The Athlete

Athletes are selfish...

And the reason they're selfish is because most of their time is spent working on, and thinking about, themselves. You control everything. You get the same amount of sleep, you watch everything you eat (I knew a player that stopped eating desserts the day after he got drafted), you constantly go over every part of your body and work on it to get it stronger or more flexible, you constantly think about how you could play better or do mental imagery to prepare yourself for things you'll face in a game. You "Control what you can control."

Or not...

The athlete is just as much a happy go lucky party like a rockstar kinda player. You're living everyones dream job, you have money, and you never know when the ride's gonna be over, so you have to enjoy it while you're on it. "Live while the pulse of life is strong. Life is a tenuous thing... fragile, fleeting. Don't wait for tomorrow. Be here now." Because as my good friend once told me, "Brendan, If you can't play guilty you can't play hockey."

SO the athlete himself is not so easy to pin down. There is no real magic formula. Sure the athlete dedicates most of their life to themselves, but a lot of the time it isn't so cut and dry goodie 2shoes keep your head down work hard athlete. There are all types... From the guys that parties the night before games to guys that never drinks a drop ever. From guys that worked out every day to guys that never touched a weight in their life. From guys that never shut up on game days to guys that would never talk on game days. From guys that spent hours getting ready for games to guys that did nothing but take (or snort) a couple of sudafeds and step onto the ice. Guys that didn't think about hockey in the summers to guys that spent hours a day working on the smallest things. Guys that put every part of their equipment on in a certain order, or wouldn't let anyone walk in their area (designated by a line of tape around it), or went to the rink the same way each day, or would only lay their gloves palms up, or would put on new tape on their stick every period, or liked wet equipment, or liked dry equipment, or always dressed in the same place, or always stood in the same place for the anthem

... and never, ever, ever do you let your jersey touch the floor.