'Lone Star State of Mind'
It's so good to be back in Texas. Obviously, being from Buffalo, the first thing you look forward to is the warm weather. The weather here hasn't been too warm, but at this point ANYTHING is better than Ruff Buff!!
So, I get to Texas on Thursday. I spend time with family and after some communication (or miscommunication) with Ronnie B (which he wasn't too happy about) I made it to Denton. We set up last night and then made a trip to the IHOP right near the University of North Texas.
This morning, we make the drive to the rink and we are ready to go. There were times TORHS would come down to Texas three to four times a year and now we are in the process of helping to build this area back up. We had our national event down here in 2011 and ever since then we have been working hard with Jill Marsh from Lone Star and a new relationship now built with Scott Tartaglia at Houston Indoor Sports. We will be out there later this month.
Game are underway as we started the morning with a close game between the Lone Star Raptors and Jets 04 in the mite division. Peewees are on now and more and more players and piling in today. Huge shout out to Brian High and Jim Bovaird also for getting their organizations going and into the tournament as they have always supported inline in the area. I got to introduce Ronnie B to Cooper Johnson and Mr Duggan today as they have always been with us since the FaceOff hockey days.
It was pretty cool to see Michigan's own Conner Enciso in the building. He was just traded to an NAHL team down here and was transporting kids today and then found out the adult division down here was pretty packed. Looks like he will be playing this evening.
And one final note. TORHS2Hot4Ice would like to congratulate our very own Vanessa Charles ('Charli') on an awesome opportunity she is setting out on. The text messages have been flowing this morning from all of our tournament directors about Charli's adventure! It's an awesome opportunity for her and we will miss her at nationals this year in Aston, PA. But we wish her all the best.
Well, back to the hockey down here in good ole Texas! I'll keep all of you updated and you can continue to check the scores right here on the website!!!