moos backup: High School Hockey

Tonight after dinner we went over to the local ice rink to watch some high school hockey. The girls love doing this, and it's a pretty cheap evening of entertainment since they get in free and Mom is only $5.

They like to tell everyone how old they are. In the photo below they are announcing their ages to the raffle girl, who looks suitably impressed.

Then they "played" the race car game while Mom got popcorn. Someday they will figure out that this game actually takes quarters, and then we will be in trouble. For now they are quite happy to just shift gears and turn the steering wheels.

They made their usual request for "juice" from the machine, and were again denied. Mom's official stance on this is that water from the drinking fountain tastes just as good, is better for them, and is free.

Then we made the long climb to the top of the bleachers....

...and settled in to eat our popcorn and watch some hockey (Skowhegan vs. Mt. Ararat).

The girls like hockey, and tonight Emily was especially full of questions (What does the goalie do? Why are they wearing striped shirts (the refs)? Why is he sitting in that box (penalty box)? etc. etc. etc.). But you can see in the video below that the popcorn is probably the biggest motivator to come to the rink. They really love their popcorn!

The game was pretty good, although Skowhegan was dominating and we happened to be sitting with the fans from the other team, so we heard a lot of complaining about the referees.

Even though this is officially boys' hockey, the starting goalie for Skowhegan is a girl (and she's really good). Girls' hockey is a varsity high school sport in Maine, but not every school has enough players to field a team. If the school doesn't have a girls' team, girls can play on the boys' team if they are good enough.

Skowhegan had their pep band on hand, so we went and checked them out. Em and Kate thought the band was pretty cool, and they even did a little dancing.