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| OK, so where exactly do I begin with this stance?!! |
It turned out to be something of a mixed blessing. My regular readers got a new voice - April is a superb columnist – with a fresh perspective. I, on the other hand, found out that one of my favorite pupil's – April's son Sam – was giving up the position. Not the sport, just goaltending. It was a bittersweet pill to swallow, because Sam was one of those rare youngsters who just seemed to thrive in the nets. He would keep smiling no matter how hard he worked, and he was a sponge, soaking up everything nugget of goaltending knowledge I could offer. He simply loved learning about the position, and the game. So it's with somewhat unresolved emotions that I present April's column. I wish her and her son nothing but success. But I'll miss him ...
Sometimes, the pads never quite fit
This
is probably the one and only time you'll ever catch my writing in Brion
O'Connor's goaltending column. Why? Because I'm writing about the end of my son's goalie career. And he's only eight. After this, I can't imagine I'll have
much to write about between the pipes.
For those of you who've read my
Hockey Mom column in the past, you might already know the history. For everyone else, my then
seven-year-old son, Sam, shocked us at the beginning of last season when he
declared that he wanted to play in goal for his third season as a Mite.
I guess it wasn't a huge shock. Sam had rotated through goal
the previous year and seemed to like it, but no more than he did every other
position on the ice. In fact, I
was suspicious that it had more to do with wanting to avoid skating than it did
with a true desire to tend the net. He’d been disappointed not to make the Mite 1 team and felt his skating
skills were to blame. So being my
son – instead of committing to work harder and get better – his first instinct
was to hide from his weaknesses.
The apple, as they say, does
not fall far from the tree. So in
this case, it wound up between the pipes. We insisted that he continued
to skate out, but he spent the majority of the first half of the season as
goalie. He won. He lost. He made big saves. He let in some easy goals. He began going to Brion's goalie workouts, and he L-O-V-E-D every second
of it.
And I H-A-T-E-D it.
I hated watching him out there
as the final backstop. When the
team wins, there is at least one goal scorer to share the goalie's credit. When the team loses, it's hard for the
goalie not to feel the greatest burden since every other player on the roster
equally shares the failure to score enough goals to win. Can you tell I'm not a
team-sports-kind-of-athlete?
But actually, I think this
quote attributed to former NHL goalie, Arturs Irbe, sums up what I felt every
time Sam went out there (even if he didn't feel it).
“The goalie is like the guy on the
minefield. He discovers the mines and destroys them. If you make a mistake,
somebody gets blown up.”
No pressure there! As an aside, after revealing this
attitude, I'm thinking after he reads this column Brion would never LET me have
his column space again even if I was still the mom of a goalie …
Despite the pressure – or maybe
because of it – I started to take a curious pride in Sam's resiliency. I might be distraught over a loss, but
he seemed to rebound pretty quickly. I might be overjoyed at a win, but he just shrugged it off. There is something so admirable to me
about that kind of mental toughness that I began to be OK with the thought that
maybe, just maybe, I was going to have to live with many more years of Sam
behind the mask.
And then just as quickly he
decided being in net wasn't his thing. And it was right after we bought goalie pads to boot.
Another boy had been splitting
time with Sam in goal and while he was skating out, Sam began scoring. A lot. Then he got moved from wing to center, which initially he
hated for the defensive responsibility, but then began to relish for the
opportunity to drive plays. He’s always loved to defend the puck and pass at
the right moment … now his skating abilities had caught up with the plays he was
devising in his head. Or at least
close enough.
Sam also noticed something else. The boy he was splitting time with in
net was a better goalie than he was and their team was winning more. "Maybe I'll just play back-up goalie,"
he said. And then, just like that,
he never played goalie again.
I will concede the point that
he is only eight, and still has another year of Mites. So maybe hell go back to goal at some
point. But I have a mother's hunch
that it won't happen. He was
hiding in goal, as odd as that seems to those of us who would avoid that
spotlight like the plague. But Sam
would rather bear the brunt of isolation than become what he perceived to be a
liability to his team. As soon as
he was able to practice enough to do what he really wanted to and be good at
it, he skated right out of the net.
Of course, part of me is oddly
disappointed. And so is Sam, if
only because he won't get to hang out with his beloved Coach O'Connor as much
anymore.
But just like Sam going in goal
wasn't my choice to make, Sam leaving it isn't my choice either. In fact, I haven't even weighed in on
either decision. (OK … maybe I did
ask him if he was REALLY sure before I bought those pads. Ahem.)
I see my place as a Hockey Mom as
supporting Sam's choices. Sometimes that's just a quiet drive after a tough loss. Sometimes it's seeking out the right
coach or camp. Sometimes it's
offering advice when it's asked for, or maybe even when it isn’t. But Sam's decisions in hockey, just
like they someday will be in life, are his alone to make. Ultimately, his mom is just along for
the ride.
So while we may meet again, for
now I'll say goodbye to my favorite Goalie. OK, Brion, now you can have your column back.
FINIS
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