Everyone has a journey to undergo, whether it is to get back home after years of war or trying to go pro in a sport, and every journey will have its struggles and its lessons. In “The Odyssey” the hardships that Odysseus endures range anywhere from being eaten by Cyclopes or resisting the seduction of the sirens songs. My journey began at the age of four. My dad signed me up for a house league beginners hockey team for kids ages four to six. The majority of the time on the ice was clinics so that eventually we would actually be good enough to play in games. The clinics started at eight at night and ended at nine at night, and I wouldn’t get home until after ten which is pretty late for a four year old. The games were every Saturday night and Sunday at six thirty in the morning, which made my dad very happy to go to. I even persuaded my dad to be the assistant coach of my team which was really cool to me. I continued to play on the same schedule for the next two years. Driving to the games I used to fall asleep and when we got to the rink it was so cold and dark out I used to cry getting out of the car. We would play at an outdoor rink. I would beg my dad to take me home so he would have to carry me and my gear into the rink. When I turned 7, I lost interest in the game and decided to take a break from hockey, which when looking back on it was a terrible choice on my part. I do still appreciate that to this day my dad didn’t push me to keep playing but instead let me make my own choices. As I grew up, I played other sports, I found different hobbies, but all this time I still found that there was always something missing, no matter what I did. That is until I met Eamonn Conway. Eamonn and I met in fourth grade but really didn’t become good friends until the middle of fifth grade. Eamonn was the one to reignite the spark for my interest in hockey. He was able to get me to play in a couple house leagues and clinics, like when I was little, in sixth grade. I continued to play in the house leagues for the next two years. I wasn’t the best but I tried as hard as I could every time I went on the ice. During that time I also met a hockey trainer who works at a local ice rink. His name was Andy, and he also worked with Eamonn, so it worked out that me and Eamonn could car pool to the training session. Eventually I got good enough to play on a middle school team, and because Oyster Bay is so small it doesn’t have a high school team, I got put in what is called a draft. The draft is basically where depending on your age and position, any team that needs a player and is within a certain radius gets picked for that team. As it happened, I got put on the Manhasset Middle School hockey team. As I progressed with my training, I began to get good enough to try out for a travel team. When a player gets good enough in a house league they can try out for a travel team. There are many travel teams a player can try out for and depending on how good a player is he/she can play in different tiers, for example a very good player can play for a tier one or tier two and a good player can play for a tier three team. I talked to Eamonn about what team he thought I should play for and he said the Long Beach Apple Core, this was the team Eamonn played for. I talked it over with my dad and he said it was all right with him if I tried out. The previous year the Apple Core team had been a very good team so I was every excited about the season, but as it turned out we would only win one regular season game. I knew that after that year I would not be able to play for them again because there wouldn’t be a team