It's been a while again but it's time to sum up my season and reflect on how the journey's been for me so far. It's been quite a ride and I'm eager what next season brings in terms of challenges.
I can first of all say that my development this year has been greater than my previous seasons. Credit to that goes to Sala Hockey, a fifth-tier team here in Sweden, that I practiced with all season alongside my regular team. It's a couple of levels over my amateur team that I play with. Most of all, the skill in accuracy and decision making is way higher than I'm used to and I got to admit, I was lit up in the beginning.
But I adapted my game after a while, learning to be more patient and anticipating the shots.
And I can say after thinking back on my time with the team that I at least didn't make a fool out of myself. I was asked to join the team on a ski trip last weekend and met with the coaches there. He asked me if I was going to play next season. If that meant that he wanted me on the team I don't know but it sure sounded like it. We'll see how things play out.
If I do make it it full time with the team, I surely have to compete with two other goalies, both who are pretty darn good. I got see a couple of games last season and comparing both of them with the rest of the league, I can say that both are among the better goalies. That's both intimidating and exiting at the same time. I think I can get up to their level. I just have to work hard.
As for my amateur team, it was both a good and a bad season. The team didn't go as well as last season. We struggled from time to time and pretty much limped our way into the playoffs. And in the quarter finals, we got beaten 10-7. We didn't stand a chance really.
There's a lot of reasons why we didn't have the same success as last season. First of all, we lost two key players to injury and work commitment. And although we replaced them with some decent players, they were unable to make the same impact. And we had some problems with people not showing up for practices. In a roster with 30 players you would think that it would not hurt with a couple of players gone, but with nearly half of the team gone it really started to hurt us. We couldn't get any consistency in the lines and lost many games because of it.
Personally, I started pretty slow but got better as the season progressed, the reason being what I wrote about earlier. But I don't know why, but I lost the coaches confidence in the later part of the season, and was benched for a couple of games. I knew I was better than the other goalie. I kept a positive attitude. I don't know what else I could have done more.
But that's the way things are sometimes I guess. Or they saw something in the other goalie that I failed to notice.
Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the season but I wanna find out which level I can push myself up to. That's why I'm thinking of leaving my current team. If I don't make the Sala roster, i'm thinking of looking around for another fifth-tier team or perhaps another amateur team where I can push myself even more.
We'll see. Right now, i'm actually looking forward to start my pre season work out.
I'm going for four times a week, with butterfly stretching every day as a goal.
I will start next week and will write about my progress, feelings and (hopefully not) my struggles with it.
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