"So, what are you, a junior?" "No. I’m going to be a freshman." "But, aren’t you 20 years old?" This is the kind of conversation that the majority of college hockey players have come across with just about every relative and each person they meet the summer prior to their first year of college. You can't blame them because honestly, it is quite bizarre the lifestyle we have chosen to live, but these incessant conversations are the worst. At the very least, we can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we no longer have to repeat to everyone our redundantly rehearsed predicament of trying to commit to a school while playing junior hockey.
“I don’t go to school yet, I play junior hockey," I say, gaining a look of confusion. "It’s so we can play up to three years outside of high school to get a scholarship." This is generally followed by some comment that claims that my choice is strange. Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense to me either.
An unfortunate effect of our choice to play junior hockey rather than go straight to college is we have to remember "how to school." Oh, boy. The majority of us haven’t taken any classes in at least two years, better yet held a pen.
The first day arriving on campus is moving day. Do you remember that part from "Billy Madison," where Adam Sandler is standing there waiting for the bus?
That’s exactly what we feel like. Seeing the other hundreds of freshmen we think to ourselves, “What the heck was I thinking?” As we walk beside our future colleagues who to us look as if they should be starting their high school careers, not college, we feel a little out of place. Luckily, our roommate is one of the boys on the team so we don’t have to fret about rooming with someone who left home for the first time and is about to have a meltdown. Then, when we’re finally settled in, it’s time to have a floor meeting with our resident assistant (RA) who is a year younger than us. When we walk in we have to tell everyone who stares at us that, no, we’re not the RA’s, and give attention to the enthusiastic RA who is going to stand there and give us, the oldest people in the room, guidelines on what we can and can’t do in the dorms and tips on living away from home.
To end the meeting on a high note, we were given an icebreaker activity to meet new friends. Rather than feel like children at a summer camp, my roommate and I got up in the middle of an activity where we had to sign our name on someone’s paper who had a similar physical characteristic or shared activity. We left to go back to our room. When the RA came knocking on our door, we pretended that one of us was sick and promised to attend the optional meeting the next day.
Thankfully, being on the hockey team means you’re assured 25 brothers, and our icebreakers are way more fun than signing your name on someone else’s sheet of paper. Unfortunately, before long it is time for class to start. The first time we take notes there is an instant hand cramp, and the notes we took don’t even look coherent. Instead, it looks like a bunch of scribbles under the date we crossed out and rewrote three times. Not to mention how peculiar sitting at a desk again feels. How does one sit in one of these things comfortably again? And each one of our professors rolls their eyes when they hear we’re on the hockey team. For they know we’re set for about 10 absences in their class for that semester.
During these first few weeks, we truly contemplate our being at college. What am I doing here? Will I fit in with these guys for four years? How am I supposed to write a five-page essay after not writing one for two years? If I am not going to play in the NHL or pro, why am I still playing? But, when the season starts and people look at you like you’re more than just an average student; go to parties where everyone knows who you are and play in front of hundreds or even thousands of your fellow students screaming for you, it’s unreal. You realize just how lucky you are to be paying so little to go school and play hockey when so many players you know never made it as far as you have. You made it. Cheers to us, the 20-year-old freshmen.
