Halfway through the school year, I found myself sitting in a locker room, 6 a.m. Monday morning, with a messy heap of gear I was supposed to puzzle together onto my body. What had started with a thoughtless decision had become reality, one I was altogether far too ill-prepared for.
Deciding to play hockey was easy; it was instant and painless. Playing hockey was the problem.
A whole host of problems unfolded quicker than I could fathom, where I was going to get gear and what I needed, waking up at 5:40 a.m. for practice, and how in the world I was going to catch up with guys who had played hockey their entire lives. Not to mention learning the rules of hockey and figuring out how to shoot a puck.
The list is endless.
After about two months since starting hockey, I can’t say the difficulties have gone away but at least I know how to put on my gear. It’s a start, albeit a rough one.
The most difficult part, by far, has been the constant struggle to perform. The first time I ever stepped on the ice fully dressed with pads, stick, and all was the first time I was asked to perform.
Fumbling with the puck, constantly falling, and not knowing what to do or where to play; it was and still is humiliating.
However, all the time I’ve invested into getting better by attending open-ice sessions at Shaw Park, called Stick-and-Puck, has paid off. All the time I’ve invested into learning the game better, watching hockey games on the bench and on the couch, has definitely paid off as well.
As a little kid, when I was 7, 8, and 9 years old, my parents made me take skating lessons at Shaw Park Ice Rink every winter followed by a casual year of speed skating when I was 10. I wasn’t completely unprepared for hockey, but it took hours of practice alone before I could get close to comfortable to skating in the gear.
In the past two months, I’ve had to learn a ridiculous amount about hockey: the work ethic, importance of strong teamwork, and everything surrounding the game as a whole. I’ve never had so much respect for hockey players in my life. From waking up three hours before school starts to spending entire evenings at late-night games. And skating tens of magnitudes better than average people while deftly working a sliding puck through whipping sticks and legs without giving the skating a thought.
It’s amazing what they can do.
It’s not something one learns overnight; it’s a lifestyle. In that regard, it’s easy to understand how daringly impossible the sport of hockey would be, and is, to pick up. It’s a commitment to say the least.
Would I consider myself a hockey player after only a short two months? Not yet, but I’m slowly getting there. I plan to stick with hockey but it’ll be another year before I’m worthy of a position in a line, a designated group of players that rotates.