Tier 2 tryouts are underway here in New Jersey. Stressful week! If you have a kid trying out, I encourage you to read my previous post about what coaches are looking for when they are picking teams. I also have an added piece of advice for the older kids from one-time youth hockey coach, now communications director for the NHL, Mike Dilorenzo (aka @umassdilo on Twitter) He says "Hit anything. The other guys, players on your own team, hit the coach if you have to. Hit anything you can find!" Probably very good advice.Mike shared this advice last Wednesday at the 2nd Round NHL Tweetup in NYC. For those of you still not on Twitter, an NHLtweetup is a meeting in the real world where hockey fans (of all teams by the way) get together to watch hockey, talk hockey and have a couple of beers. We had a lot of fun especially because the locale, my friend Paul's bar Hurleys Saloon http://www.hurleysnyc.com/), was a great spot to meet up. We also were lucky enough to have Glenn Anderson, 6x Stanley Cup winner, join us and hang out. He talked to everyone and answered questions during the 2nd intermission of the Penguins game. Here is a link to the video http://www.hockeybarn.com/videos/view.htm?video=175&sort=date_down. See what he says when asked how he feels about ending his career with 498 goals. Ouch! While you're there, you can check out the rest of http://www.hockeybarn.com/, a terrific new site created by Josh Schacter to build an online community of hockey fans, players, parents, coaches etc. Josh organized this latest Tweetup and, we are looking forward to his next event!
If you want to meet some great hockey fans and have a lot of fun for the remainder of the playoffs, get on Twitter. Start with me www.twitter.com/NJHockeyMom and then you'll find lots of great hockey folks from all over in my list of followers.
Also Mike from the NHL also shared that the NHL.com store is offering a discount to all Hockey Tweeps (hockey fans on Twitter). "If you shop at Shop.NHL.com, take 20% off with the code TWEET (case sensitive) through the end of playoffs." Even if you are not on Twitter go check it out. They have overpriced Retro teeshirts that my kids haven't taken off since I bought them. They are super soft/comfy. I'm wearing Zach's Minnesota Wild shirt in the picture above!
My big excitement for the week was that my oldest son, Ian, reffed his first Hockey Games. What a great experience! He's only 12, but he went to an 8 hour seminar, took a test on line, talked to the Coaches at the Ice House to get on the schedule and went out and reffed three games on Sunday. (OK it did suck a little that I had to get up at 6 am on Mother's Day.) I was really proud of him. The best part though, was that he was really proud of himself. He said the only time he got confused was when one of the coaches started screaming about icing, and he almost messed up the call. So remember that when you are yelling at the refs, you may cause them to make a mistake that could hurt your team!
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