My Day: Brightened

Today I received an email from my billet family up in McCall that says how happy they are to have me in their extended family.  They were just sending me an email to tell me they think I'm a great young kid and they're proud to have me as their part-time billet brother/son.  After a few short weekends up in McCall, this family has graciously welcomed me into their home and family, and it's awesome.  It's these kinds of relationships forged throughout a junior hockey season that really make everything worthwhile.  I've met some incredible people on this journey, some that I will never forget and will probably keep in touch with for the rest of my life.  Sometimes, though, during this long, grueling season--where there seems to be no break in the action--it's hard to stay positive and things like that keep me going.

Chasing my dream of playing college hockey is sometimes a very lonely ordeal.  I look at facebook pictures of friends at school, at football games, and see how much fun they're having; I realize that I'm sacrificing a normal college life for this dream.  Believe it or not, lacing up the skates isn't always fun (it is a vast majority of the time) but it's also a lot of hard work.  Things like that little email, though, really validate the fact that I'm doing this for a reason and that I am making a difference in my life and in other's lives even though I'm taking a very different path than most of my friends.  I'm sort of at a crossroads right now where I so badly want to be in college, playing hockey and learning new things, but I also need to realize that I can still benefit greatly from the rest of this season.  I still have a lot to learn about myself as a hockey player and person this season before I get to college.  But it's always nice to hear things like that from people out of the blue, and it just really brightened my day.

We have 9 away games in a row now before our next games up in McCall.  Next week, we go on a 9-day road trip, where we play 6 games in 9 nights.  It's going to be a tough stretch for us, one that really tests our young team.  It's going to be fun to see how we handle the hostile road environments of Long Beach and El Paso, though.