We stayed at the Ryan House over the weekend and had a great
time, as usual! Kyle played the Wii most
of the time, with a therapy swim and some drum practice in the music room
sprinkled in. Lauren and Jenna spent
virtually the entire weekend in the craft room or playing with Snickers the
therapy dog.
We packed so much fun into forty eight hours that I
anticipated us skipping school today just to recover, and then I got a neat
phone call from the Ryan House. They
extended an invitation for us to practice with Phoenix Coyotes goaltender Jason
LaBarbera this morning. We went and met
Jason and his wife, and the kids careened through the rink with him for a while
until the rest of the players arrived for their scheduled practice.
Lauren with Raffi Torres and Jason:
We enjoyed watching the practice. The NHL is in a lockout situation this year,
so various players seem to have coordinated their own group practice sessions
to keep their game sharp. Our usual
favorite Coyotes players were there along with a handful of players who play on
other NHL teams. I imagine Scottsdale in
the winter isn’t a bad place to wait around for the NHL season to start!
After practice, Coyotes team captain Shane Doan chatted with
Kyle. As usual, Kyle was unimpressed
with just talking to a player—he asked to shoot pucks with them on the
ice. Jason and Shane opened the doors to
the ice and spent 20 minutes setting up the puck and letting the kids shoot it
into the net, while staff and a Zamboni waited around for them to be done. We got some pretty great pictures!
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And a couple of cool photos that a bystander thought to take of us:
Many thanks to the LaBarberas, and to Shane Doan and the
patient staff at the Ice Den for a really *cool* morning full of some neat opportunities!
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