Ever since my son started skating and playing hockey, even back to the day when he was a brand new skater pushing a chair around the ice because it was the only way he wouldn’t fall, he has wanted to be a goalie.

To say he is obsessed with being a goalie is an understatement.  He will watch any hockey game on tv, and there is always a hockey game on tv at my house, and sit and watch the goalie intently.

We have tried to steer him away from the goalie obsession, we have downplayed it and ignored it.  There’s nothing wrong with being a goalie, we just thought he should learn the game first, before deciding what position to commit himself to. 

Besides, goalies have kind of a reputation for being weird. 

I don’t make this stuff up.  That’s just what I’ve heard from multiple experienced hockey moms in the know about these things.

Yeah.  So we tried to keep our kid away from the position with the pre-concieved weird stereotype. 

(He is weird enough on his own.)

He hasn’t budged.  He is just as obsessed with  being a goalie as he was when he couldn’t even stand up straight on the ice.

But before a boy can be a goalie, he has to know how to skate.  And play the game.

And it has been a long road of skating lessons, hockey classes and scrimmage teams. 

On Sunday, he finally got the oppurtuntiy to be the goalie that he has wanted to be for so long.

And no one was more proud than I when he got ready to step on the ice with those pads on.

Or sick.  No one was more sick to her stomach with nerves than me either.

And truthfully, I was way more nervous than my son was. 

He skated onto the ice and took warmups in his normal, non-chalant way of doing things.

He didn’t look that great.  Or good, even.  He was having a hard time getting used to the weight of the pads pulling him forward; the chest protector was a lot bigger than his normal one.

The more he fell out there in warm-ups and the more his own team scored on him, the more my stomach started to turn.

I looked at my husband, standing across the rink, and I could read his face.  He thought we were in trouble too.

K went out onto the ice to offer some encouragement to our boy.

And he might’ve said not to lose.

Okay. He didn’t say that.

He just told him not to embarrass his mother.

No.

He didn’t say that either.

But shamefully, I totally thought it.

I know, I know. I’m horrible. But this whole hockeymom thing is a lot of pressure.

The first period of the game started and thank heavens for good defense from the grey team because they kept the puck away from their goalie as much as possible.  Phew.

By the end of the first period the score was 1-1.  We were in it.

And when the second period started, my son found his groove.

And then we started having some fun.

I was still nervous, but it was a fun nervous. Because Hey! My kid didn’t suck out there!

I mean c’mon now. Nobody wants their kid to suck. Right? Right.

And before I knew it, we were in the third period of the game and winning by just one goal.

This would be about the time that I stopped watching. Because the clock was moving very slowly.

And the other team kept shooting the puck at my kid. Couldn’t they figure out he was trying to win a game?

The bleachers were full and the crowd was loud.  There was this loud mom in the stands, clapping and cheering and stomping her feet on the bleachers. She kept standing up to get a better view everytime the puck went near the net. She was so klassy.

The clock finally ran out and my boy’s team won. 3-2.  He held ‘em off.

I wish I could describe the relief, and pride, that I felt at the moment my son’s teammates and coach gathered around him for the tradition of patting the goalies helmet after a win.

I was so happy for him, that he did a good job, that he had success at something he had worked so hard for for so long, and that he never lost sight of what job he wanted out there on that ice.  He’s at an age where he can barely remember to zip up his zipper after he pees before he rushes off to his next big thing, so to see him actually stick with something has been nothing short of amazing.

As the teams left the ice, that klassy lady in the stands was finally quiet.

Her heart was just too full to speak.