Speaking Of Hockey...

In my last post I confessed to being a major hockey fan. I introduced my entire family to the sport and some of them became big fans, too. Now I have a story about a hockey player to share with you.

I have a brother Dan. He's always been a sports nut and in high school he played basketball, football and wrestled, but his passion was baseball. He was a catcher, which is tough on the knees, and he was good. He was good enough to consider a career in pro baseball, but then he injured his knee during a game of basketball with a few buddies. He's had several operations on the knee and sometimes has to wear a brace. It ended his dreams of being a professional baseball player, but there must be something in his genes.

One of the best decisions Dan ever made was to marry Michele. She is the best sister-in-law anyone could ever have. I love her. We have something in common, our love for animals. She's also a great Mom to my niece and nephew.

Now I want to introduce someone extremely important to me. This is my  nephew Eddie. In this picture he was six days old and I spent most of the day holding him.

Here Dan is holding Eddie, in white, and my cousin's son Ian who was six weeks old in this photo. Dan has always loved little kids. When he was in college he worked summers teaching sports to little kids. He's very patient.

Now, about those genes. Eddie seemed to be born with an interest in sports. Rob and I lived near Baltimore at the time, so we gave Eddie his first baseball uniform.

Once he was standing on his own, he was swinging a bat.

He also inherited my love of junk food. Here he looks like a chipmunk as he stuffs cheesy poufs into his mouth.

He got his love of animals from both his mom and dad.

Wasn't he a cute little guy?

When Eddie was three, his sister Ann Marie was born. They've always been best friends.

They played together from the start.

Almost as soon as Eddie could stand up on skates, he started playing hockey.

For a while Ann Marie played hockey, too, but she soon became more interested in soccer.

Eddie also played soccer.....

and baseball.

Well, the years have flown by and Dan and Michele have attended more soccer and baseball and hockey games than anyone can count.

Eddie is a senior in highschool now, the same highschool I attended. He still plays baseball in the summer and hockey in the winter. Next fall he'll be going off to college and will undoubtedly play those sports in college.

On December 23 Ed was playing hockey when he suffered an injury and was taken to the hospital.

He broke his left humerus bone. At first it seemed to be healing well, but then the position of the bone shifted, so on Tuesday of this week he had surgery to put a rod in his arm to hold the bone together.

He's pretty uncomfortable right now, but I'm sure he'll soon be swinging that hockey stick again. I love you Ed and I hope you heal quickly.