Pleasant Surprise!!

[Northern Rancher]

there are about a dozen girls that play boys hockey in our town-most of them do alright but never have much of a chance to compare them to other girls very often. Well we took them to a tournament today and the girls won every game. There were girls there from 7-12 and my eight year old got 4 goals and a bunch of assists. Was good for the girls to be able to play against other girls for a change and they had a blast-we were whipping one team pretty bad so we traded goalies with them but our girls wouldn't score on their buddy-they'd get a breakaway and shoot right at her. It was kind of a fun day-little less intense coaching -we let the girls play all the positions and they just had a ball.

[ranchwife]

congrats, NR!!!!....however, enough talk .....we want pictures!!!!

[Northern Rancher]

Well I was coaching so couldn't take pics but here's Emily (15) right after she scored earlier this winter-she's really lucky our town has alot of really good coaches that do a great job of teaching skills but making it fun-her mom's brothers were all good hockey players and she's got that same nice skating stride they had.We had somuch fun today it almost made up for the Canadian men getting beat by Finland.

[Maple Leaf Angus]

Hey, NR, have you thought of taking over for Pat Quinn? The boys need some help over there.

[Northern Rancher]

Trust me even my darling wife was p'o'ed about Quinn's coaching-you learn in minor novice not to start a penalty kill with tired defencemen-Somebody please buy Dion Phaneuff a plane ticket to Italy-Blake and Pronger can play great 'D' but they are hurt and tired and not handling the big ice surface well-were taking penalties because our feet aren't quick enough right now. I got lucky this weekend the two guys coaching Emily asked if I wanted to go on the bench with them which I thought was pretty nice as they are both great coaches themselves-I just patted backs and put goals in their sticks-that's my own bit of witchcraft but the kids love it-they come off the ice hand me their stick-"coach put a goal in it for me" lol-it works sometimes lol.