Hockey is Life

I've played six games of hockey now. Six nights of stepping out onto the ice. Six nights of trying to stop on skates. Six nights of velcro. But it wasn't until my sixth game that I really fell for hockey.

Well, sort of. :-)

What I really mean to say is that it wasn't until my sixth game that I allowed myself to fall on the ice; that I allowed myself to lose a little bit of control and to not be so concerned with embarrassment or looking silly.

Pyper, a teammate of mine, described my skating sweetly saying that I was methodical on the ice, deliberate in my moves, gliding along. Dare I say graceful? And while I'd love to picture myself in this way, floating along the ice like Kristi Yamaguchi, the truth of the matter is I'm slow simply because I can't skate any faster! And as for being deliberate... well...

I'm a person who likes to be in control. There, I said it. Do I get a cookie now? :-) I like to be in control of myself and, if at all possible, the situation as well. I think things out thoroughly, I play scenarios in my head, I like to know what's going on and I hate to be in the dark.

Enter hockey...

At first glance, one would easily surmise that hockey is not a sport of control and deliberation - at least not at the amateur level. Too bad I missed that day in class because I was determined to retain my calm methodical composure in this new sport. Uh, HELLO! I'm on ICE for crying out loud! How much control did I think I could possibly have?

Remember that one of my goals in my first game was to not fall? I was proud that I didn't fall the entire game, nor the game after that, and I continued to keep that goal as a sign of accomplishment. One night I had a particularly frustrating game. I was confused about where to be, I was frustrated immensely with my lack of skill and I wasn't having a lick of fun. To combat my frustration, Nicole and I went to the rink a few days later to work on my skating. An hour on the ice and still not able to stop on skates, I at least left the rink with a new outlook (and a pretty good snap shot, I might add).

My new outlook was simply this - falling is learning.

If I really wanted to advance, if I really wanted to learn, I had to try to stop, try to turn, try to skate balls out the length of the rink even if that means falling - and it inevitably would. But then there would come a time where I would try and I wouldn't fall. That's where the real accomplishments lie - beyond the fall. But still, that meant giving up control and I wasn't sure I could do it.

A few days later at our next game, I stepped onto the ice with a radically different goal - I was going to fall. A lot. And I did. I spent more time sliding across the ice on my bum than I did skating but you know what? I was aggressive and I made plays and I heard "Nice, Mel!" Great job, Mel" coming from the bench. Sure I looked more like Bambi than Yamaguchi, but I wasn't embarrassed. In fact, I was proud that my socks were soaked with water by the end of the game.

The best part was being recognized by my teammates for trying harder. No one cared that I fell because it was seen as improvement. A rite of passage to becoming better at a sport so foreign to me.

So from now on I'll leave my need for control in the locker room and I'm going to try more, inevitably fall more, and get a heck of a lot better at getting up.

Hockey is life, lesson #1.