For hours, I would stand in my driveway alone on the cobblestone except for an old, rickety hockey net in front of me, pounding tennis balls into the goal from every angle until my wrists went numb. The net was ripped and torn in three places, and the posts were worn down by repeated blows. It held within its frame an anthology of my early years—my childhood and that net were forever intertwined. The garage door behind it was dented with body-size impressions from when I would jump into it, pretending to be celebrating a game-winning goal.
In essence, my driveway was the arena for me to play out my wild imagination.
Upon that driveway, I would procure outrageous stories of my future career as a perennial NHL All-Star, from the fine details of the roar of the crowd to the endorsement contracts I would sign as a player. In my mind, I created a world all my own, where reality meant nothing and I could stretch my imagination as far as I desired.
I’d set up situations for myself to reenact, fantasizing about the magnitude of the moment and the ecstasy upon achieving success. “The clock winding down. Stanley Cup final. Game 7. Mark Schreiber with the puck. Five seconds now…Schreiber moves left…he shoots….he scores!” And off I’d go, in my own fantasyland, my veins pumping with exhilaration as I ran around my driveway, waving my stick in the air, jumping in jubilation. The moment felt so real that, when I crashed into my neighbor’s trash can, I felt as if I were being dog-piled by teammates in celebration.
I saw the likes of Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, and I too wanted to match their greatness. The heroism with which they played was intoxicating—I wanted so badly to experience the last second, buzzer-beating shot, the grace of the action, the thrill of having thousands of people chanting your name, the announcer’s ecstatic reaction forever engraving the moment in the pantheon of sports.
I was not unlike the millions of kids that idolize their sports heroes, but I went a step further than that. I desired the moment more than the play, craving the atmosphere more than the actual physical involvement.
I intended on writing history. I wanted to be the symbolic, iconic, breathtaking, heroic athlete that hit the shots that counted. I never thought of the process of how Jordan or Gretzky got to their pinnacle—I just wanted to hop-step it all and just make it to the top.
I remember writing a report for my third grade class in which I had to tell my class about my dream job and how I would go about achieving it. I came to school dressed in a retro Vancouver Canucks jersey, proud and ready to enlighten my peers on my aspiration to not just be a pro hockey player—but to be the best. I told them that I didn’t just want to make it to the NHL—I wanted to go to multiple All-Star Games, win many MVPs, score 700 goals, win a few Stanley Cups and make a few commercials along the way. My dad made sure that I included the diligent practice routine I would need to go through to reach such a level of stardom, but I read it off robotically.
Everything, I assumed, would just fall into place. Nothing was impossible in my mind, even if I was a small kid from suburban California and not a Canadian who came out of his mother’s womb with skates on and a stick in hand. I was so obsessed with the outcome that I didn’t even bother to consider the frailty of the foundations of my dream.
In reality, I was never going to achieve any of these outrageous goals—for one, I quit playing hockey when I was 11. But it’s this dream that has driven me to want more from myself in all aspects of my life.
I’m never going to be an athlete making headlines worldwide, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be making headlines in other ways. Essentially, sports have given me the fire—now it’s my turn to find the direction.
Mark Schreiber is a Trinity freshman. His column runs every other Tuesday. Send Mark a message on Twitter @MarkSchreib.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.