The Team Experience | Teen Ink

The Team Experience

October 24, 2016
By Anonymous

The sound of Coach’s whistle, followed by the grunts of exertion and skates cutting into the ice was the start of one of the greatest experiences of my life. Walking into the locker room before this as a freshman, excited, but nervous to start my high school hockey career. I walked not knowing many people there. But with any team, we began to bond on the ice. I will never forget the experiences I’ve had after walking into the locker room knowing nobody and making a bunch of new friends.


Up until this point, I’ve never got to experience the true ride or die together mentality of a sports team as the teams I’ve been on were club teams. We were never really punished as a team. If someone messed up, they had to do push ups by themselves. There is one moment that stuck with me since then. It was my first taste of team punishment. During a preseason meeting, our coach said this, “I have two simple tasks for all of you. First, give me a list of your strengths and weaknesses, personal goals, and team goals, and second, get a jump rope. If not, we will be doing a sixty second drill for every person that doesn’t do it.” That phrase stuck with me and the other freshman, but not with everyone. Five days later at the next practice, seven of us forgot to do this task. Our coach made good on his promise. We did seven sixty second drills at the beginning of the practice, with a speech.
“I gave you one simple task, and you couldn’t do that. Not to mention that you had five days to do it. If we are going succeed, you guys must do what I ask you to do. If not, we will go nowhere.” yelled our coach. We spent the next twenty minutes skating. A “Sixty Second Drill” is where the team skates from a goal line, to the all the lines, and back. The only catch is everyone, excluding goalies, must complete this in sixty seconds or less. Afterwards, most of us were sprawled on the ice, some leaning of the boards, head down, just focused on breathing. The bad part was we had about forty minutes of practice left after the grueling skate. This moment really bonded us as a team and we took our coach more seriously.


Another part of the team I’ve never really experience was the off-ice side of things. Playing on club teams in my younger years, most of us didn’t go to the same school. The only chance for us to bond us at the rink and the occasional party. Now since we all went to the same school, we were able to connect easier and we felt like a team that has been together for a while. It also made it more fun in the hallway because you may pass teammates and they might do random things from shouting my name loudly to trying the check you into a locker. All this helped us on the ice because we would feel like one big family, all willing to go to war for each other to win.


This was my first experience of what a team is in my life. I always knew that professional teams bond really well because of the time they spend together and I got a taste of that throughout my four years in high school. It was one experience of many in high school that I value and will miss when I graduate.



Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.