Olympic Dreams

For hockey players, the pinnacle of the sport is the Summer Olympic games. Since the prime age of 7, I have been playing hockey and it has a very special place in my heart. I have made countless friends through playing, achieved a number of personal successes, and even met my now Fiance. It is safe to say I owe a huge deal in my life to the sport of hockey. However, as of yet (and barring any insane change in circumstances) I have failed to achieve my overarching goal in the sport. Now, this isn’t one of those little goals you have, like becoming better at one area of the game, no. This dream is to play in the Olympic Games.

In order to explain this one I need to go back in time. I didn’t ever start playing hockey seriously until I transitioned from playing in goal to playing outfield. Two seasons after making the switch, I found myself being selected for my county team. After a successful season with the team, I attended the Junior Regional Performance Centre. Having only moved on pitch two seasons ago, I was considerably lacking in some of the fundamentals and experience that others had. Still, I managed to hold my own, perform to a high standard, and learn a huge deal of skills that I still use to this day. Unfortunately, I did not make it any further than this point in the development system. Although I tried my best and left everything on the field, this crushed me and my dreams of playing hockey for my country.

To this day, I still have a slight regret about what I did next. After being rejected at JRPC, I decided to pour all of my effort into my school work. This worked out well; I got into medical school and I am now where I am today. However, I let hockey take a back seat during this time period and have well and truly stagnated. A number of injuries, including a recent season-long lay off with an ACL tear, haven’t helped my cause. I have seen friends around me, people that I played with in my first county games, go on to big and better things within the sport, and I can’t help thinking: “what if that could have been me?”

With the Olympics coming back around and now being 22 years old, I am coming to the realisation that my big “dream” is all but gone. However, hockey is a sport that has given so much to me through my life that I want to give something back. So, through the Olympic Hockey Competition, I will be posting a new blog each day. Within the blog, I will pick one match per day to give a short review of, and accompany that with a story of some kind. Hopefully these snippets of the Olympic Hockey Competition are interesting for you to read.

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LBY