The Best Medicine

Laughter has always been something I enjoy making people do. I tend to laugh at the stupid things I do a lot. Sometimes I can laugh right away and move on from it without thinking twice about it. This particular time, I wasn’t able to do that. It took me about a day to be able to look back and laugh at it because I realized, it is not the end of the world. I will be able to move on and nothing bad will happen from this. So this is the time I choked a double-overtime comeback game.

This was my first year playing on a high level, serious hockey team. I was a U-14 playing for the Maine Moose. We had got into these league called Eastern Junior Elite Prospects League, EJEPL, or EJ for short. We had just started the season and were headed down to Philadelphia for a showcase. I had no experienced anything like this before and I was super excited to get a taste of EJ. Some of my teammates who have played in this league last year warned me about how the speed would change big time and I needed to be careful. The first game actually went really well for me. I had scored on the power play and got an assist against one of the top teams in the league. And just like that I led the league in points as a defense men. Game two rolls around that day and it does not go as planned. We find ourselves down 5-1 halfway through the second period. But we turn it on and started chipping away slowly and I scored the game tying goal with a minute left in the third period. When the buzzer sounded at the end of the third, it was time for Overtime. I had never played in an overtime game before, and I was super nervous. My coach had played me the last 5 minutes of regulation and put me on the ice for Overtime. We played 5 minutes and still nobody had scored, so we hit the second and last overtime. Coach never took me off during any of these overtimes so I was getting extremely tired. With about 2 minutes left in this second overtime, I line up in the offensive zone for a face off. We are playing 3 on 3 overtime so I am the only defense man back. My center wins it back to me, but the puck slows down and doesn’t make it all the back because of all the snow on the ice, I go to step into a slap shot when my center pokes it back to me. I had no idea what to do as the puck starts sliding past me. I try and turn my body quickly to recover, and while doing so, I fall flat on my face. The opposing team goes down the ice on a breakaway and scores to win the game, and end what could have been, the greatest comeback game. I stormed into the locker room and threw my water bottle against the wall, got undressed as quick as possible and stormed out of the rink. For most of the night I kept to myself in my room until my close friend on my team came knocking at my door. This was the first thing he said: “I am glad that wasn’t me” with a huge smile on his face.

I really thought about punching him square in the face, but then I just started laughing really hard. Me falling and costing the game wasn’t the end of the world. It sucked, but it wasn’t the end. For the rest of the night him and I were together, re watching me fall and them scoring and we just laughed about it. He showed me it was perfectly fine to mess up, and that laughing about it makes it way easier to cope with. I still do stuff like this today, but now I laugh about them a lot sooner than that day. He made me understand that I can’t go back and change what happened, so I have to embrace it and move on. He also taught me that laughter is the best medicine, and can cure anything. I couldn’t be more thankful for that lesson, or that moment.

Photo by HunterxMoore on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND