High School Hockey

When I first started playing highschool hockey, I thought it was going to be the greatest thing ever. Student sections, 10 minute warmups, ice cut between every period, announcing goals and assist, it was the “real deal” to me. Junior year I finally realized how terrible it was, and how everyone looks down upon it. Highschool hockey was the biggest FLOP of my hockey career.

My first taste of high school was freshman year scrimmage, we were playing Mt Arat, at home, with a packed arena. The second period of that game, I had stepped into the red line to dump the puck in, and the second I released my shot, I got destroyed by a 250 pound lineman on hockey skates. All the years of playing hockey I had never gotten hurt, and this was my first real eye opening experience of “fast paced, hard hitting” hockey. After the game I had gone home in my room and just laid in bed and thought “how am I ever going to adjust to the speed of this game?”. As the season continued I started to hate it, I hated being not the best on my team, and hated not getting the playing time/respect from my coach. I had wanted to quit so bad. I am thankful my parents said no and told me I needed to finish the season. Later on in the season, I had scored my first varsity goal, and everyone was really excited for me, the whole bench went crazy when I scored. It was one of our biggest games of the season against our rival EL. I scored the game tying goal in the second period and it was the greatest feeling, I had finally starting adjusting and was getting comfortable. End of my freshman season I had finished with 3 goals, and 3 assist. Pretty decent numbers from a freshman defensmen.

Sophomore year season rolls around, and I am starting to feel very comfortable on the ice, and in the lockeroom with all the seniors. First scrimmage of the season rolls around, and my first play was a turnover, that resulted in a goal. All the confidence I had, had gone out the window, and I am finding myself overwhelmed with the speed. As the season continues, I was in a slump, and recorded little points. Next thing I know, there is 4 games left in the season, and I have only 2 assist. We go to Kents Hill to play Maranacook, and this is where I find my stride. I had scored 2 very good goals, and helped us get the win, the game had come easy to me. Later that week, we are yet again, playing EL, this time, senior night. Norway Savings Bank is packed full of people, expecting a very good game, as EL ended our 5 game win streak to start the season, with a close 1 goal loss. It was the first period and we had found our selves down 4-0, with 5 minutes left. I had rushed the puck down the ice, making plenty of swift moves and beating there whole time to make it 4-1, and I celebrated the hardest I had ever celebrated. 30 seconds later, we score again, and we had cut the deficit down to 2 goals. The second period rolls around and I scored my second goal with ease. The momentum from a sophomore scoring had made everyone get going, and we tied the game up quick. EL fired back and scored again. it was 5-4 going into the third. Third period rolls around, I find myself on the ice again on the powerplay, I took a shot from the blueline, and stunned the goalie and scored my third goal of the game. Making it my first high school hat trick as a sophomore defensmen, and that is when I realized that high school hockey was not as good as I thought it was my freshman year. When it was all said and done, we had lost to EL 6-5. The last 2 games I had been moved up to first line forward, and had a goal and assist in each game. We then lost to Saint Doms first round. I ended the season with 7 goals, and 4 assist.

Junior year rolls around, and I am feeling good, first game of the season I had a goal and an assist and controlled the entire game. As I roll through junior year I realize how bad the competition is, and how bad my coaching was. My coach had held me back from scoring in certain games to let freshman and sophomores get chances, and this overall ruined my chances of defensive player of the year. The end of the season rolls around and I finished with 9 goals, and 17 assists. I had also got defensive player of the month, and ended up runner up defensive player of the year. The player who won defensive player of the year was terrible, and was a player of the coach who got final say of who won the award. This point on, I told myself I wasn’t going to play high school hockey again, and I would prove him wrong, and I did.

This whole experience reminded me of the episode in “The Office”, where Jim starts a snowball fight with Dwight, and expects to just kill him the entire time, when Dwight actually destroys him, and makes Jim look stupid in the end. I would say I was Dwight, and Jim was high school hockey. I unexpectedly destroyed in high school hockey, and moved onto to bigger and better things, making them look stupid for not making me defensive player of the year.

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