GregKopp.com

Hockey tryouts begin this week. My son Joe will have 3 different tryout sessions to determine which team he will end up on. I know he's a good enough skater to be on the #1 team, but will the coaches notice. Only time will tell. Either way, it'll be a fun year. I'm a certified coach now, so I can help out with practices.

I went to Pittsburgh Saturday and again on Sunday to obtain my USA Hockey Level 2 Associate coaching certificate. Now that I am certified (or is that certifiable?) I can be on the ice durring practices with Joe's hockey team.

I was talking with someone today, and we found out we have a common interrest in all that is John Wayne. I have been a fan of John Wayne movies for a long time. I have started, with the help of my wife, quite a collection of DVDs. I remembered something that he recorded about the Hyphen. I have posted the transcript here.

The Hyphen, Webster's Dictionary defines,
Is a symbol used to divide a
compound word or a single word.
So it seems to me that when a man calls himself
An "Afro-American," a "Mexican-American,"
"Italian-American," An "Irish-American," "Jewish-American,"
What he's sayin' is, "I'm a divided American."

Well, we all came from other places,
Different creeds and different races,
To form a nation...to become as one,
Yet look at the harm a line has done -
A simple little line, and yet
As divisive as a line can get.
A crooked cross the Nazis flew,
And the Russian hammer and sickle too-
Time bo ... Read More »

I've been meaning to post this for some time now. I finally got around to it.

My son's hockey team held thier year-end party today at the Holodome in Richfield. It was a lot of fun. The kids got to go swimming in the pool, play some games, and just run around and have fun. I unveiled a video I had put together for the team. I took some snapshots of the season, along with some video of the playoff and championship games and set them to music.

Click the photo to the left to watch it. It's about 8 1/2 minutes long and is in Windows Media format.

My family and I drove to Pennsylvania today to visit a breeder of Siberian Huskies. Since the death of our older dog, our Siberian, Dax has been a little lonely. So we've decided to find him a new playmate. Of the 3 males and 3 females of this now 4 week old litter, we found a female that we really like. Right now, we're thinking about Kira as a name for her. Time will tell if it holds out. We still have 4 weeks to go before we can take possession of her, as she's still being nursed by her mother, Honey.

Well, youth hockey, anyway. Pickup hockey has started again at the Cleveland Heights rink. I take my son Joe up there as much as I can so he can keep his skating skills sharp. One of the other parents and I are going to join them next week on the ice. So this weekend I bought a pair of gloves and shin guards today along with a new stick. Uhg. What was I thinking?

I had to make the most difficult decision in my life early this morning. I had to decide that it was more fitting to put my 14 year old dog, Tasha, to sleep than allow her to suffer. About an hour and a half after coming home from an 8 hour shift at the jail, Tasha was acting strangely. A trip to the emergency pet clinic at 2AM revealed that her stomach had flopped or twisted. Her chances of surviving any surgery were not very good. She was a great dog and will be sorely missed.