Work In Progress

Hello FutureWolfTech readers, this is my work in progress post for the Unit 2 project. I was interviewed by Bryce about playing hockey and how much different it is being from the north. This is a small excerpt from the recording that was made. I talked a little about how I first got into playing, and how there is a different hockey culture in the north as opposed to the south.

Bryce: Did you have close friends or family that helped influence your decision to play? If so, why?

Me: Like I said before, my mom asked me to try it out and I’m sure my parents discussed it with each other at the time, but my mom was the one who brought me to the learn-to-skates and the house league games. House leagues games are basically just small organized games put on by the rink as opposed to an outside group. Thats where pretty much every kid starts, and a lot of kids that I knew and played with all through high school played in the same house league as me, some even on the same team. It's pretty crazy that, even after all that time, we're all still great friends. But I actually dont really know why she asked me to play, my guess is she had some friends from work or something that had kids that played, and she thought it sounded cool. Neither of my parents really watched hockey or anything on TV before I started playing, so it really came out of the blue.



Bryce: How much bigger of a deal is hockey in the north than down south?

Me: Its a much bigger deal. It is very different up north. Here in North Carolina, there is only one youth team that I’ve ever heard of; the Junior Hurricanes. Up north, pretty much every town had a youth team and a rink. The youth hockey programs were much better funded, had a lot more participation, more age groups, etc. A lot of the youth teams are very competitive as well. They have kids as young as 8 years old traveling around the country to compete on a national level. The competition was much better growing up than what I have seen and heard about here in North Carolina. Also, nearly every medium to big high school in the state has their own team. I played for my high school, and there was 3 divisions consisting of about 24-26 teams each throughout the state. My high school is division 2. It was a very big commitment; we practiced 6 days a week on non-game days. We were bussed to every practice from our school, so from 2:30 to 6:30 every day we bonded as a team and played together on the ice. The hockey culture is definitely stronger up north than here. The youth hockey is much better supported. More people watch on TV as well as go to games. The arenas in Boston and New York are sold out almost every game, with tickets in the thousands. I haven't seen that with the Hurricanes.