Intended outcomes

It's been another good week bad week type of deal this past week; the weather is finally coming around to the idea that Spring is a real condition, not just just an imagined concept, and so we've enjoyed some melting which has left things dirty and slushy and a pain to manouvere through, and some rain to wash that melting down with, followed by just enough snow and sleet to keep us humble. It's a slow process, we get that.

The boy's hockey is winding down now too, his team's run at the City championship fell short again this year, but they eeked out a winning season, and that's more than most of his teammates have been able to say at this time of year for a few years now. They are in the midst of their final tournament of the season, a last group of games with the boys who came together back in October and who have become friends since, not that friendship was the intended result when we signed up for the year, but it is one of the best benefits of sports. Personal growth is right up there too.

I watched my son get rocked by a high hit in a game last Friday, the force of which, combined with his ever increasing height and not so quickly increasing mass, sent him flying backward and resulted in his head being snapped back and impacting the ice behind his team's net. I know my son, and a hitblike that will do one of two things; get under his skin and make him angry, or hurt him enough to get him angry. He comes by both responses naturally, trust me. So I wasn't surprised to see him pick himself up, check to see who hit him, and then carefully make his way to the bench, glancing back at the play and deciding against getting involved once more should he suffer a similar fate.

The opposing team was bigger, stronger, faster, and on this day, better prepared to win the game. These things happen in sport, and in life, and you accept them and deal the best you can. When you are 12 though it can take some time to learn that lesson of patience and acceptance - especially if the adrenalin is pumping vigoriously through your veins and you have a score to settle. I met him at the rinkside gate and got him to the dressing room, to assess both his physical and mental states, and was not surprised to find both hurting. He's developed into a competitor this year, not wanting to back down and not wanting to miss a moment of the action, and was more upset at the idea that his day might be done because of that hit and the accompanying headache than the fact that he was hurt in any way.

He returned to the game, and true to form attempted to settle his personal score in the third period when the opportunity presented itself, but that bigger, stronger, faster, aspect of the opposition was enough to thwart his best efforts, and he wound up just missing his intended targets repeatedly on one shift, and his patience was exhausted, and his self control depleated as well, and upon his return to the bench at the end of his shift, he exploded in a rage of uncontrolled, ego-induced frustration, the likes of which most parent's have witnessed in private in those demonic states of teenagerdom, and suffered a necessary meltdown.

It earned him some time on the bench, and some private time with each of the team's four coaches, and like the whirlwind that is adolescent emotion, it blew through him quickly and then he was fine, the rage quelled, the dust settled, and life, and the game went on. After the game on the drive home, we talked about the causes of the meltdown and how difficult it can be at times to deal with ego and it's wounded pride, but how the struggle for control of one's emotions is essential in life. A rage fuelled outburst is a Genie that can't be put back in the bottle, it has consequences that must be met, regardless of your intentions. Saying "I didn't mean for it to happen" doesn't change what did happen, or how it affcted those around you, and you have to take responsibility for the outcomes.

All four coaches confided that afterwards he was very responsive to their attempts at helping him regain control, and personally thanked each of them for their efforts, and promised such a loss of control and emotional explosion would never happen again.

I don't care what the team's record of wins and losses was for the season; like the friendships that happened along the way, that kind of personal growth, while not the intended outcome, is a consequence of which he can be proud for a lifetime. That is true success.