For those of you that don't know Gabe's journey into this world here is a quick background on his life. Gabe was born on December 9th 2006 but wasn't due until March 30th 2007, so yes he was born 16 weeks ahead of schedule. He was considered a micro preemie at only 1lb 10oz and measuring 12" long. During his long stay in the hospital Gabe endured 5 surgeries, three of them being eye surgeries. He wears glasses now and undergoes daily vision therapy exercises to get his eyesight better, but other then that he is a healthy, albeit small for his age, 4 year old. (Anything else you'd like to know about us you can check out my wife's blog at themillwards@blogspot.com)
Gabe has been hooked on hockey ever since his first Tri-City Americans game. The Americans are our major junior hockey team here in Tri-Cities, WA, they play in the Western Hockey League (WHL) and you'll probably be hearing alot about them too. My dad runs the clock/scoreboard for the Americans and so he always got a set of season tickets for free and so my mom always used those tickets. When Gabe was about 2 my mom started taking him to the games and he was just in love with the game, and this season we needed to buy him a set of season tickets for himself even though he always ends up sitting on our laps anyways. :-) (they play better when he sits on our lap) It didn't take him long after watching a few games to know that he wanted to play hockey.
It didn't take long for Gabe to turn everything into either a hockey stick, puck, or goal. Golf clubs, empty buckets, and blocks was all he needed to play. :-) I didn't think much of getting him into hockey, because it does get pretty spendy, until i watched him shoot blocks into a bucket with a little hockey stick using a perfect wrist shot and then turn around and backhand another block right into the "goal" and it occurred to me the it would be a shame if I didn't let him play. (I will be using quite a few hockey terms in this blog and if you don't know what I'm talking about I recommend going to http://www.howtohockey.com/ to educate yourself and learn some tips and tricks to, Awesome Website!!!! Thanks guys)
Then it was my journey to get him signed up into a beginners program, BP, and find him all his gear. At the time we wanted to sign him up he wasn't old enough, he was 3 and needed to be 4. So Santa brought him a net, sticks and roller skates for Christmas so he could get some practice getting used to skates and playing on them, which the net was destroyed the next day when dad decided to take a slap shot and hit the post, whoops... So we bought a new net made from steel, don't get the cheap PVC ones, and everyday was dad you want to play hockey with me, mom you want to play hockey with me, you be the goalie, watch this shot (luckily nothing has been broken yet, knock on wood...) but we still need to get him in an actual program and lucky enough they started another BP at the end of March. So I signed him up but we still needed all his gear, which the way we got it was a sign that he was meant to play. I work for McCurley dealerships in Pasco as a car salesmen, and so happened to sell a car to a family that had a daughter in a BP program and had all her pads and skates left over, which a was able to get all his stuff for $100. So now he was all set to go play, and this is where his journey begins. I hope you enjoy seeing our boy learn and grow in this sport as much as we do as time goes on, and welcome any questions or comments from families that have kids in hockey that can suggest stuff to us or from families that want to get their kids in we will be happy to help. Thanks Everyone.