Working on a dream

“Now the card’s I’ve drawn, it’s a rough hand darlin’” Signs Bruce Springsteen in Working on a Dream. I’ve been a fan of Bruce Springsteen for as long as I can remember. I think the first memory of me falling in love with his music was when my dad borrowed the Born To Run LP from my uncle. I can remember how tracks like Dancing in the Dark and Born to Run left an ever lasting impression on me.

However, time has passed since then and I’ve grown but for some reason whenever ‘the Boss’ releases a new album I find that I have to check it out. The latest offering has left an even more profound impact on me. As I’m writing this, I am listening to the track, ‘Working on a Dream’. What I relate to in this post is that I have can identify with the lyrics. “Working on a dream, though sometimes it feels so far away, Working on a dream and I know it’ll be mine someday”.

That lyric pretty much summarises why I started this blog and time and time again, I feel the need to go back and go over some of the same issues as I have done here. I started working on my dream in October 2008 and it is now June 2009. Given that we are over half way into the year I thought that I should do a check on whether I have achieved what I set out to do and where I’ve got to so far.

So, at the start I set out to work hard to get back from a knee injury that had me questioning whether I wanted to play hockey anymore. Well this is where I am at the moment: I have been able to train without any pain in my leg and I have gained much of my confidence that I had. Strides and skating no longer hurts. What I find most encouraging is the muscle mass I’ve built in my legs. I am constantly able to push more weight and have gotten noticeably stronger on my skates.

The only thing that I am slightly worried about is that my leg still wears out quite quick. The lactic acid build and the tightening of the muscles in my quadriceps are something that I am still working on. But when you’re playing 45 second shifts it doesn’t really get in the way that much. Just means I have to play scrimmages at a shorter shift than normal.

I also set out to score 30 points this season: Well I am slightly behind on that. Given that the cup lost 2 teams and effectively cutting the season shorter by 4 games. I’ve still managed to keep up my pace of scoring a point per game and my main mindset so far has been to work as a set up man and I think I’ve been successful at it. Because my confidence on my skates and the additional strength, I now have the confidence of taking that extra second to look, rather than haphazardly throwing the puck to a direction I think a player might be at.

I think I was about 2 months into my off season training when few of my friends started saying I should play for the Bison. At first I took it as a joke, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to want it. Though I was shy to admit it at first, the more I talked about it, the more I started to dream. As soon as I took that dream seriously, the dream took me seriously. I think it is when I realised that Rome was not built in a day that it was not going to be an easy road to get there, but like I said at the start of the blog, if you aim high, you will succeed.

So where I am at regards to attaining that goal? I’ve been training with the Bison now for two weeks and I have loved every agonising minute of it. I am finding that I push myself and find new extremes I can play at. I find that I do things better at this pace and I’m more driven. The passion and competitive flame that I loved about the game burns higher everytime I’ve been out there. Like Dallaglio after his first England appearance in Rugby: I know what I want and I want more of it.

The team’s roster is full for this year, but I am hopeful. To myself, I have proved that I can play at that level and not be too out of my depth. It has instilled more courage and passion in me to work hard to get there. Though I love playing for my current team, there is something that is missing, whether it is something in terms of chemistry or the guys not wearing their heart on the sleeve openly. Maybe it is that we play the game only for fun and don’t take things seriously enough and it drags us down from our potential.

So I am still working on a dream, and I know it will be mine one day...