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SpontaneousCombustion · 03-15-2020, 11:03 PM

1216 words

When you think of hockey nations the ones that usually come to mind are the likes of the United States, Canada or Russia. Scotland would be pretty far down on the list of nations you’d associate with the sport however I Gavin Wallace am hoping to help change this.

Background

My background and introduction to hockey came as a young child when my family flew over to Alberta for my Father’s work, he designed and help make curling stones. One winter when one of the local ponds had frozen over my father headed over to it with me in tow.

My father was playing end after end and instructed me to stay safely on the snowbank where he could see me, why thought that I would follow his instructions I do not know, but I wandered out onto the ice and somehow found the only thin part and fell straight through. All I remember is it being extremely cold and extremely black and I felt like I had been in the water for hours(apparently it was only at most twenty seconds), I was extremely lucky that some boys playing shinny nearby had spotted me and dragged me to the safety of dry land. I reckon that them saving me and looking like ten-foot-tall heroes to my stubby little toddler self, cemented an interest in the game in me for life.

From that day I went to the local rink and attended learn to skate classes and there was probably a time in my life that I could skate better than I could walk, I went to every stick and puck session that I was allowed to go to and kicked up the biggest fuss if I wasn’t. A few years passed and my family returned to Scotland and to be honest I was worried about my hockey career; I mean I didn’t even think there would be rinks there and I knew it wouldn’t get cold enough there for bodies of water to freeze over during the winter.

Journey to the SMJHL

I found out to my joy on returning to Glasgow that there was indeed an Ice rink and even a team that I could join with age groups going up all the way up to the U.K.’s premier league, this gave me a goal to reach and I was going to chase after it like hell.

I’m going to skip ahead a bit here you don’t really need to hear about me jumping up the junior rankings, I’ll just get into the good bits.
When I was 17, I was called up to the premier league to play some fourth-line minutes for the team, in my debut against rivals Edinburgh I put up two goals and assist, my performance that game helped win the fans over.

Now I’m 18 and I’m going to toot my own horn here but I was making waves in the U.K. hockey scene, the small but rabid group of fans which follow the sport knew my name, and how I played to the point that one fan, (I forget your name, I’m sorry but I will be forever grateful) uploaded some of my highlights to YouTube and it must have caused a bit of stir as the next thing I knew there was a scout at one of my games.

Trying to make it big

I met the man after the game as he spoke to my general manager about me, I only caught part of the conversation and it was a mixed bag, to say the least. He was talking about how I had great hands and offensive awareness but was worried about my defensive capabilities and my lack of weight potentially being a problem in getting considered by SMJHL teams yet alone SHL teams. Noticing that I was there he suggested that I put myself forward for the draft anyway, what was the worst that could happen right?
I hired a sports agent (hi Bob) and an editor (hi Mark) to create a showreel of my in-game talents and my training regime and send them off to every team in the SMJHL to try and get noticed.

I also took a flight out to Minnesota where the SMJHL combine was taking place and took part in all of the events while I wasn’t a world-beater, I performed well enough to turn a few heads. I did as many interviews and talks shows as possible to get my name out there.

Draft Night

The day had finally come, all the hard work I had put in came down to this night. I talked with my agent and we discussed all the interactions I had with the representatives of every team and we both agreed that my meeting with the Newfoundland Berserkers had seemed the most promising and that they may even take me in the second round; A few of the pre-draft reports from the wider sports media had me going in the second round as well.

The draft started and Mikkel was called first like the majority of us had expected, high fiving every single one of us as he headed to the stage to get his jersey. Just after his name was called my phone went wild, no way I thought, was I going second? I picked up my phone and answered. It was a journalist asking about that photo I had taken about 3 months ago and posted to Snapchat for my friends, you all know what photo I’m talking about by now. My heart was in my mouth it was a stupid thing to have photographed myself doing looking back now but it seemed funny at the time, I never thought it would come back to bite me, who knew drinking from 3 yards glasses at the same time could be so embarrassing.

I checked twitter and saw that my stock was plummeting and teams and scored my name off of their boards completely in light of the revelation. I hoped what I saw from some of the well-known journalists and hockey aficionados wasn’t true and that everything would be fine.

Round one finished without my name called that was fine I was kind of expecting that to happen then round two came along and of all the names called out mine was still not among them, this was not good. I was worried I was about to sink without a traceback into hockey obscurity. I was going to just plummet on down the draft spots hoping somebody was going to hand me a parachute, maybe I could go to college and try again in a couple of years.

Relief and excitement would come soon though to help ease my mind, which happened soon after the beginning of the third round when the announcement came out over the microphone, I could barely believe my ears:
With the twenty-third pick of the fifty-third SMJHL draft the Newfoundland Berserkers select: - Gavin Wallace!

I can't begin to even describe to you how excited I am to finally have made it to this league and to meet all of my brand new teammates as I start on this new adventure in my hockey career and hope my story can one day show that anyone can make it.

**Lime** · 03-15-2020, 11:18 PM

yay combustion

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