What was your last/best accomplishment of a goal you set for yourself?

[WhiteSteve]

Big night for me the other night. My beer league hockey team won the championship for our summer league!🏆

This was really big for me because it was just a few years ago when I moved home to take care of my dad after my mom died, and we live right down the way from an ice rink. I wanted to play as a kid, but it was too expensive, plus my parents didn’t want to make the time commitment (understandable). I stopped in on a whim to see if they had adult lessons or any avenue for me to play at this point in my life. Sure enough, they had a brochure for just that, the lessons were just at another rink. I got started but was stopped short just a month or so into it because of the pandemic. I started fresh in May ‘21, and by January ‘22 I started in an adult league.

I was an absolute disaster the first season. Other than winning a fight, just about everything went wrong. I’ve stuck with it, though, and slowly but surely, I’m getting better. But I’ve been on terrible teams almost every season, lmao.

This year, long story short, we were one of the top 2 teams, and by now, I’m contributing and I’m basically a starter. I’m probably better defensively than offensively, but I try to play good 2-way hockey. Anyway, we played the #1 team (they have a ringer we call “Gretzky”), and we shut them down, won 2-1, as underdogs. I didn’t score but I feel I played really well. And afterwards, my goalie said “You deserve this, bro. You’re really becoming a good hockey player.” Coming from him, the guy on the losing end of my fight that first season, lmao, that meant a lot. I have a ways to go to get where I want to be as a player, but this was a big team accomplishment that’s checked off the bucket list. Felt great to hoist the “Stanley Keg” for hopefully the first of many times😎

When you take a victory lap for the crowd, but there’s no crowd😂

So how about you? Doesn’t have to be sports. Academics, art, music, fitness, just life in general?

[spartan55]

Dude, congrats! I didn't know you had only been playing a few years, that makes it even more special. Glad you finally got on a quality team... cheers!

🏒👍

[WhiteSteve]

Thanks, man! Yeah, just dropped a personal challenge to myself at 40, bought skates and gear, and just attacked it. I’m on the ice about 12-14 hours a week since I started, between Learn To Play class, public stick time, pick-up, and games, lmao, no time to spare at my age. My pride can’t handle being a bum, and this is definitely one of those “10,000 hours” kind of things. Wish Covid hadn’t happened, that was a bummer of a setback, but finally getting that first ‘ship out of the way within a couple years of liftoff is a load off the shoulders.

Had an older friend when I was in my late 20s that decided on his 42nd birthday to train and compete for a 40+ bodybuilding competition, and he went out and won that bitch (he was already built, but not competition-ready). Told me he just wanted to give himself a challenge at that age, and that struck a chord with me, so I followed suit in my own way when my time came. Would’ve been a devastating blow to my middle-aged ego if I failed, so that just wasn’t an option😂

[spartan55]

Damn, that is some good stuff. Pretty inspirational imho.
I can't stop laughing at the plot twist of that angry goalie you fought being your teammate... 😂 😂

[WhiteSteve]

I appreciate that, man!

He even drafted me himself, lmao, and to be his “enforcer”…. beer league enforcer, my mother would’ve been so proud🤦‍♂️😂

He got us into some shit a couple weeks ago, we all got suspended, but I won my appeal. He had to sit, but he got his money’s worth, bloodied the other kid’s nose, from his knees, no less. I feel better about our fight now, like I’m less of a bully, he can actually scrap, haha

[spartan55]

'Beer league enforcer' I think I'd keep that label.

[WhiteSteve]

I’ll put it on a t-shirt or something😂

[exitseven]

I did not realize that you were a novice. I just assumed that maybe you played in high school or just played a lot of pond hockey as a kid. That is pretty impressive that you did that.

[WhiteSteve]

Yeah, still pretty new at this. Had friends who played growing up but I just never got to do it. I always played football mostly, and some baseball. One of my buddies when I was real young was a stud, obviously some kind of pituitary gland problem, lmao, he had all his adult teeth by first grade, just a man-child. Ended up being just regular-big, maybe 6’1, 215, but as a kid, he started hockey as a kid and scouts from big programs were fighting over him. They had him shipped off to some hockey factory posing as a boarding school by the time middle school rolled around. Ended up winning the NCAA championship with BC, and had a cup of coffee in the NHL. But I was always jealous, especially the couple times I saw him in action on a frozen pond.

So, I got to play some street hockey, but that was the extent of it, and I just wrote it off for decades as something I’d just never get to experience. But something just hit me going past the rink that first time, and I even drove past it a couple more times to get the courage to walk in and ask someone. Turns out it’s pretty common, haha. I meet all kinds of guys who have young kids who are getting into it, so they’re getting into it with them. And it’s a good thing they’re around, because there’s an ocean between guys like us and the people who have been at it since kindergarten, lmao. The most humbling days are when I’m coming off my Learn To Play level class, where I’m starting to become a top player, and the next day when I go to stick time and I’m playing teenagers who are in the rink’s junior hockey program, they get tutored for like two hours a day, then the coaches are like “ok, there’s the school we promised your parents. Back to the ice!”😂 Just getting absolutely worked over by kids who can’t even buy scratch tickets, lmfao

[exitseven]

Thanks for the MHO😎

[Massageman]

Going through my old files and dumping about 75% of them for shredding.

[WhiteSteve]

Awesome. Always a challenge to dive into large, tedious tasks. Procrastination usually wins with me, haha

[Massageman]

I have to do it first thing in the morning before my brain discovers what I am up to!

[Redstang88]

Nice, right on dude. Haven’t hit my goals yet but hit a big squat PR this week.

[WhiteSteve]

Hell yeah, count it💪🦍

[robocop666]

Take health products

[WhiteSteve]

You started taking stuff? That’s good, man, we only get one body, gotta take care of it👍

[robocop666]

Say that to a retired boxer. Most of them cannot talk properly.

[WhiteSteve]

For sure, sad to see

[robocop666]

you know how when you have a cat and every day it looks the same. Then when a neighbour comes over they talk of how its gotten so big since they last saw it? You don't notice as you look at it every day. Thats a boxers brain for you. You won't notice till it's too late.

[WhiteSteve]

Well put👍