Powerful Lessons learned and much Joy!

Hockey season is over!
It has been a great ride. There have been lots of lessons. I have enjoyed watching the young men on my son's team grow in maturity, character and in skill.
Some will say winning isn't everything.
Others will say winning may not be everything but it is the goal and a lot better than losing.
It is hard to not become too involved as a parent.
I will be the first to say that maybe Sarah Palin has nothing on this Hockey Mom! :)
But I will say, as a parent you want your child to do well. You don't want him disappointed. You want every game to be referreed fair and every team to play with integrity and good sportsmanship.
But that doesn't happen always.
So what do you do...

This year I have spent a lot of time on the sidelines hollering, yelling and praying. Praying for my son to do his best. For God to see his faithfulness. For my son, to give all he has, so he can't say he left the ice not doing his best. I have watched my son this year and this afternoon, I realized in my heart, he is not a little boy anymore. He is becoming a young man. He is growing in wisdom, stature, integrity and faith, but still a boy at heart.

So with tears in my eyes as I recount this weekend....
We have spent the season, one win short, one point short and it has been frustrating. Kids and parents wanted this championship this weekend so bad. It came down to the last game. Tulsa had 3 wins.
We had to win to tie. The tie breaker would be the number of points of scored.
This was a tough game. Kansas City hadn't won in this tournament. They wanted the win just as bad we did. At this point, they wanted at least this one win.

Our team amazed me this weekend. We had the fewest penalties ever this weekend. I would dare guess our penalty box visits were fewer for the whole weekend than in any one game we had through the season. These boys were playing the game.

The referees were another story.

Here are a few of the quotes:

During game 2 to our coach:
Ref says: Not counting the goal (our goal, they decided against it) and I am not counting the trip on the other team.
Coach: So you are saying the other team tripped our guy.
Ref: Yes and I am not giving the penalty.

During game 3:
At this level no checking is allowed.
KC Player sent our player, who had the puck on his stick, into the boards. Really hard. Imagine his parents watching him being slammed into the wall. No penalty called. Ref looked at our guys and said: PLAY FAIR!
And maybe that was the gentle reminder to not retaliate. But I don't think so. I think he forgot to look the other direction and say to the other team.

Again during game 3:
In the last 3 minutes the Ref address both teams and coaches and says: Alright, these last 3 minutes I am going to call a fair game.

?? ! ?? ! ?? Isn't that what a referee is suppose to do. Does he realize what he just said?

The score has been 1-0 since the first period. KC has the 1.

In the last 3 minutes, our kids played their hearts out. They did not earn a penalty box visit. We pulled our goalie. KC lost 2 players to the penalty box. It was 6 on 3 and 13 seconds left in the game and we score. The game is tied much to the ref's disappointment. We could tell it pained him to award the goal. Now we go into 5 minute overtime. First to score wins.

Noone quite knows how the puck got past KC's goalie. I believe the Lord allowed it to. Not that I think he takes sides in sporting events. But he does wipe out nations. He does set rulers upon thrones and removes them at his discretion. I believe there are times he chooses to honor those who are doing right at the moment they are choosing what is right. Other times he chooses to show honor upon them in heaven for all eternity. He knows the tender hearts of children who give it all and try to do right only for an adult to play favorites and try to manipulate the outcome to suit the adult's interests, instead of letting the kids be kids and play it out fair.
Never has a victory seemed so sweet as to be the mom and watch my son enjoy a job well done with his teammates and taste victory.