27.5.06

was jus like doin my reflections bout hockey.. damn irritating. cos like ms tan asked us to do it n mail her back our reflections but mine kept screwin up n couldn send properly.. then i lost the file then re did it.... but yeh. i completed it

hmm.. was jus thinking that this reflection mighta helped me quite a lot.. cos i havent exactly like gotten over hockey.. its jus like all too fast. its like right after hockey season ended, i jus had to 'get over' it and swing back to trng for my throws... it sucked. really it did. i was act supp to take a weeks break after hockey season to rest then come back to throws.. but i din rest for the week.. i jus couldn. cos if i din train, hockey'd come back to haunt me.. so i kinda havent really let go of hockey.. i jus u noe, downplayed it. so doin this reflection has pretty much made me slowly let go properly of it.. so anyway.. i jus decided that i should do a reflection on being a goalie jus to end it off nicely.

being a goalie.. is not an easy thing to do.. i think its the psycho-est thing to do man.noe why? no 1, cos the ball.. is so friggin hard. if ur a normal player, if the ball comes towards u, DUCK.. but the goalie.. u gotta stop it man. u cant duck.. duck and u let in a goal. no 2, even tho goalies are the most well padded person on the pitch, she's the one that gets injured the most.. bruises... pulled muscles (especially groin area)..

those.. are jus like surface stuff man. they're physical.. but wen it comes to mental...

ok. put it simply... lets say the attacker's got the ball. but she loses it, she goes oh its ok.. midfield will get it. (i mean thats not the correct attitude lah but leave it for now..). so midfield gets teh ball. but then she loses it. she goes its alrite.. defense will get it.. defense loses it.. and they go cmon goalie!! stop it! but then the opposing attack shoots the ball in.. the goalie is the last man of the team.. do u think she can say the same like the rest of the team? somebody's behind? no.. and it sucks.. cos sometimes, wen the ball is whacked, there's nothing we can do. and that feeling sucks. its a heavy responsibility.. to not let the ball in.. but then.. it goes in.. ur team mates get really disappointed and sometimes they jus walk away.. they think that its bad.. but what bout the goalie? shouldn she feel worse?

everybody's upset, sad, disappointed with the goal let in.. but the keeper's gotta be the fastest one to bounce back from that upset and really come up strong, pushing the team to carry on.. like the goal was no big. its really difficult. especially if the ball keeps comin into ur D.. u command the D but u cant let ur emotions get in the way or else u'll jus impede on your keeping skills.. ur judgment.. ur calls. mr ng once said to me in mgs.. everybody makes mistakes, but its how u jump back and react at it that will make u a better person. dawn asked me before, how i managed to carry on playing my first ever hockey match with vjc during the u21 club match where i let in 17 goals and still carried on playing.. i said.. track has pretty much taught me how to quickly bounce back up to my feet. giving up's not an option.

goalies are like the loners of the team as well. even if we're damn close to the team, we're still the loners.. we dun do drills with the rest of the team.. they score agnst us, we gotta block their shots.. we have different drills from them. we train by ourselves while they train tgth as 19 pple.. it really sucks cos pple get damn happy wen they score a goal.. but what bout us? that means we failed to keep our goal.. bleah.. so then after trng, wen pple walk off the pitch, we're pretty much the last one to leave cos we're jus so bulky n take a longer time to walk.. after trng, we most probably mite be the last one to leave cos we gotta pack our equipment n go..

oh yeh.. n lastly... goalies are the ones that pretty much get the least credit sometimes.. unless wen it comes to crunch time.. cos norm, if the game is good(the win kind), critics say that the attackers were good.. if the game's bad(lose).. its the goalie's fault.. its a really behind the shadows job man..

so see.. being a goalie is really difficult.. but i'd still much rather be one, than any other person on the field. we're a unique bunch. no one really understands us but our kind alone. this doesn jus oly apply to hockey.. but like alot is shared with other goalkeepers in various sports..

so goalies.. rmb.. everybody can be an attacker.. but not everybody can be a defender. and rock at it..

jael: i should be the one thanking you.. what u tagged jus right that night after our game really really cheered me up. really felt encouraged. haha. i jus think its a goalie's thing..

BOOYA!