Eat, Sleep, and Breathe hockey!

When your kids come up to you and say " Mom and Dad i think i want to play hockey" you think it is a good idea. All parents when they start out as a " Hockey Parent" think it is going to be easy. What people don't realize is that your whole entire life is wrapped around hockey. Even when your younger your gone every weekend playing hockey games.



I started playing when i was five so staying busy was a good thing. By age 8 i realized that I really didn't have any friends from school. All my friends were little boys from my hockey team. Still I was young so i thought it was cool to be around the boys. Then I hit age 14 and everyone else were going to the movies with their boyfriends when I was playing international in Canada. If I wasn't doing that then i was at some tournament. All my friends were my hockey friends.



As I got older hockey got more intese and you really never had a weekend off. You just don't do the sport for the season, when the season is over you have to go to camps and train.



When your in the season you get overwhelmed with being gone all the time and not having a break. Then your out of the hockey season you wish that you back into it. In the summer it is the worst all I ever want to do is just play puck. There is times that i will dream about playing. I will wake up and really think that i just played. Hockey is just not a game it is a life sytle.



So when your kids ask you to play; don't compare it to any other normal sport. Hockey is not just a normal sport it is one of the most intese sports out there. I thank my parents for letting me play hockey. Hockey has made me the person that I am today. For example having to move away from your partents to play you really have to grow up. Your by yourself so you have to take care of yourself.



I would not have my life anyother way! Hockey is my life and i do eat, sleep, and breathe hockey.

Living with a Host Family!

When you play for the North Stars you have a choice to drive up or to live with a host family. Last year was my first year that i lived with a host family. I had no idea what it was going to be living with a different family. If I wanted to play hockey and focus on school i had to live somewhere by where i was playing. At the time I was 17 years old and a senior. It was hard to leave my comfort zone and my family. The family i lived with was hosting two other girls also. So i was not all alone. At first i hated it I was so home sick. The family really made it feel like home so that was the good thing about it.

To live there you had to pay $150 dollars. Before you can move in you have to have a meeting with the family and go through back ground checks. At any time the family can kick you out if they feel like your not helping around the house or if there is a issue. The family has total control on what you do. Which is understandable since you are living in their house. There are some girls on the team that didn't really have a choice to what family they were going to live with. All of the host familys' are great people.

The worst thing is being away from home and still trying to be on your best behaivor. Your trying to focus on so many things. Like hockey, school, and work. At times you feel like you are being a problem for this family.This is year i am living with a girl that is on my hockey team. There is three of that live here that play on the team. I love it now I can just focus on hockey and not worry so much. Since last year was my first year I was so out of my comfort zone. So coming into this year living with another family wasn't nothing new. Living with a host family really made me grow up because your not depending on your mom and dad you have to do it all by yourself. The family is just there to give you a place to stay and not be your parents. One of the best experiences i have been through and i would do it all over again if i had to.

It's Not the Size of the Dog it is The Fight in the Dog!

Everyone thinks that in hockey you have to be big. I played boys' hockey for about nine years. All the boys were just hitting their grow spurts when mine was already done. I didn't get that far with my grow spurt. Being 4'9 and playing boys hockey got a little bit dangerous. Considering that these boys' hated being beat by a girl so they would do anything to take you out. So i switched to girls' hockey. Well let me tell you these girls' were not the smallest either. My whole entire life i was raised not be scared of anything; not to let my height keep me from doing something. I took that saying to heart and told myself that no one is going to tell me that i am to small.

There was a time that i was playing in Canada for a tournament. At the end of the game a National Scout came up to me and wanted to scout me. I was shocked there was bigger girls out there that he could have taken. He told me that my height would never get in the way of my hockey skills because of the way i play. To make up for my height i have to be very aggressive and what else helps is i am fast.

There was people that told me that i was way to small to keep on going in hockey. The same people that told me that their kids quit and don't do anything. When they would tell me this i would get the motivaton to prove them wrong. I would show up to the games and make sure that everyone would notice me not for my size but for my skills. That is what happened people started to notice how good i was and then the size went right out the door.

At times there were road blocks that almost kept me from my dream to play college hockey. But it was the fight in me that kept me going. The drive of moivation and the drive to prove people wrong.

Not just a team but family!

In hockey your team is just not a team but a family. Your together 6 months out of the year and always together. Sometimes it gets a little bit overwhelming but in the end it is worth it. By the end of the season you come out with life long friends.


When you think of coming on this hockey team you look at how they did in the season and if this will be the hockey that you want. Not once do you really think about how close you become with everyone. So you show up for try outs and your nervous and all your focused on is just doing your best on the ice. The day you find out your on the team your so excited and then it hits you that you don't know anyone and now you have to make friends too. On the North Stars there was not a problem with making friends. Everyone was open and open to getting to know you.


When i first came to the team I already knew the coach for two years. So i knew his daughter that is on the team. I came up and I was still nervous but it ended up going good. I played against these girls that now i have to call them team mates. I won't even lie I didn't like some of them and they didn't like me. In our first practice no one really said anything. After that we went on a team camping trip. This was a great ice breaker because we all were so tired and didn't want to be there.

Our first tounament was to Ohio. There is nothing worst then a long bus ride when you have no room to even sleep. So we all just shared about our lifes and why we came up to Traverse. After that we all became close.

The funny thing is even if we have a weekend off we all still do stuff together. It does not matter what we are doing we just all like being with eachother. On other teams that doesn't happen. Your together on the ice and thats all it is going to be. Which is something you don't want to happen because if your team is close off the ice you will play better on the ice.

My best friends are on my hockey team and i would do anything for them. I wouldn't call them teammates or even my best friends they are my sisters. This bond that you get for being on a team like this is limited. Thats why were just not a team were a family.

The Lament of a Broken Twig

I had the twig for two years ( a length of epic proportions in hockey time). He had a Vapor shaft with a 52 flex and a Sakic blade. His majesty and grandeur from his bright yellow and fierce black complexion was unparallel to any other on the ice. Religiously, I would protect his shiny glaze with a covering of tape. Never would I be satisfied with any tape-job until it reached perfection. He deserved no less. He was not just a fiber glass extension of my arm like all the others: we were one in the same. He was the reason for so many of my goals, the culprit who was guilty for so much of my success on the ice. I loved that stick more than scoring itself.

Until on day, my love, and his life, was shattered in an instant. That damn slap shot. Why did i have to take that slap shot? I was holding him in my own hands, MY OWN HANDS, when he spilt right in half. It was only a practice, not even a noble death during overtime in a championship game when i was on a breakaway to make the game winning goal. We weren't even doing a drill! As we were waiting for the team to finish their water break, we decided to fire some shots at the net. We made beautiful music together, me and my stick. The first show pierced the back of the net in the high right corner, sailing past the goalie before she was able to react. A shot like that only feeds our desire to keep shooting, our insatiable appetite to score, more and more. The second shot was not our best, however. We hit the crossbar, just above the goalie's shoulder, and the puck escaped its entrapment in the net. We needed to reconcile for our mistake. Three times a charm, right? We lined up before the puck, wound up for the shot and released the potential energy into an insurmountable force that came crashing down onto the ice and the puck.

And then it happened. October 13,2009 I lost a part of myself, something I would never get back. I looked down into my hands and saw only half of my twig, while the other half lay helplessly on the ice, motionless, lifeless. My heart was shattered, it seemed, more so than the vapor shaft itself. How could this have happened? What went wrong? We had been through so much together. Through every tournament, whether it was in Ohio, Canada, Minnesota, or anywhere else, he was by my side. Even when we lost states, he stayed Strong for me. So why did he have to leave me right then and there? I was so lost, so confused. The bewilderment was blinding. I did not know what to do. I felt like sea biscuit with no legs. I felt as helpless as a beetle on its back or a boxer without arms. I was so distraught; I had no way to release these emotions except to yell at the top of my lungs.

My coach laughed and said," You finally broke that old thing?"

How could he be so heartless? What a hostile and evil man! He lent me his wooden stick, as if it were comparable to my Vapor, and expected practice and life to go on normally. The stick that he gave me was nothing like mine. It was stiff and didn't move like my old twig. On top of that if was ugly and had a cold feeling.

My heart was broken and so was my stick. Both were unfixable. All I can think about is that horrible day. He's gone now, but he will always be in my heart.

R.I.P

Refs: get off your knees and stop blowing the game!!

I played boys hockey for about nine years. In boys hockey you could pretty much say anything you want to the ref. You could swear and not get a penalty. If what you were saying was really bad the most you would get is a four minute penalty. In girls hockey it is way different. If you say one bad word you will get a ten minute minor penalty. If you are in ear shot of the ref and you swear they still will give you a penalty. Refs think that girls should be proper and act like ladies.

Then you get some refs that even if you touch another player you will get a penalty. In girls hockey you cannot check but you can ride the body. For example you could ride her body on the boards. When i say ride the body it means to skate up next to her and pretty much just cut her off and nudge her a little. Where as in guys hockey, you can fulll out hit. You're also allowed to mid-ice hit. You pretty much lay people out in boys hockey. Some refs don't understand that girls can ride the body and so they end up calling everything. One time, when an opposing player was skating down the boards into my defensive zone, I was riding her body, gave her a slight nudge, and low and behold, the ref called me for roughing! Unfortunately, I questioned his call, and recieved a ten minute minor as a consequence.

Because girls hockey is not as highly esteemed as mens', we receive the amature referees, while the boys have the expeirenced officiating. The worst is when we have referees that are our own age, trying to call our games. It is a known fact that younger referees are much less experienced and therefore have a tendency to make inconsistant calls.

There needs to be a higher standard for officiating in women's hockey! Title IX in the Constitution demands equal standards in men and women's high school sports, so why should womens travel sports be shafted?

How I Started Playing Hockey!!!

I was five years old and my mom and dad took me open skating. I won't even lie i was so scared and all i could think about it what if i fall i have nothing to protect me. The first open skate was horrible i hated it. I felt hopeless all i could do was hold on to the wall and it was a little overwhelming for. My dad pushed all three of us kids to keep going back every Friday and by the third skate i was fine. A guy figure skaters taught me how to go backwards so i was set all i needed to do was get a stick. So my parents put all three of us kids in a league and at the time there was only one girls team and you had to be a certain age and i was to young. So i had to play boys hockey and i loved it. Playing boys hockey made me into the aggressive and outgoing player that i am today. So i played boys hockey until midgets which is where the kids in the group are 15,16, and 17. I am 4'9 so my dad did not want me to get hurt so i had to switch to girls. The first year i hated it i was always getting penalties. I was the leading scorer on my team. Since then i have been playing on a all girls team. I now play for the Traverse City North Stars AAA team.