Halfway through the second period, we were down by two points. It wasn’t anything glorious; we weren’t even going to get a consolation game afterwards. Then it happened. I pivoted backwards as the puck dropped into play and collapsed onto ice. Before I could comprehend what had happened, I heard the resounding crunch.

The worst part about getting hurt isn’t the pain or the fear. It’s the feeling of helplessness when they wheel you out on a catering cart, pestering you about concussion protocol, right by your old teammates. The same teammates who bullied you and locked you in the locker room when you were 10-years-old. Oddly specific, right?

As it turns out, I had fully torn my meniscus. I would need knee surgery, and more than six months of physical therapy. I couldn’t walk, and I didn’t know if I would ever be able to play hockey at the same level again. I was a perfectionist who couldn’t fix his leg, or operate on himself, and I felt completely and utterly out of control.

With Thanksgiving break right around the corner, and as I look back on what I’m grateful for this year, ironically, it’s adversity that I have the most to be thankful for. 

Every hurdle I’ve encountered as a person, the adversity I’ve faced, has presented me with the freedom to move forward. Not just to better myself, but to gain a better understanding of the world I live in and where I fit in it.

Now that’s not to say that adversity doesn’t completely, absolutely, 100% suck. I’m sure that with COVID-19, most of us have had our fair share of adversity. It can be an aching ordeal. Adversity isn’t anything new either, and I would be ill-advised to think I got the short end of the stick compared to most. I acknowledge that many people out there have it much worse than I do. 

Nonetheless, adversity holds a special place in my heart. It taught me how to have sharp elbows, grin in the face of certain “doom”, and that you can’t be afraid to fail. Most importantly, adversity taught me resilience. It’s truly a gift that keeps on giving.  

According to director of editorial strategy for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Bari Walsh, research suggests “Resilience is born from the interplay between internal disposition and external experience. It derives from supportive relationships, adaptive capacities, and positive experiences.” 

So adversity isn’t all there is to the picture. It’s a process of trial and error, and every time you get knocked down you are forced to muster the courage to jump back up. I worked my way from electrotherapy to taking my first steps, and then to my first strides on the ice. Returning from a meniscus tear was a process for me. It was uncomfortable and uneasy. I didn’t just have to get back in shape. I had to write to coaches asking if they would have room on their teams after tryouts, and retrain myself from playing an organized, physical game. Yet, that process of rebuilding built resilience in me.   

As high school students, we see and hear about adversity all the time, and as a result it’s something that’s easy to overlook. Even so, I’ve learned that it plays a profound role in our lives, and it’s not something to be discarded. No one path to success is the “right” one, and by looking to others to find flaws in ourselves, we are setting ourselves up to fail. Try your best to succeed, and when you experience failure, don’t let it hold you back.