Dan Gets A Goal

Imagine you are a thirteen-year-old kid. You have never skated before in your life. Now imagine you decide you want to play hockey. That means you have to play with kids your age, most of whom have been skating and playing hockey for 8 years or more. But you go to your dad and tell him what you want to do and he is supportive. It is something new for him too.

You sign up with a league and get assigned to a team. Then you find out there is another kid who will be skating for the first time as well. You get all the protective equipment you need and some skates and a hockey stick. You learn a bit about shafts and blades and choices you need to make as the cost of all that necessary stuff gets higher and higher.

Through it all, your dad is supportive all the way and you find you are having fun.

The season progresses and you watch all your teammates scoring goals. You hang in there and try to make an impact on the play. You experience the exhilaration of playing on a team that, after a slow start, wins 12 of their last 14 games including the championship for their bracket.

A few weeks go by after the last tournament and you look forward to one more weekend of hockey. The team that you faced in Ottawa a few months before is traveling down to the states to play a couple more games.

The first game turns out to be a rout and your team wins by a score of 15-3. The coach changes things around and you start getting more chances than you could believe. The game ends and you still are lacking a score.

Now it is the final game of the year. The coach once again has gotten creative with the lines and you are vaguely aware of the parents in the crowd getting louder each time you handle the puck.

Then it happens. You skate across the blue line into their zone as your teammates maneuver the puck down the wing toward the goal. Someone takes a shot and the goalie makes a save, deflecting the puck with his stick. One of your teammates regains control of the puck and dekes around their defensemen and sees you ready in front of the goal. He taps the puck in your direction and you execute. You watch the puck glide past the skates and sticks of their defenders and see the goalie react to you shot. As he kicks his skate out to cover the gap and makes an attempt to stop the puck, you see it is too late and the puck finds its way across the goal line and the ref signals a goal. You are at once swamped by your teammates who have been with you on this ride all season. They react as if they are more exhilarated than you. You hear the bank of parents erupt in cheers and applause in celebration of your feat.

This, you tell yourself is why you wanted to play hockey. This is what will make the months between now and November drag on as you wait until you can don you skates once again and become part of another team.

This past weekend, Dan, a first-year player on my son's bantam team didn't have to imagine any of that because he lived it.