<div align="center">Ketchup. Laugh it up. I've embraced it now. It wasn't that easy in elementary school, though. We went on a field trip to learn how pizza was made and they gave us some fries with our pizzas we'd learned to make from scratch. Brian, of course, has to ask "Can I have some KHET CHUPP with my fries?". Everyone is having the time of their lives in the restaurant. Me? Trying to play along with the joke, remembering how much of an incessant grudge I had with my parents back then for choosing such a hysterical name at the time in the back of a tour bus in Gibraltar. Pretty traumatising experience at the tender age of 9 but it's helped build my character into who I am today.
Now I've embraced it. I'll get chirped on ice by guys saying stuff like "If I beat you in a fight will tomato sauce come out?" and the good old usual I've received over the years. Kept my focus on the game and played my usual defensive style hockey. I always found the best way to aggravate another team is to pull off a stat line of 6 hits, 6 blocks, 2 assists with the W.
Other than my name, often the first question I ever get asked is how a person born on an almost tropical territory gets into the sport of hockey? I'm not really from Gibraltar I actually live in Olympia, Washington. Every time I'd stay with my parents in Olympia, we'd buy Seattle Riot season tickets and make the 1-hour drive to go watch them. Being in born in Gibraltar, well, it was more or less a decision to get their son dual-citizenship in the UK so I could live and work legally during 3-month tenures I would have in Bristol with my grandparents. Super rich parents, engineers and doctors in the family. In the Chupp family, what matters is the success in your career and often or not success is directly correlated with the number on your pay cheque. While I found success important, I often found other traits like loyalty so important as going to Great Britain for 3 months meant I would keep having to find new jobs and start over from scratch while the job I held in Olympia would keep me. Returning home was such a good feeling, often meant the start of the hockey season and I could hold down my job. However, I knew having a job and playing hockey wasn't an option with the career I wanted, so I put all the stops into having a hockey career.
All my success and being a potential selection in the upcoming SMJHL draft goes out to my high school hockey coach at Olympia High School, Larry Gumm. Not only did we connect for having indisputably odd names, we shared a connection of work ethic. Often you'd get pissed at your hockey coaches or gym teachers because they'd be some fat guy telling you what to do. Gumm was always on the skates always doing the drills with the guys telling us how to do it first hand. His dream as a kid was to always join the SMJHL but suffered a major concussion during S17 in Triple A. Never was the same again. While he still held his skating and puck handling ability, he's still to this day not cleared for physical contact. He's a great reminder to never let injuries get in the way of your success, but also to consider that hockey's not gonna last forever.
Another question I often get asked is why I'd choose to play such a boring style of hockey? I'd often get friends asking all the time to go watch my games and I'd get them free tickets. Their face of disappointment is like none other. They'd say "Why aren't you scoring?" or "Why don't you ever take slappers from the point?". The simple answer to me was "Did we won or lose the game?". Spoiler Alert: It was always a win. It's a pretty harsh experience to why I play my game. Way back when I was in 2nd grade, I played forward and was never good at it. Coach always telling me to hit the net, skate back and help the D and every other responsibility of a forward. Let's face it, forward's have a tough job. I eventually put the pieces together figured, I don't have to backcheck or try to snipe if I just play defence? So that's what I did. Best choice I've ever made. The experiences I had playing forward almost made me despise scoring as if it's something that I didn't even want to be responsible for. Couple years after playing defence, I had to count but I'd end up with 5-6 takeaways and 3+ blocked shots a night which was a lot in a league with 8-year-olds who don't really know how to shoot. However, as I grew, I'd started to fall down in coach relationships. While I never lost my defensive touch, at my level there was defenseman who could score just as much as play defence. No one's better than the Chupp at defence in this league, but I would often end up with 1 or 2 assists in a 35 games season. My defensive partner, Troy, who I played with up until high school on the blueline was always the guy to go point per game in a season so I'd just pass it to him every time. After being heckled by the coaches and leaving no other position to play (other than considering goalie for a couple of minutes), I decided to work on my passing. Setting up the mini nets 100 feet up the road in my neighbourhood, missing the net and having run half a block to get the balls I missed was the most frustrating task I'd ever set myself up for. But this only pushed me further to get my passing better.
Today, I've officially racked up 42 assists and 1 empty net goal in a 40 game-high school schedule as a defensive defenseman and my game only keeps improving. All the hardships I've faced have led up to this moment on Thursday getting drafted in the SMJHL. Thanks to my parents for naming me something ridiculous at the time, but has now taught me a valuable lesson that the only way to prove haters wrong is to get better. Thanks to Brian for teaching me a valuable lesson about character, and that being humble is always a trait everyone admires. Thanks to Gramps for spending 300$ a month to watch the Seattle Riot games on TV for the 3 months I spent in Bristol. Thanks to Coach Gumm for being the best advisor a prospect could ever see, closest to a third parent I will see in a very long time. And lastly, thanks to Heinz for the sponsorship. Love ya <3
</div>
<div align="center">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TheKandyCinema
![[Image: qyPg6bK.gif]](http://i.imgur.com/qyPg6bK.gif)
![[Image: sIjpJeQ.png]](https://i.imgur.com/sIjpJeQ.png)
![[Image: KPt6Yuu.png]](https://i.imgur.com/KPt6Yuu.png)
