Today was the big wrap up day for hockey – the annual Beginner Fun Day. For the third year the Simcoe Learn to Play teams participated in the fun day. Learn to Play is a unique program started by my father, who works a lot with Development in the OMHA. The program is for 3 and 4 year olds who have never played hockey before, and most of them can’t skate when we start in September. I have been helping my dad with the Beginner program for years (the level above LTP) and also helped him when he started up LTP 3 years ago. The past two years Kaitlyn has participated in the LTP program and in the fall she will be graduating to Beginner. We may put Eileen in LTP this fall but not sure right now. All of these programs are part of the Canadian Hockey Initiation Program.
We love hockey in our house but we were very happy to see today come for two reasons: it is so much fun for the kids, and it means hockey season is over for the year. Today was especially cool for us as it merged two of our favourite things: hockey and books. Kaitlyn’s team played two 24 minutes games and they had a one hour break in the middle where they could eat lunch (hotdogs provided) and hang out in the fun room. For the first time this year we had the people from the Brady Brady book series at the Fun day. This is a great series of kids books for any child who loves hockey, and we had an arena full of them. The illustrator Chuck Temple was there today and he was signing books for kids and drawing illustrations for them. Of course each of my own three kids got to pick a book and we got them signed (Kaitlyn’s picked Michael’s for him). There was a special treat for the two LTP teams. The really Brady Brady (well it was a mascot costume) came on the ice with them. He played goalie during part of their game and then he gave them their trophies at the end. With the exception of one poor little guy who was terrified of Brady Brady, most of the kids were thrilled! A great day and a great way to wrap up the season!
Mommy's Lessons 