It turned out that today’s hockey tryout was for a new travel team the youth league is trying to put together. That meant it was actually optional for him since making a bigger commitment to hockey isn’t in the cards. We didn’t know that until after it was all said and done. He’s going to be going into a black belt testing cycle after the New Year and that will take a bigger commitment from him at the dojang. There’s only so much of him to go around.
It would be different if hockey was something he loved. On the way over to the practice, he mentioned the travel team and said unequivocally that he didn’t want to play any travel hockey. He also said he wasn’t looking forward to being on the ice for 3 hours. He liked hockey, but not that much. Karate, on the other hand, is a different story.
So he participated in the tryout and I thought I knew what to expect- a kind of half-hearted effort. I’ve watched him enough and seen his effort level when he’s really not into something and his body language makes it pretty obvious he is not focused on the task at hand. It drives me crazy, but I bite my tongue and remind myself he’s young. I once half-assed my way through some sports and eventually came around. I just have to trust he’ll do the same.
That’s what I expected, but what I witnessed was something else entirely. He was focused and alert. His body language screamed effort and paying attention and trying to compete. He performed the skating and puck handling drills as well as I’ve seen him do them. Then they had a scrimmage and I was really impressed. He hung back and played an aggressive defense in front of his goalie, moving towards the puck, keeping it away from the goal. He even pushed a couple of pucks up the ice when he had the opportunity and scored on one of them.
It was really enjoyable to watch. His competitiveness had clearly taken over and it brought out some of his best effort and hockey play.
When it was all done, I told him I thought he’d done really well. I even kidded with him a bit that if he didn’t want to qualify for a team, he shouldn’t have played so well. Naturally, he took it in stride. After 3 hours on the ice, he was tired, cold and hungry. We headed home to take care of all 3 of those.