When your child exits the locker room from their state hockey tournament losing by only one point, it is disheartening. Considering that your son is a senior and this is his very last competitive hockey game – ever – it is one of the saddest moments of your life; witnessing the tears that he and his friends have mutually shed.
It has been 13 years of blood, sweat and tears; of early mornings and late evenings; of discovering that the people that you spend four to five days a week with become your new family members. Then in a blink it is over.
You promise to keep in touch but somehow you just know that life will somehow get in the way. But for tonight we will all just sit and reminisce. We will thank our kids for everything that they have contributed to our lives.
There will still be the awards banquet where we will have one more opportunity to get the gang back together to celebrate the great achievements that each team member contributed. This one more opportunity will give our boys a chance to say a real goodbye.
Sure there will be texts, a few phone calls, perhaps a rat hockey game or two, but life is about to change for that is the one constant in this life….change! Life happens way too fast.
One quote that was read by one of the players tonight was this: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. (Marianne Williamson) The philosophy behind that statement is powerful indeed.
Hockey is a sport that is not for the faint of heart. No matter how good or even how adequate a player is, they are just that much better than most athletes because hockey is the ultimate coordination sport. The light that shines on these players is powerful indeed!
So who does the end bother more? The parent that sacrificed time, vacations, family holidays and buying themselves anything new so that they could pay the fees or the child that would spend hours on the ice, in the gym, in the basement – for years and years – to have the dream end in one fell swoop? Let’s just say that the end of the era will affect both in very different yet personal ways.
Thank you Coaches and our great Manager. Thank you Hockey Board and faithful fans, but mostly, thank you boys for doing your best, for making us proud and for a really great ride! We are proud of you Wildhawks!
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