Joakim Bruden: Uncovered (Part 1)

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This is part one of a multi-part series examining Ottawa Lynx backup goaltender Joakim Bruden and his story of his journey so far:

 

Growing up in a small town on Sweden's east coast, there was not much to do. The winters were long and snowy - about 8 or 9 months out of the year, and if you were outside you were likely either on skates, or cross country skis. I am the youngest son in my family, I have 3 older brothers and 2 sisters who are younger than me. We have a big family, so we would usually play games with each other. A favorite growing up was 2 on 2 hockey, and I was always volunteered to be the goalie because I was the youngest boy. Those childhood games are what made me fall in love with the game, as well as the goalie position. It didn't matter to us what the score was, we were always ready to try our best and if I got scored on all I wanted to do was stop the next one.

Playing against my older brothers forced me to be better than my age dictated. I had to be quicker, faster, more agile and thinking ahead because they were bigger and stronger than me. They could shoot fast and heavy and I needed an edge of my own.

 

For my 8th birthday, all I wanted to do was play competitive hockey - to that point I had played with school friends and my brothers, but I wanted to be on a team, I wanted to travel to other towns and play against them. My parents were able to scrape together enough money to buy me a used set of pads that had seen better days, but all they really needed was some conditioning, and a bit of sewing and I was able to get the most out of them. I was also enrolled in the upcoming season of ice hockey with my local club team and excitedly got ready preparing for tryouts.

 

The biggest change was getting used to goalie skates. I had never worn these before and they felt so clunky. All my years I had always used regular skates, these were long and heavy and I kept digging the toe into the ice and falling down with them. In addition to the trouble with the skates, the rest of the equipment felt so heavy. I could barely raise my glove hand, let along have a quick reaction with it. I felt like I was chained to an anchor, and it was holding me back from what I could be.

 

Tryouts came and I was still struggling to learn how to move with my new gear, so I did the best I could, but it wasn't very good. They also used smaller pucks for the younger age group, so everyone was able to raise the puck, and shoot with a lot more power than I was used to.

 

I made the second team for the 8 and 9 year olds as the starting goalie. We only had 2 teams, so it was basically people who didn't have much experience on skates, or playing hockey at all. I'm not going to lie and say I accepted this, because I was pissed off, but looking back, I was also one of those kids who couldn't move around, or was falling all over the place because I was not used to my equipment. I imagine there were a few of my team mates who were in this exact same circumstance and they were probably grumbling about their useless team mates as well.

 

-- To be Continued --

[zepheter 586]

Part 2 better come out soon...

Edited December 27, 2019 by zepheter