Search Results: the waiting game

Long story short, I started learning to play hockey over the past couple of years, but really, I have only a year’s experience figuring the down time with the pandemic. Picked a terrible time to start, lmao.

I received an email today from a local adult hockey league advertising the upcoming winter/spring season. I didn’t sign up for a league in the fall, because I didn’t feel ready. I could play, but I don’t want to be bad, because I’m hard on myself for athletic failure, and more importantly, I don’t want to be a liability for the sake of my team. I’m getting better, but I’m still waiting to get fluid and automatic instead of clumsy and hesitant. I’ve changed my mentality to “take over the game” when I think I’m the best player on my team who’s on the ice, and I feel like I thrive in that scenario. But when I’m the third-or-lower of the five, I feel like I suck, haha. I’ve been playing at night recently with some new guys, and the first week, most of them were 55+, and I scored like six goals, one guy was calling me “Stevie Yzerman” after the former NHL great. The next week better players came and I had a TOUGH night lmao.

So this league…what makes me consider it is it’s supposedly for beginners, and there’s an evaluation game and then a draft party afterwards, and you get picked for a team. I just don’t know how tight they’d be about skill level, like would ringers be out there posing like novices? The other thing…I already know I can’t make the second game of the season because it’s my dad’s 90th birthday. I guess it’s just one game but I’d hate to miss it after committing to a team. The season ends April 6th, so I could wait til then…. but I’m so anxious to get started with competitive play. I’m all heart and grit out there, haha, but I’m still getting some of the finesse skills down. But against similarly skilled players, maybe it’s a good opportunity to play and get better, instead of just trying to keep up with way more experienced guys.

What do you think?