I’ve been taking a lot of photos of my son’s U10 House League team this season.

This season has been a challenge for him. Whereas last year he was a rookie on a team filled with talented (and gracious) teammates, coaches, and parents which culminated in a championship, this year his crew is comprised of mainly newcomers. Applying the lessons learned as a veteran and sharing it with the less successful is a different skill set playing up with competitive and focused collaborators. He is learning with this change.

Our #15 has been turning it on, playing in a road tournament, skating against kids who have been playing a lot longer and work hard at their sport. When he came back to House League early this year, he played hungry, scoring a goal on a long drive around the rink.

Yesterday, he had a double header, first being at 6:30 in the morning across town. #15 skated well, delivering a huge assist, clearing the D-zone to a friend across the ice.

While he played like a beast holding the line with his shift (and ended up a +2), his team was outplayed, losing 5-2.

#15’s second game yesterday occurred later in the morning. More evenly matched than the first contest, our son put on a hell of a show. He skated quickly and worked hard, executing graceful and rigorous maneuvers on the ice I had no idea he was capable of. His grandparents that came to watch the game were effervescent, as would be expected, but many of the team parents were just as surprised by his performance.

Alas, as with the earlier game, the Cyclones did not prevail. Down by 1 with 40 seconds left, the Cyclone center won the draw, and your left defenseman gathered the puck, and wound around his goal, building up speed to barrel up the boards. The Cyclone parents, gazing through the glass, raised their voices as #15 stormed up the rink with the puck. As he punched past the blue line into the neutral zone with the puck, he was as a freight train passing through school buses. Ecstatic voices in the crowd grew louder.

The high water mark for #15’s surge was just inside the scoring zone, puck removed from our protagonist as he slid out on the ice, a handful of seconds left on the clock.

#15 was crestfallen, he had not seen what we had. Kid left 100% out there, and delighted the audience with his verve and determination.

My favorite photo taken yesterday was a few moments after the end of the game. The amount of snow on his pants and jersey tells the tail. Everyone wants to make the big goal and win the game, I think the story, and the real prize, is found right beside the competitors with watery eyes, breathing heavy with nothing more to give.