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ontanis · 06-21-2019, 08:10 AM

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2535 words. Ready for grading. Also, sorry for the long read and all, i know not many of you have the patience to read such drivel, but i totally love coming up with a funky and saccharine-sweet backstory. Cheers, guys. Great to be back here.

Saturday, April 13, 2019. The S46 WJC Gold medal game. Czechia vs. Team World.

It is the heavily exhilarating gold medal game of the World Junior Championship, but it’s a long way from hockey night of the SHL. It’s six time zones away from where I was around. It’s not a game between SHL stars, some of them are not even pros, not even men, really. Most of the best seventeen-year-old or so hockey players from Team World and Czechia are squaring off for gold medals and bragging rights at the World Juniors. The final of the fifteen-team tournament, the game isn’t broadcast on ESPN or NBC in the US, and the outcome won’t be headline news there. It will barely be noted in any big newspapers, even in the hometowns of some of the players, and it won’t be mentioned in U.S. sports pages at all. But make no mistake, this tournament and this game have been circled on calendars in Simulation Hockey League front offices for months now. Flights and hotels were booked back in the winter. It’s a more meaningful game than many hockey nights in SHL that will are watched by dozens of people around the globe.

The SHL isn’t on the ice right now. The SHL is in the stands. A dozen of executives with SHL teams, several more scouts with the SHL’s scouting service. You won’t find this many heavy hitters at SHL games - lucky if you sometimes have ten scouts up in the press box and a few execs from the teams that are playing.

A couple of Czech photographers are working the game. So are a couple of young reporters who work for local papers. I’m the one of the few Lithuanians in attendance - I might be the only Lithuanian who’s really paying attention to one particular player.

I want to get a look at Tauras Karazija, a defenceman, originally from Lithuanian, who is with the Czech team and is billed by some as one of the best blueline prospect going into the season. It is funny how quickly a country can forget its heroes. Tauras was once the biggest hockey star in Lithuania… Up until he decided to play for the Czechs internationally. That is when it was all over for him over here. I grew up adoring him. Watching every piece and bit of footage I could get my hands on of the mighty Tauras Karazija.

He’s one of the few Lithuanian prospects that made it that far. SMHL, SHL. Drafted #5 by the Vancouver Whalers in the S43 SMJHL Draft and #3 by the Edmonton Blizzard in the S44 SHL Draft. He was one of the Vancouver Whalers greats that helped them lift the Four-Star Cup. Did I mention he got 3 points in this WJC Gold medal game? Yeah, he did, 3 assists. Czechs beat the crap out of the Team World, 8-1, to be exact. That is not a beautiful number. But, that’s the reality of modern day junior hockey.

But as I said, the SHL is in the stands sometimes, not on the ice. The players in the starting lineups stand on their blue lines and listen to the playing of the national anthems. When the final notes echo around the arena they slap their sticks on the ice and yell and whoop. And when the puck is dropped, they yell and whoop some more, overexcited teenagers acting like overexcited teenagers. Some of them on the ice and on bench will end up becoming millionaires and some will never make a buck playing the game. Some of them will get beyond youthful overexcitement and respect the game, others won’t. The SHL is here in the stands, trying to sort one bunch from the other, and so am I.

So am I trying to memorize every step and movement that Tauras Karazija is doing. I want to play like him. I want to pass like him. I want to score like him. I want to offensively defend like him. I want to be the better player that Tauras Karazija never was and never will be.

Never was, you ask? Yeah. Not shortly after the S46 WJC, S47 SMJHL/SHL season and in the beginning of the S48 the mighty Lithuanian Tauras Karazija called it quits. Maybe the pressure to become the best Lithuanian there ever has been was too much? Who knows…? But it is still a shame. So many unfulfilled promises and expectations. But maybe I am the one that should take the baton from Tauras? Maybe I am the one that should be fulfilling these expectations? I sure feel like it’s my obligation. Now, I can understand your confusion. Who am I? Well, let me answer.

I am Mikas Bieksa. The new Lithuanian on the block. Or on the ice. Or whatever. But I guess, I am that "third-time’s-a-charm" guy. Jurgis Bulota. Tauras Karazija. And now – me, Mikas Bieksa. I guess… Third Lithuanian’s a charm, yeah?

Where I lived – in Vilnius, Lithuania - was probably as good as, if not better than, any place for me to begin my minor hockey journey in the fall of 2006. While the Iron Wolves Minor Hockey League didn’t start with actual game competition until a player was six years old - there was a Little Kids division, which combined leagues made up of six and seven-year old kids. I was five or six years old, playing hockey in the backyard with my buddies, when my father noticed that I had a little bit of talent. He couldn’t have been prouder. He insisted that I would take a shot at proper hockey, so I did. The Iron Wolves team sponsored hockey in our area, and there were the Little Wolves League and the Howlers League, with six teams in each age group. When I was seven years old, I didn’t want to play in a league. I was way too shy to go into a room full of kids to sign up. I just liked playing hockey for fun in the backyard with my buddies. My best friend, Dom Cizikas, and I were inseparable. Cizikas’ family couldn’t afford to register him for hockey. They couldn’t even afford a pair of skates. To be truthful, neither could we.

Unbeknownst to me or anyone else, my father went over to Dom’s house and asked him if he’d like to play ice hockey. Dom said, “Sure, I’d love to, Mr. Bieksa, but I don’t have any skates.” My dad went out and bought him new skates, but there was a catch. “Dom, the only thing you have to do is take Mikas with you and both of you sign up for the Little Wolves hockey league on Saturday.” Dom was so excited. He ran over to my house and shouted, “Mikky! I’ve got new skates! Let’s go down and sign up for hockey!”. “Okay,” I said, and that Saturday, the two of us went down to the hall and signed up for hockey.

I didn’t get any goals that first year, but I did get eight assists and my first penalty. I tripped a kid, and when the referee sent me to the penalty box, I cried. I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong, and I felt frustrated because there was nothing I could do about a bad call. The next game, I got a penalty for charging. This time, I went to the penalty box laughing. It wasn’t that I was happy about it, it was just that I figured you had to be able to laugh to get along in this game and take things as they come.

My dad didn’t really push me all that hard. He simply knew I had some talent and wanted to help me with what I was good at. When I was 10, he told my mother that I had something special and was a surefire SHL-calibre player, at least I could take a shot overseas at the SMJHL or one of the European Leagues. He told her he could tell because I had so much desire, which I did. “Don’t give up hockey,” he’d say. “You’re good at it.” Nobody knows if they are going to make it to the Simulation Hockey League, but I never really doubted I would. Everybody tells you the odds are stacked heavily against you, but as I got older, I realized that the dream might be within reach.

I was always a fan of the HK Dinamo Riga, the best team in Latvia, cause we did not have a good team in Lithuania. I had a favourite player – Tauras Karazija, although there were other guys I really enjoyed watching and learned from. My dad had me watch Tauras Karazija because he was good on offense as a defenseman. Dad would say, “Study him, son. The man does more than one thing. He’s gifted at forehand and backhand. It’s the little nuances of the game you have to learn. Anybody can skate. Anybody can shoot. Anybody can score. But not everybody is good on defence, and not everybody is good at picking up their man. You’ve got to cover well. There are two ends to the building.” He always told me that. He also said “Hockey is a game very different from football and basketball. In those sports, they give you the ball. In hockey, you have to take it away.” He also told me to watch film of a Lithuanian legend Jurgis Bulota. “He really knew how to play the game.” Bulota could dance on skates; he was always moving. He was a great checker and I watched how he forechecked. He came in on the side and flushed the puck out on the other side. He never wasted steps, and he read the play well. Jurgis Bulota was a lot better than people think he was.

Next thing I know, I am 16 years old and invited to a training camp with the Växjö Lakers from the Swedish Hockey League. But when I showed up, there were 87 guys trying out for four spots! I had never seen anything like that in my life. For two days, we scrimmaged nonstop. Everybody was out to impress. If you carried the puck 15 feet, you were really doing something special, and then *boom*! Somebody would run you over. You bled, wipe the blood of and kept going, and the management in the stands would put a check mark beside your name. “That kid’s got some balls.” That was old-school hockey. Courage was supreme.

And, I guess, I made an impression. Sam Hallam, the head coach, had me practicing regularly with the club. “You’re only 16, Mikas. I want you here, sitting on the bench, to watch and learn.” I always thought, that you have to pick somebody that’s good at their position and watch what they do so that when you’re out there, you can do what they do. The best player on the team in those days was the alternate captain, Daniel Rahimi. I watched Rahimi and how he cut back and curled and took player position. I learned a lot sitting on the bench. I shut my mouth and minded my business. I was trying my best to be coachable.

I also played in the Swedish Junior League. We ran away with the junior league that season, finishing first overall. I finished second on the team in scoring with 45 points (10 goals and 35 assists). We were a tough team and didn’t take shit from anybody. I was up and down between playing Junior League and playing with the senior team. I got into two games during the regular season with the seniors. No points, but 10 penalty minutes. Växjö Lakers finished first in the Swedish Hockey League. I played a game in the playoffs, too, as the Lakers eliminated the Brynäs IF and Malmö Redhawks to earn a berth in the League Final against the Skellefteå AIK. Skellefteå AIK were a powerhouse. I didn’t make the trip, but followed the results religiously on my phone. Lakers absolutely ran Skellefteå AIK out of the building and won the game 4-0 to claim the championship trophy.

I talked with my coach Sam Hallam. He was a grumpy man, but he never bullshitted you. He said, “Well, against my better judgment, Tauras Karazija of the Vancouver Whalers from the SMJHL would like to see you. He has some news for you.”
WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK. Tauras? Karazija? The same dude I follow religiously even though he had a disappointing career and flamed out of the league like a strawman on fire? Well, fuck. Okay.

I met Tauras Karazija and we walked around outside the Växjö Lakers Arena. He was wearing a coat worth more than my father made in a year. He said, “Mikas, you’re not the most talented player out there, but you show me something every time you step out onto the ice. I’m impressed with you. I think you have the look of a Vancouver Whaler.” I didn’t know what that meant, but it sure sounded good to me!

Karazija continued. “You’re my ugly duckling, because no one thinks you can make it. They all think I’m a fool. I think you, me and your father are the only ones that believe in you. I would really appreciate it if you’d help me prove them wrong.” I was smiling like the happiest person on the planet. “Yes, sir! You won’t be sorry!”. “That’s good,” he said, and then winked at me. “If you’ve only got one guy believing in you, it’s not a bad thing that it’s the guy who is a Vancouver Whalers ex-player and knows the GMs of the team. Let’s make a pact - I’ll back you, but I need you to be the best player you can be. Don’t be disappointed if they don’t play you a lot. You’re going to do just fine.”

And here I am. In Vancouver. Shaking my tits off in stress. Why? Because they’re going to unveil me as a surprise post-draft free agency pick up in a Season Tickets Holder event. Not the brightest of lights, but… Fuck, alright, let’s go and prove some people wrong.

SlashACM · 06-21-2019, 09:03 AM

Should've gone with the crows, they know how to win Scarecrows

ontanis · 06-21-2019, 09:11 AM

06-21-2019, 09:03 AMSlashACM Wrote: Should've gone with the crows, they know how to win

Hahaa, missed ya, bud

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