Is this heaven?

On Tuesday afternoon, I traded voicemails with the assistant general manager of the Des Moines Buccaneers of the USHL. That being the first contact we’d had with the top Junior league in the United States, it was definitely cool to get the call, but I had pretty low expectations when he called back a little while later.A tryout camp invite? Maybe they’re looking to talk to Owen because they’re interested in drafting him later in the spring? These are ideas I excitedly threw off Brayton Wilson when I got to work.Then the phone rang.As I sat in our on-air studio with the call on speaker phone, Mike Schopp walked in just as things started to get serious. Nicholas Tropper, the voice on the other end of the phone, informed me that the Buccaneers had added Owen to their protected list at some point this season. As best as I can tell, that means that last spring they drafted a player the same age as Owen, but the player chose to sign in the CHL so the team gets to protect another player and they used that choice on my son.Tropper went on to explain that they’ve had some injuries to their goaltenders and wondered if we could get Owen to Des Moines as soon as possible.I mean, wait, what?Des Moines. Like Iowa? For how long? What about school? Do we fly to Des Moines or drive? Are there direct flights from Buffalo to Des Moines?The calm voice on the other end of the phone explained that the team has six games left in their regular season and are five points from clinching a playoff spot. Owen would practice with the team, dress for the games and who knows, if they clinch their playoff spot early enough, maybe even get in a game. Then serve as the backup for however long the playoff run lasts.School can usually be taken care of online, but we’d need to check on that ourselves and yes, they already had a billet family ready to take him in.I got off the phone and said something to Mike and Brayton about my head spinning. Mike, always polite, asked if he could say something. Of course, I replied.“You have to go, right?”Absolutely.In the morning, I went to school with Owen to meet with Mr. Van Remmen, a guidance counselor who has been a huge help to us all year as Owen applied to prep school after prep school. Van Remmen rode point on sending out emails to all of Owen’s teachers and assuring us Owen should be able to keep up pretty well online without seeing his grades drop. By about 8:30 a.m., we had the school part of the equation done and thought maybe we should make a break for it.But wait, the teenager has to wash all the clothes he needs to take to Iowa. Also, we need a new suit for game days. We managed to get all of that wrapped up by early afternoon and hit the road.Despite the late start, we made it to South Bend, Indiana before the sun went down. Yes, we rode around the Notre Dame campus in awe, stopping to gaze at Touchdown Jesus from a number of vantage points, yet somehow never getting in good enough position to take a picture. If we had, you know you’d be seeing it here.The second leg of the trip would start in the morning.This is where you should hear the sound of the needle being dragged across the record. As we were pulling out of South Bend Thursday morning, a right turn meant the interstate and continuing the trip, a left would take us back onto the Notre Dame campus and a daylight around.We turned left. There was ample parking right in front of the ice arena. We got out and I started walking towards it. Owen, always a stickler for rules, wondered first about our parking spot, then whether or not we should be trying to enter Notre Dame’s home hockey rink.“We’re on a college campus. Of course we should go in”, I replied. The place was completely deserted aside from a lone figure skater on the ice.