A Junior Hockey Journey: One Step Closer

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June 9, 2015:

I kept telling myself that I was one step closer.

Every shot on the driveway, every stick time and public skate, every moment builds to that Dream. It’s every young hockey player’s vision that they make it to ‘The Show,’ that against the odds, they survive to the NHL. Moving to Canada, playing for a Junior A team at age 16, it would be give me the freedom and responsibility I always craved as a teen. Beyond that, relocating to Canada would launch me a level, maybe many levels, beyond my friends back home. Training in Norfolk would heighten my hockey sense and give development that exceeded any program in Connecticut.

It all turned in my head as I sat in a plain, chalk white seat. It was just one among hundreds, all identical, each bound to the other with a thin white cord. It kept conformity.

One by one, the seniors rose to receive their graduation diplomas.

The current juniors became next year’s seniors, and my class of the time, 2017, joined the senior school of Hopkins as the next juniors. In that moment, I was still a Hilltopper. I had made it the four years.

At the end of the ceremony, I left behind the laughter and tears that, in any event, followed the closing of every graduation. For the last of a long time, I gazed out at all the luxurious grass on the Thompson Quad; I memorized each tree and trimmed bush outlining the pathways.

-Jeff Gu

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