VB Hockey: A Sort of Homecoming

I write this weekend story proud, happy and appreciative, but with that bit of sadness that conclusion tends to create in our emotion knowing this was our last weekend playing “back home” close to where I grew up.

 

If you look at all the write-ups I have put together over the years, they try to create a moment that isn’t just the big goal or save. They try to find other feelings beyond a win or a loss. There is no doubt that themes have developed over the years: travel, teenage antics and moments, seeing alums, maturing, living, learning, education and of course family. My writing has always fought against providing shine to an individual and instead has tried to focus on the emotion of the whole. In most cases, the whole is the team. For today, the whole will be not just the team but my team, my family. Don’t get me wrong, though; there were some great goals and big saves along the way to help make this weekend successful.

 

Stanstead hockey weekends at Ridley College have always been scheduled appointments for my family. I have mentioned this in stories over the years. My parents, aunts and uncle, siblings, cousins and cousins of cousins have had better luck meeting all together for a hockey game than we have for a holiday. Distance, jobs, life and our own children have brought us near and far, but it seems that these weekends have always been a way to bring our hockey family together. This is what sport does, what started with my family finding radio waves to listen to my uncle’s early professional hockey games or their trips to visit him during his time in the NHL has continued decades later as they have come to cheer on the Spartans.

 

At the beginning of the season, I always take note of when the weekends at Ridley are. I know that I am going to get that “home away from home” feeling. I likely have spent more time with my cousins, their children and my aunts and uncle in the hockey rink than I have in a house over the last number of years. We don’t play in front of crowds of thousands, but I will never take for granted the opportunity to coach in front of my family and make them proud. We have pictures beside Stanstead buses to mark the years, team dinners that they have joined in on and simply memories that will never fade with time.

 

We arrived in St. Catharines on Thursday night as a team with the goal of winning the TNPHL. Within our dressing room we believed that we had what it takes to win. A sluggish start on Friday effectively took the opportunity away from us, but we continued to push and use the weekend to better ourselves; to play the right way, to act the right way and to commit to our process and trust it. By early Sunday afternoon we had rolled off two wins and were eyeing down a third with under 20 seconds left, leading Nichols School 4-3, but with their goalie pulled and us in the penalty box they had a 6 on 4 advantage. Nichols won the faceoff and shot the puck. “Ping!” It hit the post but bounced right to a second player on their team. “Ping!” This time the crossbar, and again the puck found one of their players sticks. But the next shot was high and wide, tough words for any team from Buffalo to think about. Breathe… Breathe… Look at the clock… Game over, Spartans win!

 

As I heard the buzzer, our bench was cheering, but calm… this is such a good feeling as a coach. A hard-fought win doesn’t need yells and screams; it simply needs fist bumps and smiles. Across the ice I could see my family cheering for us. At that same moment the puck that had missed the net high and wide knifed into the air off a players stick and in some form of poetry I followed it up into the air with my eyes until it reached my hand. When I caught it, I couldn’t help but think that that puck knew to just let my cheering family have their moment and let our Spartans ride home with that Sunday win.

 

As a team we did not get the championship result that we started the weekend looking for, but with regained composure, effort, detail and structure and of course a big goal from “Captain Clutch” and Andrew Shimon back stopping the “fellas,”  the team went home happy and a happy coach got to take another happy picture in front of the bus to add to the collection.

 

Over the course of the season, players have good and bad days, good periods and bad periods, scoring streaks and slumps.  As coaches we have much of the same. We have times where we feel every button we press is the right one and other times where it feels like the right button is the hardest thing in the world to find. Throughout those ups and downs, it is our families who hear us out and become our voices of reason. For all those conversations, those late-night phone calls and those texts, it was nice to get one last thrill of victory close to home, surrounded by family. No phone needed on this Sunday night, but instead hugs all around in person.

 

Four weeks remain in our season, and we will continue to push towards our goals as a team. Commitment, structure, composure and effort will be words that we have to live by day in and day out, both on the ice and in the classroom.

- Coach T  

Photos from the boys weekend on Vidigami