Something that surprised Mat Smith when he first started playing hockey was just how difficult it is to play goalie. All his favourite players growing up in the minors and the SHL, Cedric Robinson, Tibuk Soonika, and Kata Vilde to name a few, had always made it look so easy, so Smith figured that with his good reflexes it should be a piece of cake. This was not the case, however, as during warmups before his first start ever as a goalie he attempted to do the splits and ended up pulling a muscle and having to watch all his friends play without him for a few months. This almost caused Smith to give up hockey altogether, but he persevered, trained his flexibility, and came back strong for the start of the next season ready to go. It was only a few years later that some scouts in the SMJHL saw some potential in him, and a couple years after that he was somewhere nobody ever thought he'd be, in the SHL, watching and learning from one of his childhood heros as Tibuk Soonika and the Chicago Syndicate went on a run all the way to the Challenge Cup. Smith still has a ways to go before he's as good as those he watched growing up, but with enough time, practice, and perseverance, he's hoping to make a name for himself alongside them.