For as long as I can remember I have been a hockey player. Everyone has their favorite sport and hockey was definitely mine. No matter what I was doing, I was always up for lacing up the skates and playing some puck. With this as my everyday mentality, I was kind of thrown off guard when my mom told me “You’re playing lacrosse this year, and it’s not an option!”

As a sophomore in high school I didn’t think I was going to be taking on any new sports. Putting a lot of time and effort into one seemed good with me, but I guess it wasn’t good enough for all the members of my family. While a kid, I played soccer about as long as you can before the 8th grade when I finally quit taking hockey more seriously. Having such a large background in hockey and soccer my mother thought it would be a good idea to try out lacrosse. She had heard that it was a mixture of the two sports and a great work out so she decided I was going to play it. As convinced she was that I was going to play the sport, I thought otherwise. Every time she would bring up the subject I would quickly shoot it down with “nope I’m not playing”. Even though I was very consistent with denying the fact that I was going to play that spring, my mother was very consistent as well. “Yes you are, if you don’t like it you don’t have to play next year.” She wasn’t going to change her mind; I realized that I was going to have to tough it out for the season.

Having to start the season in two weeks and barley knowing how to throw the ball was a scary thought. Unfortunately, it was no longer a thought but a reality. The season was to start in two weeks and I barely knew how to use the stick, I had no clue as to what any of the rules were and there was still six inches of snow on the field. “Yes great choice mom” seemed to be a recurring thought going through my head every day the season became closer. It was a week before the season was to start and I didn’t even have all of my equipment yet. I was feeling very disheartened by the situation and season hadn’t even yet started.

To top off my lack of interest to play, I learned that we would be having 6:00a.m practices. Needless to say I was not over joyed by that bit of news. Ultimately the day arrived the start of the season on a cold, snowy February morning at 6:ooa.m. “What am I doing here” I thought to myself as I sluggishly tried to figure out what piece of equipment goes where and how I could put them on to keep as warm as possible. It was not a great feeling, looking around and realizing all the kids there actually knew what they were doing. After playing hockey for so long I adapted to it. You could throw me into any hockey situation or arena and I would acclimate quickly and be comfortable but this lacrosse stuff was a different story. I was lost and there was no way of hiding it. As the last wave of players entered the field the coach quieted the team and said to start playing four man two ball. Just like most lacrosse terms at the time, I had no clue what the hell four man two ball was so I decided to stand off to the side for a minute and fallow everyone else’s lead. After observing for a few minutes I quickly learned the concept of the drill and stepped in line to take a turn at it. I had established the logistics of the drill but throwing the ball seemed to be my biggest blockade. As the practice moved on I started to warm up to all of the fundamentals more and more, catching, throwing, cradling, all of them seemed impossible two weeks before were now something I could do. It wasn’t the best throwing and passing I’ve seen but never the less it was still throwing and catching in my eyes.

Week after week of the season passed and as I started to acquire some skills in the game, I also started to develop a liking for the game. I was actually having fun with it. After quarter of the season had passed on of the coaches commented to me that they thought I should try to play defense. In lacrosse a defender uses a six foot long pole as opposed to the mid-fielder and attack men who use a three foot long pole. I decided I might as well give defense a shot. Well, here I am a year later and switching to defense has honestly been one of the best decisions I have ever made when it comes to sports. After switching to D I looked forward to going to play lacrosse on a day to day basis.

At first I didn’t think I was going to have any interest in lacrosse. I was convinced that I would play for the season and I was done after that. I made that assumption without even giving the game a chance first and fair assessment. Well, I proved myself wrong. Yes I am still a hockey player and there’s not much anyone can do to stop that but now I’m also a lacrosse player, I guess Mom was right.