Hockey Tournaments

Today, well yesterday as it is 5am while I am writing this, the girls had 2 hockey games each.   We are in Moorhead, MN for a weekend tournament for both 14U and 12U.   Maddie and Paige did ok, winning their first game but losing their second game.  Savannah lost both of her games.

Let me rant a little about Savannah's second game today.  Bemidji played the Portage Terriers from Canada.   End score Portage 8  Bemidji 0.   The refs really stunk...they called everything and anything,  I stopped counting at about 12 penalties on our team alone.  At one point we had three in the box..when the Refs stopped the game and couldn't for the life of them decide which players should be on the ice and which should still be on the bench.  Play was stopped for a good 3-4 minutes while the refs kept changing players on the ice with players in the box???  At one point one of our parents yelled "get out your rule books ref, you have no clue what you are doing. "  At that point I thought for sure that we would get called for heckling the refs, but we didn't.  
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The end result is that it  was a very hard game to watch.  Yes the Portage team had some awesome beautiful goals and did out play us.   But the penalties were being called for things that most refs let slide.   Even the Portage parents were complaining.     At another point a parent mentioned calling in the tournament director and making a complaint.....I just think that next year, maybe we should remember this and choose not to attend this tournament next year.

I ended up leaving, halfway through the 2nd period.  It was just too painful for me, as a mom to watch.  The girls skated hard and were really trying and I can't say that effort was an issue.   The other team just had better players.   I hope that our girls take something away from this experience and make it a positive one regardless of the other idiots on the ice.

I hope that our team looks at each other and strives to work harder to hone their skills and to work together as a team  and maybe next year we can skate on the level that I saw Portage skate on today.