Hockey Camp is good.

"MOM is it time yet?"
"No, we have 4 hours before we have to go, now quit nagging me!"
"Maybe I should get my pads and skates on now mom, so I am ready."
"No you don't need to, just go play we will have plenty of time to get ready." We had this same conversation all day, and I am sure it will start again as soon as he gets up!
Finally time comes to get him in all his gear, he dragged his hockey bag from the closet, and we began the processes of placing pads in all the right places. We get his skates on his feet, which I discover I forgot to get sharpened. Having sharp skates is important, without sharp edges it is harder to skate. I put his blade guards on, we got everyone else's shoes on and left for the rink. The whole way there it was all hockey talk, he missed being on the ice. We pulled into the parking lot and the boys were out of the van before I even turned off the motor. I turned in our paperwork, we got a sticker with his name on it for his helmet, and a brand new rocky Mountain Hockey School jersey, which for some reason it is always cool when you get a new jersey so he was very pleased. They took the ice and all took a knee to listen to the coaches. There are 5 coaches up for the camps they are holding here now, all fairly young. They really impressed me, these young men who started early in the morning with the older kids, and had pretty much been on the ice all day, took the ice with our little guys, and they never lost patiences. They worked with our group of 5 to 7 year olds and never tired. These guys really got down on the level of these kids, they made every drill fun for them, and still managed to work their little butts off. I have seen coaches that really have no business being on the ice with kids, the ones who treat the little guys like they are teenagers, or yell and get mad when they don't quite understand something. These guys are really great and I am relieved that they treat the little ones so well, and still manage to teach them a lot of good stuff.