Growing up, hockey wasn't always made numero uno. I enjoyed watching and playing plenty of other sports, including baseball, soccer, and basketball. Sports as a whole were just deeply rooted in me. But something about hockey just compelled me to lace up some skates and aimlessly take slapshots from the point. Speaking of slapshots, I remember the first time I tried to take a "shot", it ended up just being me flinging the puck around the boards. It found a teammate, though, and I attribute my love for assisting from that. As far as becoming a d-man, it took a while before I decided where I wanted to play. I was a bit of a late bloomer in terms of my stature growing up and everyone perceived d-men to be these big, physical guys who'd really make you grind it out. Being an offensive d-man was a possibility, but I couldn't score. I'd play as a winger in pee-wee and try to set up my teammates to make up for my lack of goalscoring ability, but when I didn't contribute offensively, I'd catch myself being the F3 a lot and back-check. I was considering being a 200 ft. forward, but then I hit my growth spurt. With all the defensive positioning drills I'd do with coaches, I then realized that I could be a decent defenseman and contribute offensively on top of that.