“Again.” “Do it again.” “Back on the line.” Phrases my team grew familiar with during my sophomore season on Mansfield Hockey, the season that distanced me from my love for the sport as every practice and game started to feel like a chore.

On Sept. 24, 2023, my team had a game against Prosper. We warmed up in the back parking lot, and our coaches told us to be in the locker room dressed and ready 20 minutes before puck drop to discuss the game and announce captains. I changed into my gear and blasted music until the coaches came in. The coaches walked in, the music cut, and everyone was locked in. They start by explaining that the decisions made regarding captains were based on team votes and coach discretion. The last names of those chosen captains were called. 

“First name called will be our captain for the season, the last three will be assistants,” Coach said. “Mitchell, Lopez, Galarza and Morgan. Congratulations and let’s have a good season.” 

Receiving my captain’s letter felt amazing. The hard work I put in over the summer finally paid off, but as an underclassman, I was inexperienced and didn’t know what to do with my leadership position.

On paper, the start of my sophomore season was picture-perfect. I was named assistant captain and made good friends with my teammates, and everyone got along. Our leveling games went great, considering that it was the start of the season, and my team had a 1-1 record against two talented teams. 

Despite having a good performance for leveling, my team’s performance in the regular season reflected the opposite. I was always left thinking, why? Why are we losing? What are we doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? I knew my team was skilled. I knew our potential. And I knew that losing by nine goals is not like us at all. The constant losses brought the team down heavily. No one wanted to show up to games, and no one wanted to show up to practice. The constant mistakes and slip-ups in games made practices rough. Every practice is supposed to be hard, that’s how we get better as players, but these practices started turning repetitive, running the same system over and over again with little to no progression. None of the players liked it, and we agreed that the system did not work for our team. I spoke to my coaches about it and was passive-aggressively turned away. The pressure was on us as captains to lead and find flaws within the team, but how would we get this done while we were constantly being turned away when we had feedback?

It wasn’t only on-ice practice. Off-ice conditioning became repetitive with workouts that simply did not work. There was no structure, and we were simply handed a list of workouts to do with little to no guidance. Yet again, when we suggest a different workout plan. We were turned down.

The close-mindedness of this one coach ruined the morale of the team. More people started skipping practices and stopped showing up to games. Out of the four captains, two captains stopped caring about the sport and the team. At this point the team was being led by two captains, if you even consider what we were doing leading.

My sophomore season killed my mental health. I dreaded running systems in practice because I knew I would hear the same thing when I skated back to the bench. “You messed up.” “Do it again, correctly.” “You do that in a game, and you’re getting benched.” All this effort and what do I get out of it? We’re losing. Everyone hated playing for this team. I started to hate the sport I fell in love with. 

I never saw myself losing my love for my sport. Hockey was everything to me and was my motivator for almost everything. I stayed on top of my grades to maintain eligibility. I spent countless hours in the weight room. I missed out on so much life for this sport. All for what?

If you were to ask me, would I ever relive this point of my life? My honest answer would be yes. There will always be situations I can’t control, and I’ve come to terms with that. There will always be situations that bring me down and things I will experience that will hurt me, and my sophomore season allowed me to realize the one thing I can control is how much I let a bad experience affect me. Looking back at this past season, I realized that there were situations that I could have handled better for my mental health. I cared too much about things that didn’t matter, and I let things get to my head too easily. Moving forward I feel that I have more control over my feelings now that I’m more understanding of everything I go through. My sophomore season taught me to distance myself from people and situations that won’t help me grow as a person.

My team ran systems that didn’t work, made no changes and our record showed. Similar to my sophomore season, in life we as people need to find flaws in ourselves and take action to correct them. Along with changing things or situations that don’t work for us. We can’t let bad experiences hold us back. We can’t let people hold us back. At the end of the day, we have more control over situations than we think. Control what you can. And forget what you can’t.