“GET OUT THERE NEWMAN,” Coach screamed at me!
“Alright,” I wasted no time and got out the the bench.
Getting off the bench was the longest 4 seconds of my life. I thought about, not being able to win. This was a game I was preparing for about a month or so, I went for the longest jogs, and stick handled everyday. I wanted to win this game, we had to win, our whole team work so hard. I started to remember when I went for all those runs, every time it hurt I ran even faster and longer I always pushed myself for this moment. I always kept in mind that all this hard work would pay off soon. I loved this sport hockey, and I worked hard for it to love me back. That was when I focused on the game knowing we had to win.
I could tell this team must had to work hard, because they wanted to win. But I wanted to win it even more. All those long hard workouts and runs really had payed off now, I was not as tired as I would be if I didn’t went for those runs.
Then the puck carrier on the other team went on my side, he tried to out skate me but I kept up with him, the whole time I made the puck go off his stick but no one one my team was there so every time he gained control. Then I heard the referee blow his whistle blowing for offsides on the other team.
“Great defence Newman,” someone on my team said.
“Yeah, you need to pass the puck to your teammates,”I said firmly.
I went the the faceoff dot. Then the kid on the other team stared at me like I was a menace to his team. That was when I knew to put my meanes face I could ever could make. By the time I was done it looked like he didn’t want to play when I was out there. I took over when the pucked dropped and passed to one of my defence. Slapshot straight to the goalie, it almost went in, instead it hit his pads. My left winger took the the rebound but the goalie caught it with his glove. This was tiring I took a quick look at the clock, only 55 seconds left.
“c’mon guys, 55 seconds left, we have to score,” I shouted.
The score was 2 to 2. I took a second to look at my team, the ones on the bench. They were looking up to us to win, that's when I grew with so much confidences, perhaps too much. There's no way you can have too much confidences. I grabbed that silly thought out of my head and put my game face on, I had a game to win.
He dropped the puck and again pass to defense but, this time they pass to my right winger. The other team quickly grabbed the puck and skated back down to our Zone. I quickly caught up with them. One of the kids on the other team collided into me. Great, It was bad enough from skating everywhere, it felt like two hammers were striking my legs repetitively to make my legs into sausages. Now my chest was burning up and my lungs were frozen, I could not breath I thought for sure I broke some bones. I had to get up, we are going to win, then I got up and raced to the net and my left wing passed to my and I skated as hard as I could to their zone. On my way all the way down the ice it felt like my legs were going to give out.
“GO, NEWMAN,” my coach yelled.
It had not come to my attention until that moment that I was on a break away. I looked at the net and it was only me and the goalie. The goalie that has been on fire the whole game, but I knew this was the moment. The moment where I would have a great memory, or I would be ashamed to even remember this place, or the team. I was 15 feet now, I started my move I acted to shoot on the left and that made the goalie move his whole body move. Then I took the shot on the right. My heart felt like it sanked to the bottom of the ocean. how, did it not go in. But just at that moment the puck came back and I shoot the second time.
“YEAH,” You could hear the crowd going!
“WE WON, WE WON, WE WON,” My left winger shouted with joy.
We raced all the way down the ice and made a dog pile in our net. The whole team were so happy it looked like they just woked up to christmas morning. This was such a great experience for me, I learned that evan if it is really rare does not mean you can't do it, and it was not boring, it was one of the happiest moments in my life. Just to score in a tournament is a pleasure but, scoring the winning goal in the finals in overtime, some kids don't even get chance to do this. Evan though this was almost 3 years ago, I still remember it, I still remember that happy feeling.