My Favorite Hockey Fan

It's barely 7am, and I hear a sweet voice calling me.  "Mama?"  I walk into her room and find my daughter sitting up in bed, hair tousled from sleep, thumb in her mouth and her beloved Tallulah tucked under her arm.  

"What is it, Lovey?" I ask.  

SMACK--out comes the thumb, her eyes crinkle up with a smile and she shouts, "It's a Hockey Day!"

And that's how my morning started!  But Abby's love of the Penguins?  Yeah, that started a while ago.  Even before she was born.  This morning as we drove to school, Abby asked me why she liked the Penguins.  And this is what I told her.

When I was pregnant with Abby, she would perform some crazy gymnastics anytime there was hockey on TV.  We're talking the kind of movements not only felt by me, but visible to Mark from across the room.  Real "is there an alien in there" moments!

At first we chalked it up to an after dinner energy spurt.  But then we noticed that she went nuts during afternoon games, too.  We even found some hockey highlights on early in the morning and, yep, she went bonkers then, too.

The Steelers had won the Super Bowl that February and the Penguins were making a run at the Cup.  We joked that if this baby would have been a boy, we'd name him "Stanley Vincent" in honor of the two trophies.  Joked, people.  We joked!!  Not that Stanley Vincent isn't a terrific name...but I digress.

I wore Mark's old Coffey jersey over my bump, raised a celebratory glass of water with each goal scored and series won and cheered loudly when the Penguins did, indeed, win the Stanley Cup a few weeks before Abby was born.

About 2 months after Abby arrived, I was out running some errands when I got a call from Mark.  He had a crying kiddo on his hands and was out of options.  Clean, dry and fed, there was no good reason for Abby's fussiness.  I suggested a few things and said I'd call back shortly.  When I did, all was quiet. 

"How'd you do that, Mark?  Is she asleep?"

"Nope, I put the Penguins highlight DVD in.  She's laying here on my chest completely zoned in on the game!"

Tonight, as we get ready for Game #4 in this series, Abby is wearing her James Neal shirt, she's got the Game Day program at the ready and is already chanting "Let's Go Pens!"  Time to drop the puck!
 

Let's Go Penguins!