Sens vs Blackhawks

Tonight was a very memorable night for Lucas. He finally got to see one of his two favorite teams, the Chicago Blackhawks, live against the Senators. Marilu brought him, and based on what I saw of the score, it was an exciting game, with the Blackhawks winning in overtime in the shootout.

In case you're wondering how a kid in Ottawa becomes a fan of a city he's never been to, here's my theory. My favorite player for many, many years was Jeremy Roenick, who started out in Chicago. I must have mentioned that to Lucas at some point and he ran with it. Now he has a Blackhawks poster on his wall and names Jonathan Toews as his favorite player.

His other favorite team is the LA Kings. While Lucas really liked goalie Jonathan Quick's play in the Olympics, I'm pretty sure his fondness for the Kings is more bandwagon than anything else, given that the Kings won the Stanley Cup last year. He doesn't know it yet, but I'll be bringing him to see the Kings when they come to Ottawa later this year.

In the meantime, here's a picture of the goof celebrating in his brand new Blackhawks t-shirt that I hunted down in west Ottawa earlier today.

All I Want for Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth

...and maybe one on the bottom as well.

In my last post, I mentioned Lucas lost one of his bottom teeth last week. It was his first baby tooth to come out in several months. Apparently, that started a domino effect as one of his top front teeth came out yesterday, followed by the second one today. Here's a picture of our little hockey player/MMA fighter lookalike.

As far as I know, none of the other ones are loose, but given the fact that 3 have come out in two weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if the tooth fairy will be visiting our house again soon.

Adventures with Eggy

Earlier in the week, I posted Lucas's hockey pictures, one of them being with his classroom's mascot Eggy. Here's the rest of the photos chronicling Eggy's week in the Deal household.

Apparently, Eggy is a big music buff.

Outside the rec center where Lucas has his swim lessons.

Getting some gaming in.

Finally, at Zak's Diner, after his first hockey game.

One bit of news before I wrap this up. Lucas lost his third baby tooth while at school on Tuesday. At this rate, they should all be out by the time he is 20.

Ottawa Shooting

In case anyone is wondering, we're fine here in Ottawa. We live on the west side in the community of Kanata, which is about 25 minutes from downtown. I know Lucas's school was in a lockdown mode for a while, but that was just a precaution, and he should be home on the bus any minute now.

First Game Photos

As promised, here are some pictures from Lucas's first hockey game. We have 2 iPhones and a point-and-shoot Nikon so don't expect any masterpieces here.

This was taken before the game. I'd like to point out that Lucas doesn't regularly walk around with that stuffed thing. It's named Eggy. and it's from his 2nd grade class. Each week, one of the kids gets to bring it home and then they take pictures with it during the week and fill out a journal at the end of the week to show what kind of adventures they got up to. As it happened, Eggy got to go to Lucas's' hockey game so lucky him, I guess.

The rest of the pictures are from the game. Enjoy!

First Game for the Coyotes

As mentioned in my last post, Lucas had his first "real" hockey game this past Saturday morning. By "real," I mean that they had refs, kept score, called offsides/icing, and keep track of the results in the standings. Last year, they played games, but those were just for fun.

Despite the fact the Coyotes (Lucas's team, in case I haven't mention it before) lost 5-2, Lucas played well and had a good time. He was on the same line throughout the game, and they scored once and were scored on once. Not bad considering one of the Chinese kids on his line didn't appear to realize he was at a hockey game, as he skated around in circles and generally ignored the puck. Note that I said "one of" above. Lucas had two Chinese kids on his line, plus there is at least one other Chinese boy and an Indian girl on his team. So much for the stereotype of just white people in hockey, eh?

Lucas chose to play defense, and he did a decent job. He also had a shot on goal, which he narrowly missed. All in all, it was a fun time, and we're looking forward to seeing many more games this season. I haven't uploaded any pictures yet, but I plan to do that tomorrow and have another post up shortly afterwards.

Break the wall down

Not much new to report on since my last post on October 1. Lucas has a couple of weeks of hockey practice under his belt, and last week was his first week of winter soccer. The latter has its practices at 5 and 6 PM so you can probably guess which one I prefer going to more. Lucas's first real hockey game will be this Saturday morning so we're looking forward to that. I expect we should get a picture or two from that so maybe I'll have an update up on Sunday.

I can't think of anything else new so let's look at some random pictures from earlier in the year. Much like the last blog update was pictures primarily for my dad, these pictures are going to be for Marilu's family. Back in April, she met up with her two brothers in Toronto for a weekend. Here they are, out and about.

And here's your daily (or more like bi-weekly) dose of Lucas...in video form. Back in the spring, while repairing our basement from the toilet flood, we found a crack in our foundation, which meant we had to open up the wall. This led to what Lucas would probably rate as a top 5 moment of his life.

Hockey Finally Starts and Pictures for Dad

I'm sure you're waiting with bated breath for this information, so here it is. Lucas ended up on the Novice B-3 team. Since that's a bit unwieldy, the kids re-named their team the Coyotes (after a brief flirtation with Coyote Lightning). The first weekend's practices were at the chipper time of 7 AM on both Saturday and Sunday so that was fun. This coming weekend, they are on Friday and Saturday at 5:30 PM. Now that's what I'm talking about! The Coyotes's first game will be on October 18 so that's something to look forward to. We haven't taken any pictures yet this season, but I'm sure we'll have some soon.

Actually, I do have one hockey-related picture ready for uploading. Last year, we dumped all of Lucas's hockey equipment over the floor in the basement after each practice to let it air out (if you don't, it can really stink). This year, Marilu bought this scarecrow looking thing, which has made organizing his gear much easier. It would also be useful if Kevin McAllister is ever home alone in our house and needs to ward off would-be burglars.

These next few pictures are from my dad's visit this past Spring. This is probably the easiest way to get pictures to him since email attachments may be troublesome. Hope you like em, Dad!