First Mite Tournament-Lessons Learned

We went to our first Mite Hockey tournament this weekend. I learned several things to ask for the next time around. The first is are we supposed to bring posters support our team. We received an email a day and half before the first day that said something about posters. No one had a clue. One Mom whipped one up for us and we hung on their bench every game. Secondly, is this a pin tournement. A pin tournament is a great idea and the kids absolutely loved it but we had not clue and felt a little foolish. In the end it worked out great in the end because our organization did have pins for us to hand out for a cost. Just the little things to know for our first time. A pin tournament is supposed to help the kids on the different teams interact more and exchange label pins. The tournament gave out a pin for each game and then another team came to us after and gave us a pin after the game. They kids loved showing off their pins. Another friend told us about the tournament and that was good. She told us if you want t-shirts to buy them on the first day because they will run out. They ran out before the end of our game and there were two more games after ours. She also said to buy them big because they shrink. Then she told me the everyone will want one of the sweatshirts but they are only for the home team. The sweatshirts were very nice but they were like the forbidden fruit--oh well! Since it was a local tournament we could back and forth. We had four games over a three day period. The other thing that hit at the tournament was the stomach bug. We had two families but only one player missed two games (one of which he was the goalie). A local tournament is great because then you can invite friends and family. The stands were packed for the championship game. Since we lost the first game and won the other two we went out the Championship game and let me tell you that was certainly nerve racking. Also having your son be the goalie--very nerve racking. He got a shut out so that was good though I wanted the other team to score just not on my son. Oh the life of a hockey mom!