Rooptober Weekend recap

So its taken me a couple of days to recover and gather my thoughts concerning this weekend’s hockey tournament.

First off the drive to Columbus took about 8 hours as predicted. Not too bad and plenty of scenery to look at as we passed through the mountains and onto the plains. Overall the drive was long but wasn’t too bad. The only place we ran into traffic was merging onto I71 North.

We got to our hotel around 8:30 that night, went to grab something to eat then turned in for the night. The next day was going to be rough and we all knew it.

The morning of the tournament brought eating a good breakfast with the team then heading over to the rink to watch the first game. The teams were competitive but we thought we would be ok. Time to gear up for the first game came quickly and as we got ready we listened to very up beat music on a small stereo our coach had just bought. This got us all very excited and soon we hit the ice for the first of 3 games. The warm up was good but as the first period started you could tell there were a lot of nerves. As the game went on things got better and we ended up winning 4-0. This was a huge confidence booster going into the gladiator tournament and game against the Columbus bandits.

The gladiator was an event in itself. It was comprised of 4 events and we thought we had an ok shot at it but were surprised at how well everyone did. We easily won the speed round and accuracy and ended up winning the entire event.

Next was our game against the Columbus Bandits. This was the same team we played in the Nashville tournament and we were all excited to see how we would fare. Let me also say that I have a lot of respect for this team. Not only did they organize the entire Rooptober event but when we played them in Nashville they were very nice. They helped us even during the game and did not try and run the score up which was nice of them. So anyway we played them in a very hard fought battle and ended up winning 5-2. They were shocked and we got many comments afterwards saying that they were amazed at how much we had all improved.

After the game we headed over to Champs for dinner with all the teams then headed back to the hotel. We were only going to get a few hours of sleep before it was time to get up and get back to the rink for an 8:50 game time. Upon arriving to the arena we had a huge surprise. We found out at that point we won the gladiator competition and were going to the championship game even if we lost the last game.

Sunday’s games proved to be the hardest. We were drained from the day before and still had 2 games to play. First we had to play the Dayton fangs then in the championship game. The game against Dayton was tough and we pulled out a 4-3 win. Then with only a 30 minute break it was time for the game against BOB. We fought with all we had but in the end came up short and lost 4-1.
Overall the weekend was not a loss. I am extremely proud of how our team faired in the games. One of the biggest thrills for me was to see how far we have come in only 4 months. The women I skate with are great and I am so happy to be able to play on a hockey team with them.

Oh and before I forget; UAH vs TN rivalry will be renewed on October 24th. Everyone come out and support the Chargers and they kick off their season opener vs the University of Tennessee club hockey team. Then Saturday night Tennessee takes on Alabama in a club hockey match up in the VBC. Both should be very good high intensity games and I am looking forward to it all!