The Hockey Dream

The Hockey Dream

Chapter 1: The Hockey Dream

Timmy had a dream: to become a professional athlete in the National Hockey League. Others where Timmy lives, St Paul, Minnesota, might say otherwise. Maybe a football player or a baseball player where some of the cities’ other professional sports teams grasp the dreams of young boys and girls. 

Timmy had his heart set on the sport of the hockey: a sport with a rich history of great players such as Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe, two of some of the most best players in their time. The natives first played it with different items such as a rock as the puck but playing with the similar rules and play there is today. 

When the first Europeans came to North America, they played the great game and made some adjustments to the sport of hockey such as the skates and sticks, mostly safety changes as hockey was a dangerous sport and both civilizations knew this. Hockey for the natives was often played to settle rivalries between villages. 

A group on people abandoning the NHA (National Hockey Association) created the NHL November 26th, 1917. Progress was slow at first, as many hockey players went to other hockey leagues such as the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and West Canada Hockey League.   

In the early 2000s, the league welcomed players like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin and Jonathan Toews to the hockey spotlight. Since then, the hockey world has encouraged children around the world to become hockey players, making the race to the National Hockey League a elimination-like game in which only the ones which choose to continue in the race of the pros are the ones that have a chance. 

Many players give up the marathon to the NHL for a higher chance to have other jobs in the city life or do not have the skill or patience to make to the NHL. But the final hockey players, the 30 teams of the league choose the 200 or more players from all over the world that met the requirements for the NHL draft, making the sport unique and fascinating to find players of all calibre play the sport that was played thousands of years ago by the first peoples of North America. 

Timmy wanted to become one of those 200 or more players that made it to the NHL. But many kids at school made fun of him and said he would never make it to the hockey league. He didn’t own skates or a stick. So he asked his parents if they would sign him up to play with a local hockey team. 

They thought carefully, as it is a dangerous sport still and is very expensive to play. Timmy told them about the kids at school that teased him about his inability to play hockey, thinking this could raise his chances to play ice hockey. His parents decided he could play hockey, on the condition that he was aware of the risks, it would not interfere with school and to play fair. Timmy accepted right away, because he was excited to play hockey with all of his friends and to show the teasers that he could play hockey. 

Timmy joined the junior league when he was five and loved to skate and shoot the puck. Every minute he skated, he was excited to help his team win but remembered the conditions that his parents told him. His love of hockey was just starting and his dream to become a hockey star began.