Having Hockey Dreams

There might be a visitor or two who doesn’t think the following videos belong on a hockey website.  Oh, man, I beg to differ!

I don’t care what line of work we’re in, or our favorite pastime, I don’t believe we should be limited by others when it comes to dreaming, and when it comes to striving.  (Like the young pilot intimates in the first video below, it’s important to believe in yourself and to follow your dreams.)

– Dennis Chighisola

Okay, so why did I really introduce this video — or this subject?  Well, for one thing, I’ll bet I take at least one telephone call or email per week from a parent who begins with, “I’m not looking for my kid to make it to the NHL, but…”

I guess I understand why they feel the need to say that — or, perhaps I don’t.

Ya know, I think it ironic that it’s okay if a kid says, “Daddy, I want to grow-up to be president!”  And they’ll get plenty of support if they tell a grown-up they want to be an astronaut, a doctor, whatever.  However, just let a kid outwardly dream about being something like a major league pitcher, and a nearby adult is too often going to grimace and suggest otherwise.

Now, I’m not saying that every youngster has a chance to become a pro athlete.  For sure, the odds are against him or her.  But, so are the odds against becoming president, becoming the CEO of General Motors, the head of the United Nations, and we could probably list a kzillion other hard-to-land jobs.  My only point — at least in this paragraph — is that becoming a pro athlete is probably no more difficult than a lot of other special lines of work.

Then, having hinted that there’s more to this, I can only suggest that lowering a youngster’s expectations IN ANY GIVEN AREA is most likely going to affect other aspects of his or her life.  I mean, I don’t think it’s possible to tell him or her they CAN’T attain one goal, but they CAN another, equally difficult one.  It seems to me that success is a mindset, and one is either encouraged or discouraged from having a positive outlook.

PS:  Reason one last thing with me, if you would…

Isn’t it likely that a kid’s dreams will change quite a bit through the years?  (Countless kids seem to want to be firemen when they’re very young.)   So, what the heck…  Why not let ‘em dream, and let them get a few of those out of their system on their own?

Actually, in my youth, TV programming was filled with westerns, which had all of us young boys of that generation at least initially wanting to be cowboys…

My point, of course (hoping you at least endured my humor): Lou and Marie Chighisola let me dream all I ever wanted, probably realizing full-well that Dennis never was going to grow-up to be a cowboy. 

In closing, I wish every kid with the slightest question in his or her mind could listen to the following video (maybe every single days)…

*

Okay, once again I’ve probably struck a chord with some of my hockey friends.  I encourage your (opposing?) views on this subject, though — honestly.  So, just leave a Comment below, and let’s talk this out further.