so, the big brookings team is just spanking our little mitchell team in the final game of the hockey tournament this weekend. we knew it would happen, our younger team has lots of 4-year-olds on it and they just can't compete with those bigger kids. we sit through brookings goal after brookings goal and you can just see the deflation in our team. it was hard to watch. again.

then something really cool happens. one of our little girls, a scrappy 5-year-old in blonde hair, gets the puck and takes it all the way down to the other end. the whole crowd goes wild--brookings parents included. she shoots it, and it goes wide. then one of the brookings players, a 7-year-old kid, taps the puck into his own goal to help her out.

it was one of the best displays of good sportsmanship i've seen in a long time. the kid that did it happens to be a leading scorer, but if i was his parents, i'd be more proud of that one goal than all the others combined.

at the end of the game, both teams came together in one combined "we love hockey" cheer. it was all i could do not to cry. it was a nice way to end the season. way to go brookings blue.