Lineup and Christmas Socks

Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans... Thank you, John Lennon, for reminding me of this important fact of life. 

About ten days before Christmas, Colin told me very casually that for the upcoming school volleyball tournament, that is taking place December 23, he and his classmates are supposed to be wearing Holiday themed socks. He suggested to try and dig out the Coca-Cola socks. We must have gotten them from one of our Coca-Cola truck visits years ago. His feet have definitely grown too much to be able to wear them anymore. 

With my working full-time, I didn't see a chance in h*** to go the mall and hunt for socks, so I sent him a couple of links and told him to pick some for him and his friends. If we wanted them to arrive in time, we needed to place the online order soon. I didn't have full confidence about his sense of urgency, and I texted his schoolmate's Mom to ask if she knew about the socks?

This is what she wrote back:

This is the 1st time I've heard about this, thank you for telling me. My son probably would have mentioned on the 23rd that he needed Christmas socks. Expecting them to magically appear just like that 😬. Have you already bought some, if so, where?

I promised to include her son's needs in my buying activities. 

At some point I learned some additional info: The teacher was going t bring her Christmas sock collection to class on Monday (Dec 19), and some of the kids might borrow them. Haha, his teacher is a sweet little person, even shorter than I am. Maybe some girls are going to get lucky, but our boys wear size 42 in Europe, that's about a 9 or 9.5 in U.S. men's.

Next hurdle: The teenagers were under the impression they needed to pay for the socks on their own if we ordered them online. Geez, ask your Moms, but do it now, I have other priorities on my plate! Especially since we don't have time to go shopping on Saturday because Colin has a game in the Italian part of Switzerland. You may read here what that means in terms of time investment.

Plus: Colin committed to bringing Christmas cookies to the tournament!! Just when are we supposed to be baking them? The ones we made last weekend, are almost gone.

So far so (not) good.

Friday, lunch time, we were sitting at the office when the following text arrived: 

Attention, tomorrow's game against Bellinzona has been canceled. The opponent has too many sick players. Already adjusted in the MyIceHockey App.

The MIH App contains the schedule for practice and games, and we need to consult it often, as changes are not always communicated.

I was sad and glad at the same time. I had been looking forward to one last hockey road trip before the Holidays, but it was also going to eat away our entire day. So we got the gift of time, and they were going to look for a new date to make up the game. 

Hubby was taking Colin to Friday night practice, giving me an opportunity to work late. Hey, these Christmas cards don't ship themselves! Before I cleaned up my desk, I refreshed the App, more out of routine than anything else. 

In the Saturday box where the 5pm away game in Bellinzona previously was, a new entry struck my eye. 8pm away game in Aarau! 

What? 

Another very short-term exhibition game, like we've had two in the past few weeks? Why didn't I know about this? I opened the link, and the names in the linep didn't look familiar. Who were these players? 

Wait a minute! Tyler? I knew for a fact, he plays for the U17 team. 

Ohmygoodness! Colin and a handful of his U15 teammates were supposed to play a U17 game!

I immediately texted the other Moms, and they were all super grateful for the heads-up because they would have enjoyed a weekend off without ever learning about their son's being requested to play! 

We fired messages back and forth to car-pool and have dinner before the game.

With some time on my hands on Saturday morning I made my way to Country Seasons, my beloved Canadian grocery store, which is a good 45 minutes' drive away.

As I arrived, the owner said "you just missed a hockey player". 

Oh, really, who was it?

"He is Canadian, drives a white SUV with the EHC Kloten logo, I don't know his name."

It can only be Jonathan Ang (however, he would have recognized his Asian descent) or Eric Faille. Or I was forgetting somebody. 

English or French speaking?

"English, but he bought a Québec Whisky."

That's helpful. Not.

Anyway. I got ourselves some delicious salmon from British Columbia, brown sugar and Reese's mini PB cups - things that may be easily available at your American or Canadian grocery store, but not usually in Switzerland. It's also my go-to place for Kraft Mac and Cheese.

When I got back, Colin had packed his hockey gear, and soon we left. Did I mention we have been living in Winter Wonderland for a couple of days?

Proud that my boy has been chosen to play in the "older" category. If you're not familiar with these abbreviations: 

U15 is for players who are younger than 15 years old, so currently those who were born in 2008 or 2009.

U17 is for players who are younger than 17 years old,  currently those who were born in 2006 or 2007. Among his new teammates (and opponents) there were going to be guys who are 6 feet tall and 180 pounds!

But first - Dinner! We were lucky to get a table for us, and the only reason we did, was thanks to the fact that we arrived at 5 and promised to leave at 6:30pm. Meeting time at the arena for the briefing and off-ice warmup was 6:45pm.

As we drove them to the rink, we noticed the beautifully decorated streets, and I said, let's go check out the town, we have over an hour to kill!

It was one of those nights when the outside temperatures were lower than in the  hockey stadium. (minus 7+ Celsius = 19°F), but it was oh so pretty!

Not only were there nice Christmas trees, but an actual  Christmas market with food stands selling the usual Glühwein, Raclette, Churros, Empanadas, etc. Too bad we were full from our trip to the Pizzeria! It was still nice to walk around and look at everything. A band was playing live, and there was a fire pit. Really nice atmosphere! I patted myself on the shoulder for unexpectedly creating this Holiday outing!

It got even better! We found ourselves in the non-food area where vendors tried to sell their handmade soap, candles, lavender products, you name it. Some crafts looked a little questionable to us: who was going to purchase those? 

But hey, to each their own. My sore little eyes just spotted a sock stand!!!

Now, not just any Granny knitted socks! Holiday themed socks from one of the companies I sent the link to Colin to choose an item from!

So the next morning, our lovely elves presented my boy with a combo pack of different Christmas socks for him and his friends!

We made it back to the arena just in time for the game. The opponent was the leader of the regional championship, and ours were fifth out of seven, so it was clear who the underdog was. The first period was tough, and I thought our guys were going to go under.

One of Colin's "underaged" teammates managed to equal to 4:4 in the second period, and in the third, they were on fire! They were even leading 5:7 a few minutes before the end. 

But you know what they say in Hockey... Within a few minutes a lot can happen.

Unfortunately two goals happened - the opponent tied the game to 7:7!

They went to shootout, and the Diaz brothers (one born in 2007, one in 2009) did a fantastic job keeping their save percentage at 100% 

As always Colin and I put together a video for the players and their friends and families who couldn't make it to the arena.

I almost forgot to mention, our guys made it! 

They won after SO, which put the opponent on second, and themselves on fourth place in the ranking. The coach came to thank us parents for taking the youngsters to the arena. He said they were humble, motivated and adapted well to the team and the game. That's so nice to hear!

So this is how life happened while we were busy making other plans - and I ended up finding Christmas socks for Colin's tournament. Win!