For the love of the game

As King, I have a responsibility to the people of JeffLand. This becomes fully realized to me on the weekends when the recreational activities of the Royal Family happen. There is a lot of driving involved and many trips to various sporting facilities surrounding this great nation. (That nation being JeffLand, of course.)

For the most part, the enjoyment that I take away from watching the Duke and the two Princes play the sports that they love is worth the effort and the schedule stress. That is, unless something goes drastically wrong or, even worse, they complain about it.

Such is the case this morning.

I enrolled the eldest Prince in a power-skating class to help boost his skating abilities on-ice since this is his first year in hockey. They focus on skating (obviously) and try to develop each player’s skating technique and skill through various types of drills and repetition. They take their helmet, gloves and stick so that they can get the feel of doing it all with a stick like it were a hockey situation… so I thought that having his stick and gloves would make it more enjoyable.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Every Saturday morning is greeted with a groan and a frown and a pout when I tell him to get ready for power-skating. He doesn’t like it. Actually, he fucking hates it. Even when I mention power-skating, I’m greeted with a heavy sigh and an eye roll.

Like a root canal but more painful

He’s told me that he’d rather go to school than go to power-skating, although that’s likely a huge exaggeration. That being said, I think he’d rather watch an eight hour Hannah Montana marathon than go and work on his skating.

I don’t understand it, though. He’s so much more different in that regard than I was at his age. Any chance I had to get on the ice and practice or learn better techniques on skating or shooting or anything that would give me an edge… I was on it. The Prince? He thinks he knows it all and doesn’t want anyone showing him or teaching him… he’s got a huge chip on his shoulder. Like his way isn’t right or something.

Anyway, all he does is complain about it. I thought he would understand but, clearly, he doesn’t… nor does he appreciate the efforts I’ve made to get him into it and to take him there. So I’m torn about doing any camps for him over the summer. I want to keep him skating so he doesn’t lose the momentum in the off-season but he’s expressed a definite opinion that he does NOT want to be in another power-skating class. I’ll look into a hockey camp for him but those are filling up quickly and I might be too late already.

But, I got thinking this morning as I was freezing my ass off watching him skate and “dread” it. I’ve stopped having a life of my own. My life has become making sure that everyone else has a life and is having fun. Everything in between that… ends up being me killing time until the next thing I have to chauffeur the Royal Family to. And no matter what I do… someone has got to whine about something. It gets quite tiring and leaves a King feeling quite unappreciated.