Hip Hip Hooray!  The Jets won last night and it looks like Jacob Trouba will be fine following that scary crash into the boards in last night’s game against St. Louis Blues.

I thought I would make this post while Jets fan are still on a high from our win last night.

Hockey Party Invitations

I have a membership with Smilebox.  Smilebox is a great online tool for making wonderful e-cards and digital scrapbooking projects. For Shay’s hockey themed birthday party, I thought it would be cool to make the invitation in the format of a Sport Illustrated magazine cover.  Basically, I used the Smilebox template, personalized the information and then emailed out the invitations for this party. Here is a screen shot of the invitation.

Your invitations should include the date, location, drop-off and pick-up times, and RSVP information.  Also, be sure to include information such as:  what to bring or wear to the party and mention if lunch or dinner will be served.  The invitations should be sent out 2 to 3 weeks prior to the party.

Hockey Party Decorations

For this party, Shay really wanted to play floor hockey with his buddies.  We rented a room in a community center for around $75 (I think). I remember it being quite inexpensive and we had full use of the kitchen that had a window opening into the party room.  It was a perfect set-up and kept my house in tact.  This also meant that decorations were kept to a minimum as we had to haul everything there.  I made the standard homemade birthday banner and decorated the plain white tablecloth so that it looked similar to a sheet of hockey ice with the line and Jets logo in the center.  I used store-bought Jets plates and napkins as well.  I also bought a little triangular Jets banner to put around the table at the entry.  This table held the cake, vintage jersey Jets cookies and the loot bags.  Of course, we invited the boys to wear Jerseys or hockey t-shirts if they wanted to.

Hockey Banner

Entry Table

Hockey Rink Table

Hockey Party Activities and Games

This was the simplest party ever. Seriously, my husband played floor hockey with the boys for the entire time.  We literally had to cut them off, so that we had time for cake and gifts at the end.  The community club provided the nets, sticks and pucks and set-up benches as “boards” at our request.  It was awesome!  I relaxed with my friend and daughter.  Unfortunately, the three of us ate most of the snacks on the table, as the boys had no interest in stopping to snack.

We used benches for the boards.

Food and Snacks

I knew the boys would be kept busy playing hockey, so we kept the food to a minimum. I did buy a few frozen pizzas to cooked in the community center oven, but when the oven was preheating there was lots of smoke and a few flames as a previous user had obviously spilled something over and it had not been cleaned.  We decided to forgo the pizza plan and in the end we were pressed for time without it as the boys had so much fun they were more interested in playing hockey that having a pizza snack. It was a mid afternoon party, so I wasn’t concerned about them missing a meal or anything so we just skipped it. At the time, it seemed like a better option than burning the community club down!  We had snacks and drinks out on the table throughout, so the boys could munch throughout the party and stay hydrated.  We served the cake and ice cream near the end, before opening presents.  We used plain navy blue cups for the pop, but I had painted white numbers on each cup.  The numbers corresponded with those worn by some of the most popular Jets players.  So, they kept track of their drinks by remember the Jets number they picked.

Hockey Rink Birthday Cake

I love baking a cake or cupcakes from scratch and then decorating them to match our theme.  I have never taken a cake decorating course, so my cakes are far from perfect, but I have lots of fun looking at different theme cakes online and then coming up with my own variations.  Obviously, some turn out better than others. We almost always serve ice cream with our cake.  For this hockey rink cake, I added bristle board “boards” and used coloured tape for the lines.  I used a layer of buttercream icing and then fondant on top.  Shay had a mini table hockey type of game and I was able to easily snap the nets off of it, wash them and then set them on the cake for the party. (They snapped back on the game just as easily after.)

Hockey Themed Loot Bags

I picked-up red gift bags from the dollar store and made a little thank you tag for each bag in the form of hockey skates.  The bags were filled with the following:

• a current copy of the Scholastic Hockey News magazine
• Winnipeg Jets tattoos
• a “SKOR” chocolate bar
• a box of Cracker Jacks
• hockey themed pencil, ruler and sharpener
• a homemade Winnipeg Jets bookmark
• Each guest also took one of the homemade vintage Jets jersey cookies with them on the way out

loot bags

Thank you skate tag

bookmark

vintage Winnipeg Jets jersey cookies

Timing for the Event

I generally keep our parties to 2 hours. The boys played hockey for about an hour and 15 minutes and then stopped for cake and presents at the end.  The timing was perfect and I knew that if we had extra time, they could always pick-up the sticks and continue to play until they were picked-up.  If booking outside of the home, be sure to check on rental prices and allow yourself time for set-up before and clean-up at the end.  The community club we rented charged us for two hours, but allowed a half hour extra before and after for decorating and tidying.

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