Personal Narrative Essay On Hockey

When I first started playing hockey, I fell in love with it. My first interaction at an ice rink was when I was five years old. I was with my sister and her now-husband, and another boy who appeared to be around my age impressed me with his skating. He was gliding up and down the rink with ease. This did not sit well with five-year-old me. I threw a fit because I was not the best skater at the rink, even though it was my first time.  At this moment, I realized I wanted to start skating lessons. 

Unfortunately, when I first started playing hockey I was immature, selfish, and competitive. I always wanted to be the best player on the ice every time I touched it, but I never was the best. The main reason why I wasn’t successful was because of my attitude. I would pout, shout, and sulk, making my time on the ice worse. My attitude held me back from becoming the hockey player I wanted to be. Luckily, my early hockey journey was not filled with bad times; instead, I had many great moments like winning championships, staying in hotels with all of my teammates, and amusing knee hockey tournaments which made hockey a fascinating experience. 

As I matured, I realized that my attitude was the one thing holding me back from becoming the hockey player that I could become. But overcoming my attitude was not an easy task. My poor mindset took a lot of time and hard work to overcome, but when I finally transformed my negative mindset into a positive one, it felt like my world had been flipped upside down. I started working harder and I started forming into a leader. Now, instead of pouting about missing the net on a shot, I was thinking about how I could turn a missed shot into a scoring opportunity. I started thinking about my team succeeding rather than myself succeeding. I finally started becoming the hockey player that I wanted to be.

Although accomplishing my goals of becoming a successful hockey player, leading others, and becoming captain of the hockey team was very fulfilling, another opportunity was calling my name. A coach of mine asked me to help him out with coaching little kids. I realized that I enjoyed helping other people, and not just the people on my team. I fell in love with helping other kids find their passion for hockey. I then proceeded to coach little kids and help them evolve their skills in hockey and to incorporate these skills into their daily lives. Coaching these kids helped remind me of when I was their age and how cool it was to learn new skills and become a better person without realizing it. These experiences helped shape me into the person I am today.

Hockey has taught me many lessons. Hockey has taught me how fixing your attitude can lead to amazing results. It has also taught me that I have to work hard to get what I want in life and that I have to give a hundred and ten percent on everything I do. But most importantly, hockey has taught me that you have to work hard with a team to succeed in life.