Jacques LePage

E 4.3

The Pursuit for Sports

            When I was 5 years old, I started to play organized sports and exercise my body.  I would play every day outside and even in the snow.  When hockey entered my life, I had plenty to do year round.  Baseball, football, soccer, hockey, and good old fun outside helped me be the person I am today.  There are so many positive goals to get out of sports that the fun never ends.  Friends, playoffs, and practice are what it’s all about.

            When I first joined organized sports, I never knew I would be in so much competition.  Everyone was skilled in their own way to make everyone fun to compete with.  Many people I met in hockey were just like me.  We all loved to play pick up hockey, even when we didn’t have practice scheduled.  Baseball brought me many new friends throughout the time I played.  Most people that I played hockey with also played soccer, football, and baseball yearly.  This made sports a lot more fun, because playing with friends makes is a lot easier to connect for the perfect plays.  As school progressed, so did every one in sports.  My friend named Buzzy and I started to get really good.  Some friends dropped out of sports because it wasn’t working out for them.  All in all, if I didn’t have friends in sports, I don’t think it would ever be that fun.

            Moreover, another great time that comes with playing sports, is the playoff time.  Almost every sport I was in, we either went to the City playoffs or State playoffs.  Whenever playoffs came around the intensity tripled from what we experienced in the season.  The first game of any tournament or playoff game for me was the hardest.  I’m always super nervous, especially in hockey.  I am a really good player and know the game better than my friends.  I was nervous because I seem to vision the outcome of the game.  Once the ref dropped the puck, I got in the game. The pass came to me during our first state hockey playoff game last year.  I raced to the puck without thinking.  Once my stick lightly controlled the puck I wasn’t nervous anymore.  I knew what to do with the puck and what was going to happen if I made certain moves.  We lost that game against the number one team in the state.  It was double elimination, but still had a chance to win some hardware in the consolation championship game.  When we lost the first game, our team got a boost in the heart, Playoffs tend to do that if any team losses game one of the tournament.  To all the seniors, we had one last game to prove ourselves.  The seven seniors, including me, dominated the game.  From all the conditioning, practice, and dedication to hockey, I’d say it was the best sports experience I had.  We played hard and played well enough to go home with pride in our hard work that finally paid off from the season.

            For the most part, sports are all about progression.  At the end of the year look back at the progression made.  Conditioning is what got the team to the playoffs.  If the coach just had drills to run and had the team listen to what he had to say, then I wouldn’t want to play for that coach.  The most important thing to do in hockey is to skate.  Skate well, fast, and for a long time.  Our hockey team last year was a joke at first.  I thought we wouldn’t go anywhere in the season.  Wow, was I wrong when our coach decided to skate us and skate us for the whole practice.  I asked, “When are we going to pass the puck around coach?”  He responded,

            “When the team can skate long enough without resting or feeling winded when completing the skating drills.”  Our team had 12 skaters that made two lines and one goalie.  All teams we played had four lines, two or three goalies, and at least 24 skaters.  We beat most of those teams including the number one team in the state, because we could skate our butts off, then rest twenty seconds, and then skate our butts off again for the next minute or so.  One game we had seven skaters because the whole team wasn’t dedicated until the year came to a close.  We won that game 2-1 in overtime.  One of our players was ejected from the game, so to top it off with three 17 minute periods, we played a twenty minute overtime with only 7 skaters!  I wasn’t double shifting, I was triple shifting.  Staying out there for four minutes at times was like hell, but it paid off in the long run.  When teams heard about that game, they feared us when we played against them with our full 12 man roster.  Conditioning and practice is the key to being a good team for playoff picture contention.

            In any case, when comes down to it, making new friends and working hard to be the best is what I get out of sports.  Motivation and the will to be committed make’s it worth it for whoever is in the long run aspect.  Give it time and it will pay off one day.  Just like State hockey tournament last year at this time paid off for me.  This makes anyone feel better about themselves and gives a great learning experience in the end of anyone’s sports career.