How I started playing hockey

After watching the exciting Vancouver Canucks sporting a high speed and high excitement style of play at a friend's house when I was 14 or 15 I was hooked. I could not get enough of the Canucks. Players such as Bertuzzi, Jovanovski and Naslund became my favorites. I think it was the St. Louis Blues that the Canucks were playing that year, with MacInnis, Pronger and Tkachuk. The Canucks beat St. Louis but lost to the Wild. A couple of years later, when I had just turned 16 I played on my first hockey team. I did not score any goals, and I only got 1 assist that season. However, I was also doing lessons and training hard to become a better fit for my team. I was playing in midget then, with people around my age. On my second team, I was 17 or 18 and I talked to the guy in charge of the hockey place to get into a team because I was no longer allowed in Midget and I was too young to play in the adult league. With some persuasion, I was able to play in the league meant for people 19 and over. When I first entered the changing room, I was shocked that everyone was so much older than me. This is something that I had to get used to. The season did go well and I racked up a few more assists and a goal, while still practicing. I still remember that goal perfectly, I got a perfect pass while standing in front of the net and tipped it top shelf past the goalie. That season I was number 10 and my jersey was green with yellow and black stripes.

On my current team, which I have been playing for 2 going on 3 seasons, I have 2 goals and a lot of assists. I am still struggling to find my scoring touch. I have been contemplating becoming a goalie as well, and I have played goalie before. It was on one of my previous teams where I was just starting out and could barely skate. Five minutes before the game, the goalie still hadn't shown up and everyone was panicking. Some players on my team then rented goalie equipment and managed to persuade me to change into goalie gear. I even had all of my regular gear on. So 2 of them helped me change out of my player's gear and into the goalie gear. Both of the pads were on the wrong way, but there was no time to change them. After frantic dressing, I ran onto the ice and made a dive save to help preserve the game. My team was already down 2-0 when I ran onto the ice and I was afraid of wrecking my knees by going down on the ice with my pads because they were on wrong. To put a long story short, my team won the game by a high score. I only remembered letting in 5 goals. The most memorable save was on a slap shot headed top shelf. I stuck out my glove at the last second and got a piece of the puck, and it hit the crossbar or post as well.

Below are pictures of me playing hockey away from home in Jasper. It was about -30 degrees that day, but as I remember it I didn't get that cold.

This is a picture of me playing with random people.

This is a picture of me with my cousin and his friend.