The life of David Wallace [2/2]

[Juddy 13]

The life of David Wallace

David Wallace was born in London, England with his mother and father. At the age of 4, Davids father found a new job in the USA as teacher and he decided to uproot his family to Manchester, New Hampshire. When they arrived in Manchester, they had no friends and did not know much about the local culture. Lucky for the VHL world, David's family moved to a house where they practically had the local hockey rink in their backyard. Young David saw many other children going to skating lessons and open skate on weekends, and desperately wanted to become part of this. On his 5th birthday he got his first pair of skates, and went straight to the rink for his birthday party. His family met the local youth team coaches and decided that David would join the league.

 

 

David joined the Manchester Monarchs junior association. This is where David learned how to become a hockey player. Early coaches saw that he had natural talent. He could skate like the wind, he would literally blow past the defense and then just stand there not knowing what else to do. Laughed his first coach Mike Drooper. He continued, We knew the kid could skate, but that won't win games just on that, we needed to help push him on a path to succeed. Would he be a sniper, playmaker, two way player. He was only 5 but you could see something special in this kid and we wanted to do all we could to help him succeed. That first season with the Monarchs was not great for Wallace or his team. The youth teams would play a thirty game schedule, and in his first season they went 5-22-3. Wallace scored 2 goals and added 5 assists.

 

Over the next few years Wallace and his teammates got dramatically better each season, and Wallace was clearly the stand out of them all. The team was lucky to be able to keep pretty much the same team while Wallace was there, each year this team would climb the ranks, from mighty mites, to mites, to squirts, and to pee-wee. When this team got to the bantam level, they were a well oiled machine. Wallace was having one hell of a year leading his team to win after win after win. The regular season ended, and the Monarchs would have a great record of 25-3-2, to finish first place in there league and making the playoffs for only the second time in their young careers. Wallace had a stellar season with 13 goals and a crazy 68 assists, setting a bantam Monarchs record for assists in one season. We have never had a kid that good in the program. said program director Kyle Kinkaid, he continued, He had blazing speed and when he made a pass, I mean just wow. He could find the open player if he was blindfolded and had his back turned, it was crazy. I am glad I got to see him play and develop. The playoffs were a whole new animal to this team, although they made it before it was squeaking in and getting blown out early. They went into the game playing very nervous and lost in overtime, 4-3. Wallace did not have a single point.

 

The next season the players had to make a choice, do they continue with the Monarchs, find a new junior team, or play some for Monarchs and the rest for local high school teams. The team all turned to their leader Wallace to see what he would be doing, and he loved his team, he loved his teammates, and the friendships he made, it was clear he was not going anywhere. That summer when pretty much the whole team decided to stay, they started doing harder off-season training to prepare for their future. They all skated everyday, went to the gym, and learned ways on how to eat more healthy. The season came and it would be their last season before they all tried out for the junior team. This year it was time to make an impression. With pretty much the whole team returning they pumped out another fantastic season, and even out doing the previous season, going 28-1-1, with another first place finish in their league. Wallace put up 11 goals, a dip from the year before, but shattered his assist record with 79 assists. The playoffs that year had 8 teams, in the first round they beat the Boston Junior Bruins 10-1, Wallace had 1 goal and 8 assists. In the second round the barely got by the Northern Mass Cyclones 3-2, with Wallace adding 3 more assists to his post season total. The semi finals is where the team got bad news. In the first shift of the game Wallace got hit and fell hard breaking his wrist. The team lost to the Bay State Breakers 4-0 ending their season early.

 

The next season Wallace took his time rehabbing and missed the whole season, ensuring that his future would be alright. The following season Wallace and most of his teammates made the Junior A team. The team would eventually play 62 games and play a mediocre 26-30-6 missing the playoffs. Wallace had a good individual season having 17 goals and 92 assists.

 

The next season would be the teams year before the draft. They trained their hearts out yet again in the offseason and all made the Junior A teams with hopes of having a much better year. They finished the season going 38-16-8 making the playoffs. Wallace had an even better season, reaching 20 goals for the first time and added 110 assists. He was feeling good heading into the playoffs. This was a 6 team playoff, with the top 2 seeds getting a bye week and the Monarchs were the second seed. In the second round they played the Boston Junior Bruins and beat them 3-1, Wallace getting an assist on all 3 goals. In the finals they would play against the South Shore Kings. In the regular season the team split their series 2-2 and this was set out to be avery competitive game, with the winner making the national championship tournament. After the first period the Kings were ahead 2-1 with Wallace scoring the lone goal. After two periods the score was now 4-1 Kings, things looked bleak for the Monarchs.

 

In between periods Wallace rallied the troops and got the team pumped up for the third, he asked not to allow the coaches in, for the team to get themselves motivated. This seemed to work, with Wallace scoring a goal 12 seconds in to make it 4-2. Four minutes later Wallace made a pretty pass to his line mate who beat the opposing goalie to make the score 4-3. With 2 minutes left in the game the Monarchs pulled their goalie and set up the play in the offensive zone. They worked the puck around to Wallace, he made a quik move taking two defenders and the goalie with him, and slid a pretty pass to his winger who tapped in the tying goal with only 25 seconds left in the game. The game went to overtime, 5 minutes in Wallace missed his assignment on defense giving the Kings a break away which led to the game winning goal.

 

That play hurt, Wallace was in tears, he wanted to win so bad and to get that close and lose, well it really hurt him. said coach Drooper. 

 

After some time time Wallace made his was to VHL and signed a temporary contract with the Las Vegas Aces, to get more playing time before the upcoming draft. We look for great things from this kid, he could be a once in a generation talent.

[Greg_Di 933]

Review:

Great length of the Bio, well written and lots of interesting information. I would maybe add a few more pictures so that it separates some of the paragraphs. Would be great to see David Wallace play with Michael Scott :P Office reunion 

[jack 496]

Review: Definitely well-written, and I liked reading about the ups and downs that Wallace had to experience. It seems like he's got quite the reputation. I would suggest to wrap the quotes in quotation marks, instead of italics. Easier to follow in my opinion. Good write-up and good luck with Wallace!