April 2, 2020. Madison, Mississippi. Hockey.

My grand niece lives for hockey and school. Lauren lives in Sault St. Marie, commonly called "The Soo". The season was coming along nicely. This weekend her team was to play in the provincial playoffs. This late Spring and Summer she was asked to play on three different teams specially to compete in three different tournaments. In the Fall, she will be in high school and will attend a Hockey Academy. Her season of hockey looked smooth and promising. But two weeks ago, Hockey Canada shut down the whole program. No provincial finals. Lauren is devastated. And she does not know when anything will return so she can play hockey. Fortunately she is a good student and has a good attitude. Her conditioning coach on her team is a former NHL player and he emphases the need to keep up the academics. Evidently when he was in school he played hockey only and he emphasizes to the girls to pay attention to school first and hockey second. This virus threat to the world does not much affect me. Mostly I am home anyway. But for the young people it can be more difficult. I hope it will soon be over so Lauren can go back to playing hockey, the love of her life. I wish her well.