Connecticut, Day 2 (or is it Massachusetts?)

I was out of bed before 5am on Saturday, even though I didn't sleep well.  I couldn't get in a deep sleep, and I was dreaming a lot.  I think it was a combination of the usual hotel stuff like a different bed and humming A/C, the joys of sleeping next to Carter, and being overfull from a late dinner.  So when I woke up and it was nearly time for my alarm, I checked out my phone for a couple minutes and got up before I could start the snoozing battle.  We had to be on the road by around 6:30 to be at the field by 7am.  We were shocked to discover it was downright cool outside.  After last weekend where we were roasting the second we walked out the door, this time we needed jackets!  It was a gorgeous morning.

We arrived at the tournament site, the Westminster School.  It's a private 9-12 school, and we realized as we drove into the lush, large campus that we were passing by dorms.  It's a boarding school that costs about the same as the very expensive university where I work.  It costs a little bit less to attend locally, but the thought of spending such a large amount of money on high school--let alone college--was mind-blowing.  I also can't imagine sending my high schooler off to live in a dorm, either, but it was a gorgeous campus and I'm sure it's a great experience for those who attend!

The tournament was called "The Brawl on the Hill", and this is why:

The picture doesn't really do it justice, but if you use the players for scale, it helps.  The hill was pretty large, and we had to go down and up it a bit because our other two games were at fields at the top!  It had a beautiful stone lookout area at the top, and below was the view.  The field we played on was on the left, and the fancy turf field is in the distance.

Game one was a close one, but we came out with an 8-7 win.  We had a decent lead at one point, but they lost their edge a little and were lucky to escape with the one goal win.  The second game was a 13-2 blowout, but the good news was that Jacob got to play a lot!  No goals again, but he was hustling and helping to set up plays, so we were thrilled.

The third game of the day was against the team we beat in the semifinals the week before.  That was a very competitive game, and we knew they took the loss hard.  Well, we figured they'd be back with a vengeance, but initially we jumped out to a pretty good lead, maybe 4-1?  Everyone thought it was going to be another blowout.  But then something weird happened.  Every single call started going against us.  We've seen bad officiating before, but generally you see refs blowing either one big call against you (like the no-goal in Syracuse) or iffy penalty calls that get parents up in arms because they threaten the kids' safety.  But with those, usually they eventually seem to even out for both sides.  We'd never seen anything like this.  There were repeated man-ups for the other team, and so many blatant missed calls on them.  Even worse, there were a lot of phantom possession calls, like when their player got hit in the cup with a shot (ouch) and somehow they ended up with possession.  Literally every time the whistle blew we knew we were losing possession.  It was mystifying.  Our lead quickly evaporated because we spent most of the game down a man, and as time ticked down, we were tied 5-5 and ended up in overtime.  We had a few scary moments, but then one of our players broke out and boom--goal!  It was an important win to keep us in the running to play for the championship, but it never should have been that close to begin with.  We're still not sure how that happened, but thank goodness they won because it would have been a shame to go down that way.

We were done by lunch time and decided to head into Springfield (less than 30 minutes away) to go to the store at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.  We had wanted to go into the hall, but the Groupon offer stopped prior to summer, and I wasn't sure the price was worth it for us.  Jacob was fine with the store, so we headed out around 2:30.  I went to the Hall on my same eighth grade class trip as the Howe Caverns visit, and I remember enjoying it.  However, that version is long gone and was replaced years ago with a new, fancy one.  How 'bout that roof?  It's actually a giant sphere building, and yes, the orange sphere is a basketball!

Inside, there were a bunch of free exhibits in the lobby.  There were lockers for a variety of hall of famers, much like I remember seeing for current players in my original visit...

We enjoyed these shoe size plaques in the floor.  Jacob's foot is just a little smaller than Shaq's!

We checked out the store and all along Jacob was longingly looking through the doors at the cool center court inside, where you can shoot basketballs at a variety of hoops.  He really wanted to go in and play.  After the Groupon was no longer an option, I spent a lot of time debating whether we should go in.  Should we try to come back sometime when we can get the discount?  Or should we just bite the bullet, make our kid happy, and go in now?  Well...after some discussion and making Jacob promise he would patiently look through the exhibits and not spend the entire time begging to play, we relented and went in.  At least a AAA discount softened the blow a bit.  

The view from the third floor (the automatic first stop on the entry elevator) was pretty impressive.  

All of those squares across the middle of the picture above are the faces of the inductees.  Below them were bios grouped by year of induction.  We had fun looking for names we recognized, mostly from Buffalo's and Rochester's short tenures in the NBA.  We also learned some interesting history we never knew about a recreational team in Buffalo that formed shortly after Naismith's invention of the sport.  Speaking of Naismith, here he is with his famous peach basket (a.k.a., the first basketball hoop).

In our house, former NBA player Mugsy Bogues comes up a lot.  He was only 5'3" but could slam dunk.  Between Jacob's general fascination with players and the fact he's only an inch taller than me, he's sort of a thing for us.  Funny, then, that there was this cutout at the Hall of Fame...

Then there was this one, of 7'6" Yao Ming.

There was a lot to see throughout the upper floors, mostly jerseys and shoes interspersed with historical artifacts like this old scoreboard.

There were also some interactive activities, like something to test your vertical leap or a blue-screen simulation game.  It might be hard to follow, but this is Jacob playing against a WNBA player (not his choice but we couldn't figure out quickly enough how to select a different one).

We tried to make our way through pretty quickly but not too quickly.  After all, we paid enough for this and I wanted to get a taste of what was there.  We could have read descriptions for hours!  On the second floor there was a media zone that included your chance to do your own version of a famous call, but our funny memory from there was Jacob noticing that in the very old video clip, a random fan ran on the court in the victory rush, stole the ball, and ran off just as fast.  It was hilarious!  Presumably that ball is sitting in someone's house somewhere as their prized possession!

We took a quick rest in the pretend skybox suite...

...and then headed down to the floor for what Jacob had been waiting for since we got there--center court!

Jacob grabbed a ball and started shooting right away!  Craig and Carter went to the slam dunk section, and Daddy gave Carter a little assist :)

Jacob quickly found his favorite spot--the peach basket!  He was hitting tons of shots.  I tried like heck to get them on video, but kept missing it.  The video below caught a less spectacular one, but watch for how long it takes the ball to spiral out of the basket!

It was a really cool space--very busy with players, but lots of fun nonetheless!

If I haven't mentioned it, Carter has been on a major Star Wars kick lately.  He thought that the Hall of Fame sphere looked a lot like the Death Star, and here he is attacking it on the wall mural--note the basketball hitting the target!

Galactic destruction aside, he's still a cute kid :)

We only had an hour and a half total to see everything before it closed for the night, and we still managed a half hour of shooting.  Jacob could have stayed all day!  But alas, closing time arrived and it was time to go.

After all, we had one more activity planned!  A few of Jacob's teammates were meeting at an entertainment center, and Jacob craves time to spend with his teammates so we had to go.  Unfortunately, many chose to hang at their hotel pool or do other things, so it only ended up being a few, but they had a blast!  The place had everything--arcade games, mini bowling, rock climbing, bounce houses, laser tag, mini golf, bumper cars, and more stuff I'm forgetting.

Jacob treated one of his teammates to bowling...

...and they returned the favor with laser tag!  He had a great time.  Carter mostly stayed in the arcade area, and was so excited to see this Star Wars game!  He did really well, too!

Eventually it was time to head back to the hotel and rest up for the next day.  We were all in mixed stages of hunger after a long day of snacking and random eating times, so the boys enjoyed ice cream from the hotel vending machine, and I had a piece of cold pizza.  It was about all we could muster at that point!  It had been a really long day, but a good one.  Could we top it on Sunday?  We'll see...