Good ol’ Hockey Game

My son’s hockey team was hosting a Coaches/Parents vs. Players game… Brave Chicken offered to play and they accepted, which immediately sent me into a back & forth internal battle of doubt vs. excitement. You see, I have always wanted to play hockey ever since I was a young girl. But we lived on a farm and my parents told me it was too expensive and it involved too much travel so I was never able to play anything outside of school floor hockey and some ball hockey later in life.

First step was to find enough gear that I could actually play safely with a bunch of speedy 15 year olds - another Mom on the team and my amazing neighbour set me up.

I may or may not have gone to Pro hockey and bought myself a stick …

I was anxious and second guessing my decision every step of the way, from the drive to the arena, to sitting in the locker room full of men trying to put on gear I have never actually put on before.. right up to stepping on the ice for warm up. During warm up I quickly realized my skates were too big and everyone has a good shot and moves very fast. My goals for this experience were simple: don’t fall on my ass and don’t run into anyone. *Check and Check.

I put my elbow pads on the wrong way and my skates were too big ..

I also had the ugliest socks on the planet…

Halfway though the first period (yes we played all three) my truly competitive nature kicked in.

I gave it everything I had, tried to score on my own son — passed the puck when I could, chased everyone down relentlessly, and stayed on my feet through the chaos and collisions. I wasn’t perfect, made mistakes along the way, but I left that arena proud of myself for going through with it, and that is exactly what it means to be a brave chicken. Brave doesn’t always win, but in this moment it did, and the small victory of taking a photo with my son at the end will never be something I regret. K