What Happens After Your Last Game

I remember the first time I stepped foot on the ice in hockey skates.  At nine years old, I had donned figure skates for six years leading up to that, but nothing could prepare me for the dozens of bruises and bumps I had all over my body as I got used to life without toe picks.  But yet, despite every fall and a few stifled laughs from my teammates that summer, I kept on trying.  Thirteen years later, I would step on the ice for the last time, wearing my collegiate uniform and equipment way larger than the first set of pads I wore way back when.

I always encourage kids–and anyone for that matter–to participate in a team sport or activity if ever given the chance to do so.  I do this because I have so many wonderful memories from playing ice hockey for so long.  I wish that everyone would know what it felt like to be part of a team: the camaraderie, the laughs, the tears, the tiring moments, and the triumphant moments.  All of them–even the tiring and the hard times–I would go through again in a heartbeat.  Playing team sports gave me the extra boost of motivation and confidence that my adolescent self really needed, as well as taught me things that no textbook in school could have.

After competitive ice hockey was over for me, however, it slowly disappeared from my day-to-day activities.  I used to go to the ice rink five times a week for practice and that immediately dwindled to zero, maybe once or twice a month if I found the time to go to pick up.  What suddenly was a giant part of my life became so minuscule.  Naturally, I wondered what life had in store for me after graduation.  If I had spent the last four years living and breathing ice hockey and academia, what was I to do after all of that ended?  For the first time in thirteen years, I had a clean slate, with no expectations.  The world was my oyster, and so the world became my playground.

Six months after my last game, I was on my way to Taiwan to move abroad for the first time.  There was no chance that I would be able to associate with hockey here, either.  There’s maybe one ice rink on the island and I have met only one person who played ice hockey before, and they were a foreigner.  So I ventured into a completely new chapter of my life: no ice hockey, no English, different country, and no expectations.  I had given myself a clean slate, but I found that despite entering new territory, hockey still seeped its way into my life, in the littlest of ways.

It’s funny that on a tropical island with close to no ice rinks, I find myself using and reminded of my hockey playing years quite often.  There are some students of mine who actually play roller hockey, so we enjoy chatting about the sport from time to time.  I am guilty of using some of the same speeches coaches of mine gave me in class when kids don’t get along or ask why we do something, and often times it works just as well.  Ice hockey doesn’t speak into my life as much as it did, but it’s still there, lingering and reminding me of all that it has given me, and all that I can give to others around me from this point forward.

What happens after your last game is all up to you.  For me, walking away from the competitive stage was something I chose to do, in order to discover what else was out there for me to uncover.  But I have found that no matter where I go, who I befriend, and what I am doing, I often look around and find myself using the very principles that coaches of mine drilled into me from a young age.  And I know no matter how old I am or where I am in the world, I always have the choice to return home to my old stomping grounds, lace up my skates, and step on the ice, all to remind myself of why I fell in love with the sport in the first place, and why I’ll always be grateful for my love for ice hockey.