As early as Fiddler could remember, he loved playing with pucks. Whether it was floor hockey in the basement with dad or blowing off steam as a teenager in the backyard rink, Fiddler just loved to fiddle with the puck. It was soothing, in a way, to knock the puck back and forth, tip it this way and that. When he was 5 he began to practice with skates, doing slow laps around the rink, dangling imaginary obstacles. Soon his habit found function in real hockey games. Fiddler loved to challenge himself to beat the players in front of him. It was less about scoring goals and getting points and more about skating 200 feet with the puck still in control. Eventually, with strong direction from coaches and family friends, Fiddler learned to dangle with purpose, to practice shots and passes, to be a real threat on the ice beyond puck hogging. While he focuses his attention on the skills that matter most (edging, strength, passing, shooting), Fiddler still takes time every night to dangle himself into a state of zen, be it after practice, at home in his basement floor-rink, or in the hotel room with travel knee-hockey sticks and a ball.
Leopold Lockhart grew up in Concord, Masachussets where he started playing hockey at age six. For that whole first season, hockey was just something kinda cool Leo did on weekends and after school a couple of days a week. He had some natural talent, but he didn't spend much time away from the rink thinking about the sport or practicing skills. At age seven however, Leo's mom left and that's when Leo really started spending a lot of time on hockey. He used the sport as a coping mechanism. By age eight, he was completely obsessed, spending most of his time at the rink or practicing stick work in the garage. His skills began to impove exponentially. In the early days, Leo made friends with a kid on his team named Elijah. Elijah and Leo played hockey together from age six, all the way through middle school, but Elijah quit before high school so he'd have more time for other extracurriculars and Leo continued to play, putting him on the path to the SMJHL and eventually the SHL.
It's no secret that I started playing with my brothers when I was just a small boy, my first memory was my mother bringing me to the rink to watch my brothers and my wanting so eagerly to be out on the ice with them. I remember my brother holding me in his arms as we skated around the ice and I felt like I was flying, it’s a feeling I still get today. I guess you could debate whether or not my skills were natural born being that so many generations of men in my family were and still are amazing hockey players or you could say it’s just conditioning being that we played together every day after school to the point where my dad had built us a make shift rink in our own yard. My heart was always in it for the game, practicing with my brothers was fun enough but when we would scrimmage with the other players on the block and guys from my brothers team that’s where it really all came together for me. I like the competition to this day it’s my families favorite past time.
Written task: Write 150+ words about your player's early childhood as they began their long journey to the SHL. What was it like the first time they picked up a stick or put on the pads? Was your player already a naturally-talented superstar before hitting double digits in age? Was your player a bit slower to pick up the sport? Focus in this PT on the earliest portion of your player's life and their relationship with the sport of hockey during that time.
Al Kayhall came from a small town in Wisconsin. Though he was born to the game, and played often with friends and family, he did not touch actual groomed indoor ice until he was in highschool, as Wisconsin offered numerous opportunities to play on lakes and ponds throughout the winter. This likely accounted for two aspects of his play, the first being, his game tends to get better as the ice quality gets worse, and he was far behind the skating skills of many of his peers until his late teens. Al Kayhall did not stand out in any way from his team mates until his final season in highschool, and if you would have asked him at that time, he would have laughed and told you hockey was fun but seemed to not be his calling. That might have been true had it not been for the fateful night where he had a sixer and played in a beer league with a friend and was discovered by Coach Balls of the Halifax Raiders who had been passing through Wisconsin at the time and offered him a tryout.
Aron Hernadivic was whisked away from his birthplace in Massachusetts as a young child to the city of Ostrava, Czech Republic, where he fell in love with the game of hockey. Hernadivic began like many young Czech children do, starting out by playing hockey on frozen lakes, rivers, and streets of his city. He grew up watching Czech legends play, such as Demaricus Smyth, Brady Mcintyre, and Piotr Czerkawski. Aron was inspired watching these greats play, and often told everybody he was going to be the next great Czech legend, following in those footsteps. Aron would often play with his friends, Sasha Dangelchek and Simothy Drunkebird, and wouldnt you know, these 3 help make up a promising young Czech forward group, with Drunkebird being the recent #1 pick. Hernadivic hopes to help continue the recent promising play of Czechia, and hopes to finally win them a gold medal. With regards to his SHL dreams, Hernadivic was inspired by seeing European greats like Viktor Marius, Tatu Makela, and others make the leap from playing in their home country to playing and being elite SHL players. Hernadivic hopes to be like them one day.
Brady McIntyre had some natural talent for skating as a young boy, but the rest of the game didn't just come to him. He had to work really hard to get his puck skills to the point where he had a chance of making his first AAA team. Once he did though the rest of it started coming to his a lot quicker. From the age of 8 to 14 he shot up in height and kept his skating skills which helped him become one of the fastest players on his team as a defenseman! With his shot improving at the same time he was able to become a captain on his high school team as a freshman and after his first season there he decided to move on to the SMJHL. This was the culmination of all of the talent and hard work he had put in during his childhood. It was everything he dreamed of ever since he stepped on the ice as a 2 year old.
Joseph Weston did not step out onto any sort of ice until the winter of his third grade, when he walked to school. The road along the way to his local grammar school featured a long and winding roadside drainage ditch, along a relatively flat stretch. In the third grade, the drainage ditch flooded and was unable to be drained, resulting in a deep and solid stretch of water that froze quite nicely. Joseph Weston stepped onto the ice, and with his good old gym shoes, slid his normal walk to school. By the end of the Winter Joseph Weston would be spending hours at the local ice arena learning to better his skills with skates, and eventually with sticks and pads on. It took Joseph Weston a bit to learn how to manage the love of being on the ice, but by the next year Weston couldn't wait for the drainage ditch to flood again.
Being the son of a soccer sensation, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, isn't easy. Since the day he was born, Ibra jr., was always surrounded by soccer. Everything he wore, everything he saw was soccer. The kid lived and breathed soccer. What else would you expect when the pressure is so high especially since I am the son of a soccer legend. Although Zlatan showed ibra jr, everything he needed to know about soccer, it was something that jr never showed much interest in. In fact the only similarities between father and son was their size. Whereas Zlatan had a unique ability in scoring, ibra jr was all about playmaking. His IQ and vision for the game was much better than his dad's but he definitely did not have the raw power that his dad had in scoring. This was a little upsetting for Zlatan, since his son could not repeat what he did. Instead Ibra jr., picked up hockey. Right away you can see that this was his game. His IQ, vision, playmaking abilities along with his physical size is a sheer weapon in the game. His position was also very different as he was a defender. This is where the young Ibra really came to light. He was a sensation to watch as his puck handling and skating abilities are unmatched for someone of his size. His dad quickly realized that this is his son's calling and thus reprogrammed him into a prestigious school for hockey. There, Ibra jr honed his skill set and was a threat to any opposition. Ibra jr, would glide past his opponents, bull doze through them and dish out the perfect pass to his teammate for a great chance at the net. At the defensive end, his size and defensive skills were too much for his opponents. He would always be a leader on the ice when it came to hits and blocked shots. That is when scouts at Whalers recognized his potential and knew he would be a great asset to the team. When draft day came, there was no suprise, he was quickly snapped by Vancouver. That is where young ibra's journey began and now his SHL team, Winnipeg Jets, can't wait for him to join the line-up.
Ensio Kalju´s introduction to the hockey world came by starting to learn how to skate first at the age of 5, but due to winters being not so good at times and the local ice rink crew spending more time sitting in their warm little workspaces, shooting the puck without skates on quickly moved to number one hockey-related hobby. Nobody had any goalie equipment, so mostly it was shooting to the empty net to see who could get the puck to rise even a little bit.
Shooting the puck is what Ensio liked to do, eventually, it became a strength of his. Skating, on the other hand, lagged behind, poor ice quality as mentioned was perhaps the biggest reason, but what you lose in skating you can make up by positioning correctly and in general studying the game.
Ensio did not join any kind of junior teams until he was around 12. Before that, it was just skating or shooting around in the local rink whenever there was even a little bit of ice. Of course, watching hockey from television was a popular way to enjoy the game, at the time they showed one game per week of the Finnish hockey league for the whole of Finland, all the kids usually watched that game.
Kalju was never a natural, but with hard work he was able to keep going and eventually play on the professional level.
01-27-2020, 01:11 PM(This post was last modified: 01-27-2020, 05:06 PM by notoriousTRON.)
While the sport of hockey is on the rise in the UK and Ireland, it's not something that has widespread popularity in Wales, especially the small town that I grew up in. I was introduced to the sport at age 5 when I saw it while watching the winter Olympics. I was enthralled with the way that the players glided around the ice so quickly and effortlessly. I begged my mum to get me some skates and take me to ice rinks and about three times a week she would take me to lessons. The summer that I turned 6 I talked her into signing me up for a league in Cardiff. We played on Saturdays and it was about an hour drive but my mum knew it was important for me. My dad was gone by then and we didn't have a lot of money so most of my equipment was from second hand stores or was donated. By the time I was 8 or so I was one of the best players in the league so to keep improving I had to join a bigger league in London, which was even further away. Mum would still drive me most weekends but sometimes we took the train. My kid brother started playing around that time as well so life got pretty crazy for my poor mum at that time but I owe a lot of my success in hockey to her and her dedication.
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247 Words
Sig Cred: Carpy, ML, RainDelay, Donini & Geekusoid
The following has been extracted from the Wikipedia page on Yoshimitsu McCloud (as seen here) after some updating:
Quote:1. Early Life
In spite of Yoshimitsu McCloud's status as a regular player in a proper major league team, his entire life before the league as a whole is a mystery, only really known by himself and his family: even attempts by the Irish government to fully find out about the McClouds tend to end rather quickly with a sword lodged on a wall keeping up a piece of paper saying "Lay off", the most recent of these incursions being during his first season at the San Francisco Pride. The very few details that have been revealed to the rest of the world are as follows: Yoshimitsu McCloud is one of fifteen children sired by a couple of ninjas that fled Japan to Ireland somewhere in the late 80s to early 90s after a gung-ho operation against the Yakuza during an idol concert went incredibly wrong. According to Yoshimitsu in an interview with the Anaheim Analyst, his father took part in an underground tournament at Trim that would coincide with the Trim Massacre of 92 but that's unclear.
In the same interview, Yoshimitsu claimed that he decided to have a career after playing a hockey game on what he believes was a PlayStation.
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Player Page - Update Page
Former Players: Yoshimitsu McCloud (LW, #64) - Won a Four Star Cup once, knew ninjutsu, picture editors hated him, never tried free agency
Anton Harrier (LW, #90) - Won WJC gold, liked skateboarding a lot, went to the finals with Manhattan, kept his seat glued in LR
It has been well documented by Siberia Sports reporting that Mika Kandinsky grew up in the harsh wintery world of northern Siberia Russia. Mika was gifted from an early age and fell in love with hockey as a child. He would skate on an outdoor rink near home which ignited his passion for working hard and having fun. The players would have to shovel off their outdoor rink after every hour of practice or so and would stay out in the freezing cold until dark. Mika almost lost a few appendages due to frost bite early on in his life much to his mother's dismay. His love for training grew and grew and that work ethic is what prepared him to make it to the SHL. A fun fact is that the kids would have a shot of vodka to help them keep warm while playing and to this day Mika does a half shot before each game as a good luck charm!
Rintarou Okabe grew up in Japan as a self entitled 'mad scientist'. When he was 19 he noticed the game of hockey being played on an illegal streaming website where he was looking for UEFA streams. He decided to sit and watch the game for its entirety then quickly scoured the internet for more games of this mysterious sport named hockey. He found countless videos of this sport where he then watched every game, video and tutorial on how to become the greatest hockey player of all time. He credits a lot of his success to the former NHL great Yvan Cournoyer. When he finished watching every game and video he possibly could he had aged to be a 84 year old, way to old to even attempt to join any league. However since Okabe had the first ever time machine he could bounce back 2 days at a time. He eventually found himself at the age of 8 years old, with the knowledge of hockey that even most professional players did not have. He quickly saved his allowance money and bought a stick and equipment and joined the only ice hockey team in Japan at the time. There is where he finally found himself skating like a 26 year old prime professional onside of a bunch of kids who had no idea what they were doing.
That is the very 'first' time Okabe played and he has been playing it since.