I led my peewee hockey league in penalty minutes when I was 11 years old.
I still have my blood stained jersey from that season.
I just framed that jersey and hung it in my hallway.
It's odd some of the things I find myself holding onto. This one in particular though makes me wonder why I have held onto it so dearly. I look at it sometimes and wonder if that was the point in my life where I stopped getting picked on and started sticking up for myself. I started not letting those around me to get under my skin and started fighting back, almost to the point where I approached bullydom on my own. I remember playing the games and having parents cheer me on as I bashed other kids into the boards with reckless abandon. That year I was selected third overall in the draft for the league and I felt I had to raise my game to a new level so instead of focusing on playing hockey I instead ended up being a tenacious little punk on the ice.
If I had a kid like me back then on my team now I would have kicked him off a long time ago. But here I am looking at this jersey on the wall and I shake my head why I feel that that is the one jersey that I need to preserve.
2 comments:
i still have my apron (dirty yet folded away in a box) from the last day of my first waitressing job.
yeah - i'm weird.
where's the picture!!?!!?!
i think it's cool you saved it. and even cooler that you framed it.
but still, we need a picture.
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