So growing up, my dad never put me into youth hockey or anything, despite all of my cousins being in it and loving it (and me wanting to play hockey). His reasoning was “well I can't skate, and since you're my son and related to me and share my muscle sets, you can't skate either". So, I never got the chance. Growing up, I hardly ever skated and because of that, I was very bad at it and just hung on to the side boards and I also developed a highly irrational fear of having a finger get sliced off by another skater.

But I ended up getting addicted to watching hockey, the Dallas Stars, of course. And just like with soccer, when I start to like a sport, I want to emulate it and see how well I can play it. With soccer, the challenge was learning how to I properly strike a ball, as running was already something I could do. Passing and dribbling came after shooting. Basically, I think I can say I am a decent soccer player, after 4 years of work.

But hockey is a whole different animal than soccer because skating isn't natural for me and I am very bad at it. It's also super tiring.

I can play soccer for hours without leaving my feet and I'm fine. After 5 minutes of skating, I am gassed. I spent 90-100 minutes at my first stick and puck yesterday. About 40 minutes of that were sitting on the bench sweating to death.

I fell like 8 times which is 8 times more than the previous 2 times I skated but I had shin guards so it didn't hurt (yay). I also had trouble elevating the puck on my shots but in time it will come.

My goal is to get good enough to join a very bad team next summer. Just like the bare minimum ability to be able to skate and say oh yeah I can do this hockey thing sorta.

I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead of me on this journey and am willing to face them head-on. It will hurt but it will be worth it.