I can has draft?

[Dangles13 373]

Imagine if you can, feeling completely alone for several hours as you wait to join a new family in a new city. The hours that lead up to a draft can be the most lonely time in your life, even surrounded by a large throng of your peers. As you wait in the green room and hear names called over the speakers in the arena your brain starts to play tricks on you. "Was that my name? Did they just call me? Oh boy, if I wait here they will call again, right? What if I go undrafted, is that possible?"

 

In the end, you almost always hear your name called as long as you are a capable player. You trust your agent to get your name out there and you trust your coach to give you good reviews and most importantly, you have to trust yourself to have put your best foot forward at all your interviews. You spend your whole life preparing for moments like this and if you can't handle it then you will struggle for the rest of your career. 

 

The stress in the green room is palpable as a bunch of nervous and sweaty teenage boys wait to find out where they will be moving to and whether or not they can see their family more than once a year. Not too many people talk, most have their heads down and only occasionally look around. The select few who know they are top picks, those guys who piss charisma and wear their panache like a superhero wears a cape who are chattering and looking at the other prospects. They likely are laughing under breath at how foolish we are all being but we cannot focus on that, we have our future to dream about.

 

I have not yet spent much time dwelling on what team I will end up on, I merely hope to land on any team. Had I not been nervous, I would have likely thought about how exciting playing for an expansion team would have been. I may have hoped to land back with the boys in Saskatoon and try to build on what we started late in the season. At the end of the day, I am here to play hockey and set myself up for the VHL draft in the near future.

 

As I think about that, I realize that I can play hockey and I have been doing it for a long time. I reminisce about some of the bigger games I have played in, some of the championship games in Russia were my proudest moments. I start to gain confidence, my knees stop knocking and I stop shaking; I pick my head up and look around at the remaining players and they all still have their heads down. The top guys are off the board and I feel like now I have a bit more room to breath, I smile and then it happens. "We are happy to welcome Valeri Morozov to the..."

 

505 Words