Bantams: My Youth Hockey Career

Our team practice everyday for 2 hours and our record was 23-1. We were the first team ever to win in our age division to ever win for St.Mary’s. We had a hard time in the beginning of the season. One of our best players injured her knee. She was running towards the loose ball and her knee twisted. She was out for the rest of the season. Looking back on it made me better because I learned how hard you to to practice or try to achieve your goal.

The coaches said that we weren't gonna get the results until a couple days, but those days I was so anxious. Finally the day we were gonna find out the results came. My mom opened up her email and she found out that I made the team with some of my fellow friends from school. I was so excited for my first day to come. That first season of competition was very nerve racking but at the same time so fun. I even remember at one competition I placed first all around in my division. After the first season of competing on silver, my coach wanted to see if I was ready for gold. They put me through one gold practice and I moved up to the gold team. I didn't know a lot of people on that team, so I had to make

However, I strived to become better and dedicated hours upon hours of practice to better myself and by senior year I became captain of my team and ended my season with 13-5 win-losses and qualifying 4th in the district.

The excitement and happiness are what we wanted to feel when hopefully lifting up a trophy. We needed to prove that not one person can talk down about us without there being a consequence. Every day for hours we pushed ourselves and each other. We became stronger individually and as a team. It was time for preseason, and this is where we must justify our position in our division. We played in one of the hardest group divisions in the whole country, which was exceptional because that left no room for failure, it just left room for us to

I was on the little pee wee team called the Panthers. I was only 10 years old when I first started playing for the team. At first when joining the team I was doubtful on whether or not I would be good enough to play. That moment when Coach Smith called my name I knew it was time. During that first game we were playing against the Cubs. I was wearing number 95. Then all of a sudden I found myself at the line of defense; shaking full of nerves. This was my first time on the field with a team; a team that had my back and knew that I had theirs. My family came out to my game to support me. At first that was all I could focus on was them shouting my name. I had to focus, I hit my helmet to get myself in the zone; I had seen the professional football players do that on TV so I took a chance and tried it out. I was bent over, mouth guard in, and saliva dripping out, I even growled to

Ice hockey has been around since the late eighteen hundreds, and it has developed tremendously from then to the present. Hockey is played by almost everyone; young, old, big, small, boys, girls. The age group that has been under major controversy is the young players, aging between twelve and fourteen years old. Prior to 2008 kids ranging in this age were able to engage in full body contact and body checking, however; the rule was changed so that kids cannot begin body checking until the age of fifteen. This rule change was ignited by both doctors and parents that were watching their young players get sidelined by both major and minor, head and back injuries. The rule change has caused much controversy on whether it was effective or just another rule in place to please the crowd. A strenuous research study was conducted by Carolyn Emery of the University of Calgary, Alberta, says that it does in fact lessen the possibility for injury when hitting is introduced at a slightly later age (qtd. in Marcus). Body checking is a large part of hockey and one of the reasons why an immense number of people participate in the sport, but USA Hockey made the correct decision when looking to protect its players by waiting to introduce body checking. Safety should be the number one concern in any sport; protecting today 's players for tomorrow.

Our team went undefeated for our first 16 games, and then our 17th game we had our first tie. We were used to killed the team we tied to, but that proves if you don’t come ready not everything is going to go your way. Some of the kids kind of took it the wrong way. We won 14 more games after that and kept playing strong. Then we had our final playoff game to see who was going to state or not.

All the work paid off. During the 2016 national competition in May, I ranked in the top 9 percent of 1,308 competitors, the highest individual performance ever posted by Decatur High School. I’m now team captain and have coaxed a lot of promising freshmen to join.

I really didn’t do to well hitting but the rest of my team did and that’s what meant a lot to me and watching my teammates making plays and working as hard as the possible can play in that field made me supper happy. It came down the last inning and we kind of just fell apart in the field but we still have to fight and play hard and just because we are losing doesn’t mean we stop playing. The game finally came to the end and the seniors started getting emotional and then everyone on the team started to get a little emotional it was a very hard loss for the whole team and the coaches. After knowing that we had a great season the team got together for one big last eagles on three for the

Cole Holbrook and Devin Reich stated the reason for their success was just knowing each other which made them play with confidence. Really stressing the fact that playing together last year was so important in building their chemistry. When asked how close the two of them are Devin said “practically brothers.” I asked Cole and Devin what they plan to improve on from now until the state competition they responded with “practicing a lot” and “practicing with other state competitors. When asked about their plan for state Cole responded with “our goal is to make the opponents cry.” The Talon and myself congratulate Ty, Cole, and Devin on their success and wish them the best of luck as they prepare for state in the

We won we are going to state! In May 2015 my high school baseball team finally beat St. Thomas Moore in the regional championship to go play in the state tournament in Sioux Falls, that was something that the Winner/Colome baseball team has not done since 2009. So on May 30th 2015 we headed to the State tournament in Sioux Falls, and in the first game we played Dell Rapids. We ended up having to play 13 innings in about 95 degree weather we ended up winning to go to the championship where we would play West Central the team that was favored to win the championship. I am going to tell you a little about the plans, the expectations and what really happened to our baseball team last spring.

The first year I played goalie. It was a lot of fun, but it also hurt. The first game of the season we played at the Avanti's dome. We had a team meeting right before the start of the game. The coaches asked who wanted to be goalie, when no one who raised their hand, I did. Even though I was putting on the extra pads I got very excited

It was my freshman year in high school. We had a pretty good wrestling team and we made it to the regional duals and the four best teams in our district were there and the team who has made it to state wrestling the past three years and we had to beat all three teams in order to make it to state which was going to be difficult.

Hockey has always had an eminent role in the ideology of identity and nationalism within Canada, from Paul Henderson’s monumental goal in the 1972 Summit Series to Sidney Crosby’s 2014 Olympic Gold medal goal it has shaped Canada as a country. Over time, while the love and pride Canadians show for the game has not changed, the participation or involvement of children in hockey has decreased. The decrease of participants in hockey in Canada is due to the fact that hockey is becoming increasingly more expensive for families to afford. With “more than a third of parents with kids currently playing hockey say it’s become unaffordable” (Global News) this statement includes equipment costs, registration fees, and the cost of travel to and from games

Our first tournament toke place in Van Horn, Iowa. Personally, I was a little nervous. We got first place and qualified for State, I'm very excited to go! Our next tournament we travelled to Ankeney, Iowa. We got first in this tournament to! The weekend after that we went to New Hampton, we prepared because we knew tit may be a little tougher. In this tournament we lost a few matches but we got first again! Our next tournament toke place in LaPorte City. After that we went to one more tournament in Dike New Hartford, and got the win again! Now off to state March 19, we travelled to Ankeny were the state championship would take place. We had a great day we went to the gold bracket! It was a great experience playing with my friends and seeing teams we haven't seen before.