Jay Richards

February is always a great month with winter sports starting to wind down, longer days and great skiing. Last seven days have been a whirlwind. Jon had his home tourney over the weekend and we hosted the Section 8 Nordic Champs on Tuesday where Jake defended his title and taking his third Section 8 win the last five years.

Jon's team, DL Bantam A, made it to the final in their home tourney, beating Monticello, Willmar and Bismark to get to the final vs Bloomington Jefferson. After being down 5-1 in the final after the second period, they came back to score 3 in the third to make it 5-4 and a good chance to tie at the end with goalie pulled but just came up short. A solid showing with the second spot and nothing to hang the heads about taking runner up. Starting to click with districts approaching in just over a week. The home tourney doesn't happen without help from the parents and each parent works 7-8 games.

Papa Boom pulling all the concessions shifts all three days. Nicely done.

The entire weekend we were sitting in a cloud, enjoying beautiful frosty conditions. Was able to sneak in a short and sweet ski, hooking up with Kris and Aunders Anderson. It was like sticking powder 8's as Aunders weaves back and forth in carving perfect s turns....brought back memories of skiing with Jake when he was that age. Good stuff.

The forecast on Saturday was calling for 42 and sun on Sunday which had me squirting hershey. I was expecting to move some serious snow on Monday but as it turned out, the temp was around 32 and amazing frost all weekend actually helping things out. The course groomed out fantastic Monday afternoon and temps near 0 Monday night set up the deck and tracks perfect. Jake raced hard taking the win. Was nice to host his final year. Time flying by!