

Finally after 14 weeks of hockey Tobyn gave the game his full effort and he was rewarded!
Steve is the coach of T's hockey team and with him being away things haven't gone quite as smoothly as he would have liked. Mind you if he had done the organising prior to leaving a bit better...? Last week the Dad that Steve had spoken too didn't realise he was it? Go figure. But he coached and was a great coach, and they drew and had a pretty great game. This week was a totally different story! Our team was playing the team that our really good friend coaches. I thought that would be OK and he would be understanding knowing that Steve was away. The game was at 10am and at 9.55 there were only 4 team members! It is 7 aside hockey so obviously that wasn't going to work. The other coach was happy to wait until 5 past and he also said that his daughter could play for our team if we needed. I thought that was very understanding. Fortunately we did end up with 6 players, but this meant that all the kids would have to play the WHOLE game, 20 mins/half. Normally they have 3 subs so we knew they were going to be exhausted. The first half they did great, backed each other, ran and even scored a goal. It was so wonderful to see T get in there and tackle and hit the ball and RUN! Half time came around and I said to the other coach that we were appreciative of R playing for us but we were still short, 2 players hadn't turned up. He said we couldn't use R again. So I suggested we play 6 aside and he said well the rules are.....Now I am all for rules at the right age group, these kids are 8,9 and 10, they just want to play, well at least our team do. Of course they all want to win but come on a little give and take. Anyway, our guys played 6 on 7 and they were troopers, they got whipped but they should take heart in the fact that they played, they all played a WHOLE game and they were a great TEAM! A couple of the Mums said that they wanted to give T the POD trophy and I said totally up to you, of course he would be thrilled and he hasn't received it yet. When they announced he was POD his face was priceless, he was so chuffed! And so was his Mum.

Of course I didn't have the camera so O took this photo after we got home. What a mission to get a photo, he hates having his photo taken and won't smile, so this was the best of about 40 photos. But at least I have the photo and there is a story behind that too.