My daughter, Maddie has an affinity for athletics. I have enjoyed watching her do various activities in her childhood. She has dabbled in gymnastics, baseball/softball, soccer, swimming, introductory learn to play ice hockey, and Dek hockey. And this past year, she did several new things – she joined her middle school swim team, started out with an introductory class to cheerleading, and joined her community softball travel team for the very first time.
She surprised me a week ago when we were dropping my son, Luca, off at his ice hockey goalie camp. She said she wanted to try out goalie, too, just like her brother. Her local recreational in house dek hockey league was in need of goalies for the coming summer season. I said she could join. She was initially excited and confirmed to me she wanted to try it. Carried forward by her excitement, I signed her up, gathered the appropriate gear for her from our garage (Luca has quite the collection of old sports gear now), and supplemented her collection with items from the clearance and budget sections of online sporting goods stores. The date of the first game steadily approached, and she got increasingly nervous each day as the reality started to hit her. These jitters though, are not new for her, and I had to remind her that this has happened before with each new activity she tries.
Granted, being a goalie in any sport is a difficult position. It is a lot of pressure and a different mindset. And trying anything new is daunting and anxiety-provoking I could not sugar coat it , and I was not able to reassure her that it was going to be simple. But I was happy to see her initial excitement to try it and I had a feeling she was going to try hard given that excitement I saw at the beginning. I liked watching her joy as she voluntarily practiced in our driveway with my son as her goalie coach. And I had a feeling that the fellow players and coach would be relatively forgiving in an in house league, especially with it being her very first season trying out a new position.
Her first game was this past week. She did just fine and I could see she surprised herself with how she did. Seeing her excitement when she exclaimed a week ago she wanted ot try it, I had a feeling she was going to try her best. And seeing how she naturally moved in net in our driveway, I could see she had picked up a lot through watching Luca play all these years. I was happy for her in persevering and standing in net, as scared as she initially was. She faced her fears. She is not yet experienced like her brother is, who has played now for several years. But I reassured her that to become good at anything, you need more practice and more time. If she sticks with it, I do see promise and I bet she will continue to improve. Her team was supportive and played well. She made some nice saves. A couple of goals went in against her, but she kept her composure. It was an added bonus that her team got a solid win during her very first game in net. She has several more weeks this summer season to give Dek hockey goalie a solid try. I am proud of her for facing the challenge and pushing herself out of her comfort zone. I hope she continues to take that jump throughout life in trying new things. Without that courage to take the first step in life, she will never find out all of the things she is capable of doing. And life is definitely more fun when you take a chance and try new things.
