a short video of mikey working through a few drills at goalie camp:

 

Mikey at summer camp - day 2 from Dan Woolston on Vimeo.

Summer vacation and Mikey’s attentions have turned to Lego:

Project Natal is an Xbox 360 add on device that uses a wii-like sensor/camera bar to interact with the real world. no controller is needed. you simply move and talk to the software. Milo, a software product coming to the Xbox is simply amazing. Watch the interaction between the actor and the game:

I usually post the latest and greatest pictures on the website, but tonight I thought I’d throw in a few pictures from the past:

Mikey:	Aymee Â
Michelle: Â	Daniel: Â

This mornings final game came to a dramatic conclusion.

A little background information to the last game:
The tournament, for goalies, is stuctured thus: Goalies compete for their own trophy. In Mikeys age bracket, there were 5 goaltenders from various programs around west michigan. Each goalie will play for a variety of 3 on 3 teams, switching sides during period breaks so that they’ll play for both teams on the ice. No regular team carries a goalie, so they play for themselves. Theres four periods per game, each period is four minutes long. So during a game Mikey will play goal for 2 periods per team. At the end of the regulation games, the top four goalies with the lowest goals against averages will move on to the semi finals. As the tournament progressed, it was becoming clear that 2nd to 4th place was going to be a tight race. The first place kid was well beyond reach, so the remaining goalies were fighting for 2nd place. The difference between 2nd and 4th place was only 3 goals and Mikey was tied for fourth coming into the Sunday morning game. His opposing goalie had a controversial win in the game before ours. Controversial because the goalie (we’ll call him ‘Red’ because of his helmet) was on the ice with teammates from last years season. I didn’t watch the game so the events were relayed to me by another goalie dad who’s kid played opposite Red. And his description was collaborated by another parent, so I’m guessing its fairly true. During the early game, Red’s team wouldn’t shoot to score during the two periods that their former teammate was in the opposing net, knowing that he was close to making it to the finals. They would run up the score during the other two periods, ensuring a victory and lay back when their buddy was in net. So the kid ended up with a GA of 2 for that game, which is a great score for a goalie that was averaging 7-8 goals in his other 6 games. That made the spread for Mikey to make it to semi finals a little harder to reach. Is it fair? No. Will it happen again? Assuredly. Its just part of the tournament and you deal with it. An outstanding goalie will be able to make it past team bias and still take home the hardware.
So Mikeys 7th and last game on Sunday morning found him facing the hardest team in the tournament and a situation where he must keep his goals to 6 or less. A 7th goal and he’s done for the weekend.
The game started out on a bad note. Two goals in the first minute. The second team on the ice was rated at the bottom of the tournament having lost every game they’d played so far. So it was all Mikey when they were on his side of the ice. During the first four minute period, I counted 15 shots on mikey with 4 goals in. Second period - 1 goal. Third period - another goal. Now he was balancing on the edge of elimination with 6 goals against. But the fourth period would place the ‘easy’ team against him, so it seemed possible that he could survive the round with 6 or less. And then it happened. A hard shot came from the point, hit his left leg pad and popped out a few feet in front of him. He was able to cover up with his goalie glove. He looked up, saw a teammate calling for him to play it and wound up to scoot the puck along the ice to his teammate. During the cocking-back motion of the glove pass, the puck came loose and went straight back into his own net. His 7th and final goal.
In the end, it was a tough way to wrap things up, but ultimately we had a blast. Ferris State really pulled off an outstanding 3 on 3 that really makes us want to come back again next year.

Mikey and I took a boys only trip to Big Rapids for the Ferris State 3 on 3 tournament. We’re having a great time and he’s playing a ton of hockey. I’ll upload more pictures and video as the weekend comes to a close:
       

If your team pulls a penalty, its a penalty shot instead of the box. Here Mikey stops the shot, followed by ‘ride the pony’, followed by an outstanding glove save:

I would also like to note that, by far, this was the coolest 3 on 3 tournament we’ve been to.
The Ferris State staff were outstanding hosts, the games were all ref’d, each goalie crease was painted and the games were very well organized. Its obvious that they’ve perfected this tournament over the 17 years that they’ve run it and we were very happy with the event. We’ll definitely be back next year!�

Aymee singing at the Northpointe Dinner Theater 2009. The video is not that great. Not sure why it turned out to be so shaky. The audio turned out well though.

 

I found some older print photos in a box and wanted to scan and share a few with family:

Michaels First Day on Earth:

   

   

   

Aymees First Bath: 

 

Aymee:
  

 

Baby on her Great-Great Grandfathers Lap:

Michelle:
 Â