My youngest son, who is currently 6 years old, started ringette back in September this year. I started to teach him ice skating last December and he is now a pretty decent skater. His team holds practices once a week and I also bring him to one session of public skate to help him work on his skating skills.

Today was special because he played his first ever game against another entry level team from a different city. We were the visiting team and they had home ice, but our team played well and beat them (I didn't keep track of the score, but it was around 8-4 or so). Specifically, my son scored a hat-trick! The first two goals were him being at an opportune place at the opportune time, where both times, the ring came to him out of a scramble and he seized the opportunities. The third goal though, was a thing of beauty. He had control of the ring, and was being chased and blocked at the same time by the whole other team and his own team (yes, teammates fight for your ring too at this level). He proceeded to turn around, use his speed to skate to the right side of the net, loop around to loose his opponents and his teammates giving himself more room, come back across the net from the left side, fake forehand, and put the ring into the net with his backhand. I jumped out of my seat clapping and cheering when I saw that.

I guess I'm likely to become one of those cheer so loud I'll embarrass my kid, plus shout at the referee and get ejected type of dad. Although the game today was only a friendly game, where most of the kids had no idea how to play or probably didn't even know what was going on, but man, it is exciting to watch your kid score goals (even when it's an entry level friendly game)!