Still Hayley Wickenheiser wasn’t ready to peak. During her 23 years playing for Canada, Wickenheiser scored 168 goals and assisted on 211 more in 276 games while winning four Olympic gold medals and seven world championships. She became captain of National teams that won Olympic gold in 2010, as well as world titles in 20. She was the first woman to play full-time professional hockey in a position other than goalie and in 2003, Wickenheiser became the first woman to score a goal playing in a men's semi-professional league. Hayley Wickenheiser was named to Canada’s national Women’s team at 15. This could easily have been the peak of her career and not one of us would have criticized her. Wickenheiser began playing minor hockey on outdoor rinks in her hometown of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan when she was five years old. Because there were no girls’ teams for her to play on, she tucked her hair up under her helmet and played exclusively on boys' teams until she was 13. Not all of the players or their parents were supportive. In fact, many people felt she should accept that she had gone as far as she could. They believed she had reached her peak. Hayley mustn’t have been convinced. This week, Hayley Wickenheiser was named as one of the six athletes who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November. We all know someone, who despite their age, revels in stories of the time when they were in high school, or at least of a time when they were much younger. This clearly seems to be a time when they believe they were at their best. Their peak. While I love to hear the stories, when I don’t hear any follow up, any more recent anecdotes, I can’t help to feel like it seems like such a waste to peak so young. When I was teaching, I would remind students who didn’t feel like they were fitting into the most popular groups, that peaking at the age of thirteen or fourteen wasn’t really as glamourous as it might appear. It’s ok not to peak yet, I would tell them. You have a whole life waiting for you to step into. This week, during an early morning performance downtown, I was holding one of our poses and saying, ‘Don’t peek’ to myself. Suddenly, I was reminded that this is something I have thought many times in my life.ĭon’t peek. Or more accurately, don’t peak! Most often it is less than a minute before we hear the music signalling us to begin, but sometimes it can feel like an eternity. When that happens, we can be seen sneaking peeks as we look around to make sure we aren’t the only person frozen in place in a pose! We know we really shouldn’t be doing this true professionals would simply wait as long as it took. But we get antsy, and maybe even start doubting ourselves and we just can’t seem to help it! Once we are told the name of the upcoming dance we are expected to get into our pose and hold it. One of the most challenging parts for all of us at this point in the season is making sure we have our introductions and finishing poses down pat. When we learn a new dance, we typically learn the pattern of the feet first, then the arm movements are added, and finally the beginning and ending poses are inserted. Considering we have many dozens of dances, it can be hard to keep them all straight. Often our opening pose has some version of us leaning slightly one way or the other, hand on the brim of our cowboy hat and eyes cast down. The dance group I belong to, Chinook Country Dancers, is in full-on performance mode for the next few weeks. I’m not sure the exact number of performances there are in total, but right now, I’m counting twenty-five on my calendar. Needless to say, we are at the very final stages of polishing the details of each dance so we can confidently perform.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |