Can we go to the instant replay please?

We're back from Provincials - sadly without a medal.

The girls played awesome - E had 4 points in 4 games - her best ever and then there's the controversy.

We played Lethbridge Thursday afternoon and tied them 1-1. E got the assist on the goal. Then we went to the hotel - and man is that another story altogether!

Friday morning we played High Prairie and we beat them 3-1, E got a goal. We missed the empty net which would have been great to have had it come down to points for and against.

Friday afternoon we played Calgary and beat them 3-0. E got an assist. Then there was the opening ceremonies and Grace Sutter, the mother of all the Sutter's dropped the ceremonial face off puck - very cool! Well except for the Flames jersey she had on right Dad?

Friday night we had a bit of a parent get together in the "hospitality" room and it was nice to have some laughs and a few beverages but was starting to miss DH and the little ones.

Saturday we played Strathmore - and we needed a win, a tie or a 1-0 loss to make it out of our pool. We ended up with the game tied 1-1 - and E got the goal and the heart and hustle award for the game - I admit I had a tear or two in my eye. This meant we ended the round robin without a loss and edged out Lethbridge for second in our pool by 1 point - some very sad Lethbridge girls in the lobby after the game as that meant they were done. During the game we had one of our forwards get a 5 minute cross checking penalty and a game misconduct - a call which our coaches were very unhappy with. The ref was youngish and so our coaches requested to the Hockey Alberta guy that he not ref the mornings semi final - the Hockey Alberta guy agreed that he was concerned about his reffing and that was that... or so we thought.

The young man wasn't reffing our game against Lloyd but he wasthe linesman- and he missed an off side call in the third which led to the only goal of the game. Yes that's right we lost the game 1-0 and the goal was scored on while Lloyd was offside. Now I might be accused of not knowing my hockey but Lou was livid - back to his Hawk days of screaming as were the other coaches so I was pretty confident they were right. Then after we had left someone at the tournament tried to show one of our other coaches why we were wrong only to have it pointed out that you needed to rewind the tape a bit more and then the proof was there. So I guess all we can do is be proud of how the girls played and try again next year. To add salt to the wound however Lloyd ended up winning the tournament - makes me wonder!!!

Oh and just so you know - I would not recommend staying at the Lamplighter Inn in Viking - stories I could tell!!