Ji Kim
English 10
Block C
He was Born to be a Hockey Player
January 9th, 2001, a baby was born between the most beautiful lady and the strongest man in the world. A baby was chubby, tall and decent-looking boy. A boy, Ji-Hwan, I was born.
In my childhood, I played a lot of sports with my dad and I was pretty good at most of sports. I played soccer, baseball, basketball, table tennis, etc… When I was at grade one, my friend’s parents recommended to my parents that I should play hockey with my best friends. Two of my best friends were already playing hockey, but my other best friend and I was not playing. I went to play hockey for the first time. No one would never think that I wanted to become a professional hockey player when I stepped an ice for the first time because I cried and told my mom, “I don’t want to play hockey, please let me go home!” Because I am very shy person who is having hard time to meet new people every time. However, my parents forced me to play hockey. That changed my life totally.
A cold, dark, and noisy ice rink made me scared. A coach came to me and my parents and introduced himself
“Hi, nice to meet you. I am No-Soo.”
He was very kind to me and my friends which made me less scared. He started to teach me how to wear gears. Gears were used and stinky.
I asked my friends, “Is hockey fun?”
My friends said, “Yeah! You will love it.”
I did not know it is going to be real until I step the ice.I stepped on the ice and held a chair for support. Coach took me and my friends to the corner and taught us how to skate because on the team, there were players who were grade 1 to grade 6. In that year, I learned skating by playing and sliding with friends.
To be honest I do not know how and why, but at some point, I started to love hockey, so I practiced stick-handling anywhere if there was a stick. That made my strength of stick-handling. However, my love to hockey disappeared when I was in grade 4 because I was not having fun with the team and I wanted to become a baseball player. At that time, I really had a lot of conversations with my parents, coaches, and friends.
I also had to talk myself. What should I do? What am I doing? What do I like? What is my problem?
After that, I chose to play hockey because hockey is the sport that I have been doing and loving and I realized there are many people who believes me and support me. That helped me to find my confidence.
In grade 7, I went to Kyung-Hee middle school in Korea. It is a well-known school for hockey. I usually have a hard time when I am in new place, or new team, but in middle school, I was not having a hard time because all veterans were same veterans in the elementary school. Last year of middle school, I was the one of veteran, I did not want to disappoint my teammates and I had to show my skills to high school coaches. Everyday, I had to be ready to play and be focused. I worked hard, so I was top 5 in point ranking. However, life does not let me live easy. Every team of high school wanted me to sign, except for the one team which was the school that I wanted to go since I decided to be a professional hockey player. One day, my teammates said that one player who was not good enough in most of people opinion signed with my dream school. When I heard about it, I was really disappointed, sad, and upset. My parents was also disappointed, so we decided to move to the hockey world, Canada.
We decided to move to Canada in November, and eventually moved the next month. In a month, my life has changed. I came to Canada December 21st, 2015. It was rainy, cold, and dark day. I did not expect this will be one of normal days. I attended many hockey camps to improve my hockey skills, so I can play for the second highest tier in midget hockey. However, I could not play for them because of my visa problem, so I played for house hockey which is for people who just play and enjoy hockey. I had a lot of fun with my house hockey teammates and we won the league title. My visa problem was solved after the season, so I could play for higher level next year and I made my current team which is the highest tier in midget hockey in British Columbia. I hope I go to any NCAA division 1 hockey team, graduate the university, and sign with a pro team in Europe.
If there is any chance to go back to December 21st, 2015, I will never change my decision that coming to Canada. Playing hockey in Canada is way better than playing hockey in Korea. That is why I always appreciate my parents and my siblings. My dad has to work in Korea, so he is staying alone in Korea, my mom had to quit her job because my parents did not want me to move alone, and my siblings could study in Korea, but they also moved to new society and country with me. I affect most of family decision a lot, so I cannot quit my goal, and do not want to quit my goal. I always appreciate them and feel sorry for them. It seems my family living for my goal, not their goals, so my other dream is to make their lives to the most beautiful lives in the world when I reach my goal.