Travellin' man...or is he?

Last week our schedule was torpedoed with an electronic mail message that advised us our son was to attend three days of travel hockey tryouts. As I recall, it required us to give up Saturday evening, Sunday morning, and Monday evening.

A brief background: like baseball, kids hockey is divided between "rec" and travel. Rec is more instructional and there's only one practice a week (plus, you're mostly local). Travel requires a huge commitment of time and money, trips to Toronto or Cleveland aren't unheard of.

He loves playing the sport (a big plus), so...why not?

The first couple days he was obviously not a top-tier player and he was very aware of it. Instead of getting down about it he kept skating and by the end of Sunday's session he was looking better.

The funny thing about Bobby is that he's all about the path of least resistance. When we asked him if he wanted to play travel his first question was "how hard do they practice?" When we told him that it'd be tougher his reply was "eh, no thanks."

Still, we wanted him to get the extra ice and see how the travel players roll.....

I think Carol and I were initially rooting for him NOT to make the cut. The combined expenditures of time and money were daunting. Plus, if he'd be on travel it would be stressful for everyone living under our roof. Dragging a family of 6 from rink to rink and spending many hours at those rinks is......awful.

So it was funny to notice how my thinking changed Monday evening when the coaches announced that there'd been 45 kids who tried out and there'd be 36 or so slots to fill (for 3 teams of travel kids). Statistically, the odds favored him. And I started thinking about how cool it'd be for him to be chosen (even if he chose not to play on travel), how cool it'd be to watch him get the extra practice the travel kids get, and - yeah - cool to say my son's a travel hockey player.

His last session wasn't bad. He skated well enough. He was clearly not the cream of the crop but he was likewise not the least-talented player out there.

I asked him after the game if he thought it would be cool if he was picked. "Nah," he said, "I don't want to play travel."

Ah, he has his father's ambition...marvelous.

So, Carol and I wait days and days, and the call came on Saturday. He didn't make it. We fretted about telling him, trying to think of a way to tell him he'd been rejected without having his feelings hurt.

Finally, I think I just told him. He looked up and smiled broadly, thenlet out a "woo-hoo! I didn't want to play travel!"

And scurried off to play with his cousins. Carol and I looked at each other and shrugged.

That, obviously, was that.