Hard Work Over Talent

It was a cold Sunday in May almost as if we were in the hear of winter, the stands started to fill up as my Spyder’s team finished warm-ups in the finals of our tournament. The team we were playing were a whole year older than us and they were ranked #2 in the country. No one on the team thought we were going to win because they were way more skilled. The beginning part of warm-ups were spent by our team being memorized for the other team. I thought We are going to lose, they are way more skilled than us. The game was between my Spyders and the Okland Jr. Grizzlies at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Pittsburgh. The Grizzlies were flawless in every aspect of their game. The way they skated looked so effortless.

My line started the game. After the team huddle was over the adrenaline rushed through my body, it felt so nice, the cool breeze of the cold rink hit my face. As I made my way to the faceoff dot I used my edges and cut into the ice it sounded like I was eating ice. I was facing off against their captain. He looked really good at first, I was scared. He wasn’t looking at the ref to see when he would drop the puck, instead, he was looking at me. He looked like an actually grizzle as his face was covered with hair. The pucked dropped, I lost the face-off, they were so fast it was hard to keep up. They were so fast, I thought that a cheetah was playing the game

When I came to the bench my coach shouted, “Keep it up, let’s match their energy!”

I told my linemates when they came back to the bench, “Guys we had a good shift, let’s keep up our intensity, we can beat them.” 

The next line was getting destroyed. I knew something bad was going to happen. They had been on the ice for too long. They were going to take a penalty or get scored on. What do you know, the Grizzlies just scored. Coach sends out the next line while the Grizzlies send out their first line, not a good match for us. I had another bad feeling about this shift. The Grizzlies stretched a guy through the middle on a break-out and he goes in on a breakaway and scores, just like that it’s 2-0 Grizzlies. My line goes out for the face-off, I turn around and tell my teammates we are running wildcat. I won the faceoff my wingers came through but the Grizzlies knew exactly what we were doing, they hit my wingers onto the ice and came in on a 2 on 0 against our goalie and scored. I came back to the bench and slammed my stick against the boards because it was now 3-0 Grizzlies in 3 minutes. My mind was shouting that we are going to lose and that we suck. My coach called a timeout and had us all go on the ice.

My coach said, “Come on guys, 3-0 really, you guys are better than this. Let’s just get out of this period and talk more in the locker room.”

I heard a whisper on the bench of people saying we are screwed, there is no coming back, there are so much better than us. The second line gets on the ice is flying, they are outplaying the Grizzle’s second line. I thought, Did I really help them believe that we can win with my little speech? The second line gets 4 shots on goal and we can see the Grizzle’s goalie isn’t that good, that it would be easy to score on him if we got pressure on net. We went into the locker in between the first and second period.

Coach came in and said, “Captains room.”

Max and I stood up, and Max said, “Guys let’s just get shots on net and we will be fine. We will win if they get lazy, they look lazy.”

I followed up by saying, “Goals will come, we keep them to 3 goals and we score goals we will win. Keep up our intensity and let’s go get em.”

We take the ice for the second period and we are flying, we have all the zone pressure, each of our 3 lines are doing their part, getting pucks deep, getting shots, and not letting them score. Time flying by there has been no whistle’s it just has been constant zone pressure by our team. The Grizzle’s can’t get any offense when they get lazy.

Our coach says, “They can’t keep up with you when you guys actually skate. Keep it going.” 

With 10:05 left in the 3rd period, their captain took a slashing penalty and now we have a power play. My line goes out there and within 30 seconds of the powerplay, I slide the puck over Max on the back door off a fake slap shot and we score. It’s 3-1 and we are back in, there is no stopping us now. The second and third line go out there and have goods shifts they keep their own momentum and intensity. When we get out there and right away Max takes a penalty. We lost momentum because now the Grizzlies are now on the powerplay. I go out there with my linemate Thomas. The Grizzlies set up in our zone and they try to pass it cross-ice slowly, I intercept the puck I pass it to Thomas speeding through the middle, he goes in on a breakaway and scores. It’s now 3-2 but we still have a penalty to kill. Sinc Max took a 5-minute major, he is still in the box and we are still down a man. There are 3 minutes left in the game and the Grizzlies start dominating again. There was no doubt that they were better than us, but we worked harder. Our third line dumps it in and comes for a change, the puck takes a bad bounce and ends up in their net. It’s now 3-3, we can win this. With 15 seconds left in the game, I skate down the ice make a move on their defensemen and just me and the goalie, I make a move to my backhand and boom goal. Then the buzzer sounds. The crowd rose in waves. My smile went ear to ear, it was like I just won the Stanley Cup. My face was as red as a cherry tomato. The all-powerful team from Michigan has lost. In the locker, while our team was hype and our coach came in and said, “LET’S GO, HARD WORK BEATS TALENT WHEN TALENT FAILS TO WORK HARD.” It was now time to party like it was our birthday

After that game, I have made sure to always believe my team can win when we face a batter team. If we are the better team never think the team is worse, because they can beat you.