Seniors off but Juniors start the New Year's Hockey

After several weeks of holidays, the league season proper was due to resume this Saturday, and I for one was certainly looking forward to brushing away the cobwebs and getting a run around.  All last week we looked at the snow on the ground, hoping that the warm weather would arrive and allow us to play at the weekend.  Dan and I were due to start at 10am in the 5s, so we were not hopeful.  By Thursday we still had over 10cm of snow on an untouched pitch (see photo).  The opposition for our home matches were ringing up to find out if we were playing, and our own away matches were being cancelled.  A note from the league said that we had to wait until Friday 3pm to cancel for adverse weather so we hung on until in the hope it would look better.  Although it had warmed up, the ground was still covered and eventually on Friday we had to send out our own cancellations, but we agreed that we would try to clear the pitch Saturday morning so that at least the Juniors could train on Sunday, followed by a county training session we were hosting.

I dragged my boys out of bed on Saturday to help, pursuading them with hot croissants.  We drove down to Newlands at just past 10 to find that the warmer air and rain had almost cleared the pitch.  There were a few small patches of slush but these were obviously melting fast.  In fact the pitch would have been playable by lunchtime, sometimes though, you just have to make a call.

Sunday was a lovely day, and when we arrived for the second session, the little-uns were running around in their training matches.  Looking around Newlands, you would never have guessed that this looked like the arctic tundra just a few days before.  We had excellent attendance for all the sessions which was great to see, and Soma was teaching some new skills, which is always appreciated.  In fact all sessions ran on a little so that everyone got a bit of extra time to get into the swing of things, prior to our first post-Chrismas junior matches next week.

As we were setting up the county session, one of the county trainers came up to me.  It was Neil who now also runs part of the Juniors at Wycombe, and who I used to play up front with in the (pre-merger) old Chalfont 1s.  Like me, he was finding that these days, hamstring problems often take their toll, and he was having a (hopefully temporary) forced breather.  I never quite managed to outscore Neil, though I did come close one year.  When he resumes in the Wycombe 5s, maybe he and his son will play against me and mine in our 5s.  Old warriors never die, they just get hamstrung.  And so, fingers crossed on the weather, and muscles and ligaments allowing, back to matches next week.