Hitting the wall Shooting Hockey helps me find my motivation once again

Sylvania Senior League blue team player Tom Simon stretches before taking the ice against his opponent at Tam-O-Shanter in Sylvania, Ohio. (PHO245 photos by Aaron Gonya)

     The last few months have not been easy, I've been trying to step outside of my own box and do things a little differently, I've appreciated the sports assignments in my PJ class. I only needed one, but I stretched it out and added in some amateur hockey just to try and find my photographic drive once again.

 Toby Hafner slips past Ryan Hakeos .

    Hockey is a fascinating, and very difficult sport to photograph.  The speed is incredible, the action difficult to follow.  These guys do what they love every week, giving it 110%, the only reward is what they take away from the experience. No big paychecks, no endorsement deals.

    Watching these teams, (There are no names, only colors) battle it out on the ice, is an inspiring  lesson in determination.

Goalie Tab Hinkle stops a shot from Bill Himmell. 

 In my own life, I’ve been going full out since I returned to College over a year ago, pushing myself mentally as hard as I have ever had in my life.  Proving to myself that in my mid 30’s I can still keep up with kids almost fifteen years younger than myself, and I think, sometimes making the kids work just to keep up with me. 

    I’ve worked hard to make my thirties as interesting as my twenties were dull.  Ten years ago I would never have stood, cameras in hand in the middle of three hundred people at a wedding reception, never would have been able to approach perfect strangers, and never would have been able to face the challenges I take on being self employed doing remodeling and fixing truck stop scales. 

    The last few months have been a challenge I have not yet been able to overcome. Not that  I intend to give up just yet.  All the little health problems and aches and pains have teamed up to drag me down, a difficult course load,  and not to mention almost five hundred miles in the car every week driving too andfrom the campus.  In some ways Hockey is a good analogy  for the life of a Photographer. For all there talent and incredible skill, the players of the Sylvania senior league will probably never start in an NHL game, just as I will probably never be a famous photographer.  But like these guys, every day that I get the chance I load my gear into my car and hit the road again.  They play hockey, I take pictures. Right now I'm chasing the dream, still holding on to the chance that I will be one of the small minority of photographers who get to go pro and spend my life doing what I love. 

#22 Chris Mathews gets put into
the wall by a Blue team player.

     Right now I'm pinned against my own personal wall, but eventually, I will kick the sinus infection that has been tormenting me since December, work past some minor disappointments I've been hit with lately and dig my own personal puck out of the corner and keep driving for the net.


  

Sometimes you just end up landing on your face.