Quinn Beyer

ENW 100

Literacy Narrative

Every year once September rolls around there’s something about me that changes. You

may be thinking am I really someone who gets excited to go back to school? The answer to that

would be no, but the reason I do enjoy this time is because it’s always the start of the hockey

season each year. Hockey has been such a big part of my life since I was about 3 years old and is

a sport that I really can’t see myself to ever stop playing until I am forced to. So, going into my

senior hockey season me and my friends all had high hopes for our team just as any team

should, but we knew there was something about this specific team. You would be able to walk

into the locker room at any time and just see someone always smiling or cracking jokes, it was

something that we all wanted to be a part of. This season meant so much to me and the fellow

seniors, because we weren’t sure if we would play hockey again, the thought of that was

something that drove us all season long to keep pushing. In doing so the underclassmen

followed behind seeing how much work we put in and how bad we really wanted to succeed.

Being a leader was something that I feel was distilled in me from a young age through my

parents and siblings and was a reason that I was selected as one of the captains of this team.

Going into our first game of the year against our archrival, the atmosphere was electric

you could hear the screams from all the fans from inside our locker room. Although I was a

senior and have experienced for 4 straight years I was still just as nervous as all the first years
on the team. The mix of excitement and nervousness is something that cannot be described

and as a leader and senior of the team I couldn’t show any kind of nervousness. The game

started and finished in what felt like a blink of an eye, we suffered a tough loss as a heavy favor

and there was a type of embarrassment that wavered over me for some time. I’ll remember

what my coach said after that game for some time.

“Remember what this feels like, the feeling of losing is something you need to overcome

before you can win” He said to the entire team.

After we all got undressed and made our way out of the locker room, he made sure we

all walked out with our heads held up high, I was the last to leave and he pulled me aside

before leaving the rink.

He said, “The way the rest of this season goes is up to you and the rest of the seniors,

everyone on the team looks up to you guys and will follow in your footsteps so have the right

attitude and work hard.”

I said, “Me and the rest of the seniors will do anything we can to make this season our

best yet and we expect nothing but the best effort everyone can possibly give.”

He said, “get some sleep and we will be back to work next week, good job tonight.”

Hockey like any other sport is similar to life in the fact that you learn from your

mistakes, we did that and continued to bear down throughout the season. We had some highs

and lows but stuck together through it all which is what mattered most to our coach and

ourselves. The awesome thing about the hockey season is the longer it goes on the more

intense it gets, once we got to January everything just mattered a little more. Practices were

more competitive, more people came to our games, all because of the thought of winning a
championship was in the back of everyone’s head. We barely made it to the playoffs, and when

I say barely, I mean we were the lowest seeded team matched up against an undefeated team

in the first round of playoffs. We knew we could play with every team in our league at every

aspect of the game, the question was if we would be able to execute and translate our skills

into the game.

Against all odds we forced the series to a game 3 which is a do or die game, with all our

family and friends in attendance we felt the support and pushed ourselves to an unbelievable

upset and beating a previously unbeaten team twice in playoffs. This was not only monumental

for our team but our school also, there is no better feeling than putting a smile on friends and

family faces for the success of your team. Since our league is small this gave our team an

automatic bid into the championship, even better it was against one of our schools longest

existing rival schools. Just like the first round of playoffs it was another 3-game series. The

nerves were even greater for this series, but that wasn’t fazing anyone on our team, the young

kids wanted to rise to the occasion and the seniors wanted to leave a legacy of their own. Yet

again this series went to a game 3, another does or die for us and we were more than ready for

it. We were given the chance to do something our schools hockey team hasn’t done for 13

years, to say we put every single ounce of effort on the ice that night was an understatement.

At about the two-minute mark in the third period and being up two goals, you could slowly

start to taste the championship.

I turned to one of my teammates and said, “Did you honestly think that we would be

here at the beginning of the season?”

 He looked and me and said,” In all honesty no I didn’t, but there was never a doubt we

were capable of this just whether or not we would want it enough.”

I said, “well we did it.”

When the final buzzer it, the sound of that will be something I will remember for a

lifetime, the celebration felt timeless seeing everyone so happy after all the hard work we put

in was awesome. To raise that trophy with my team was the epitome of what our high school

embodies, the Jesuit motto of being a “man for others”. I could not have thought of a more

perfect way to end my high school career with being surrounded by friends and family while

winning the championship.