Hockey talkies

I've been under the weather, fighting a death-cold and Elvi's absence. She's in Brussels. It's less expensive for her to fly to Brussels a pay for two weeks' accommodation than it is to pay to use a scanning electron microscope (SEM) at McGill. She can use the Belgian SEM at no cost as long as its owners get co-author status on her paper. Nuts, eh?

As a result of my virus-besieged body and three kids who always seem to need to be different places at once, I'm a little ragged. I chatted with Elvi over Gmail last night. She was also a little ragged, but that was because of the Belgian beer they sell in gay bars.

Child Three tried out his new goalie gloves at practice Friday. It's like those gloves are magic, because he was fantastic. Part of it may be that he looks more like a goalie now, but I was shooting on him and not taking it so easy. He made some brilliant stops on my shots. Two or three times I thought I had the puck by him only to see him rob me with a flash of pad, blocker, or trapper. It was worth the $200 just to see that.

I also tested his throat shield with a wrist shot - no, not on purpose. I was aiming over his shoulder and was off a few inches. The shield works, by the way. He's still able to talk, and to breathe without artificial assistance.

We played two games this weekend. In the first game, we got a goal in a first period in which Child Three stood up to and at times slid in to several good scoring chances. He was eyebrow-raisingly good. He saved that game and broke the other team's morale. They gave up in the third period and we won 6-0. That score doesn't indicate how crucially well Child Three played.

The Sunday game was an easier victory, 6-1. The one puck that beat Child Three was a great shot by a kid skating right and picking the left corner. No shame in that one.

The rest of our team isn't doing too badly either.