![\"Dylan](\"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Dylan-Gonzalez-225x300.jpg\")
Summer,\u00a02010.<\/p>\nSummer,\u00a02010.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s\u00a0a summer bound college student, straight out of their freshman year, to do with\u00a0one\u2019s self?\u00a0 I chose to largely sit on my\u00a0ass.\u00a0 Looking back on it, I can only\u00a0recall one truly significant moment, during the month of August.\u00a0 I made my way down very early on a Saturday\u00a0morning to join up with a group of fellow Kevin Smith fans on the day of his 40th\u00a0<\/sup>birthday.\u00a0 We were partaking in an annual\u00a0pilgrimage to Jay and Silent Bob\u2019s Secret Stash and then venturing on a tour of\u00a0several local landmarks the filmmaker had used in his films.<\/p>\n I\u00a0had no fucking inkling as to what I was getting myself into.<\/p>\n While\u00a0at lunch with this ragtag group of fans, somebody (myself or otherwise) mentioned\u00a0the Walter Gretsky Street Hockey Tournament. I knew it had occurred for the second time that year and it had\u00a0certainly piqued my interest.\u00a0 My\u00a0soon-to-be VASHL mentor, Jaemeel Robinson, said something along the lines of\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re getting old, you should play.\u201d[1]<\/strong>\u00a0 I wanted to go mostly for two reasons: 1. To\u00a0see this amazing group of people again. 2. The drinking age was only 20.<\/p>\n I\u00a0just never expected my parents to let me go to Canada with a bunch of people I\u00a0barely knew to play hockey.\u00a0 By that\u00a0time, I was not much into sports, so my dad, who had coached soccer at my I\u00a0took my first plane ride up to Toronto in 2011 and was soon on my way to\u00a0Brantford after getting picked.<\/p>\n It\u00a0was a surreal situation to say the least. For the bulk of the VASHL, I was the new guy.\u00a0 To me, I was the outsider.\u00a0 Sure, it was a welcoming experience, but it\u00a0was a totally new one at the same time. I\u00a0had never done something like this. \u00a0On top of it all, I was the baby of the group (then 20, now 22 and still\u00a0the baby), so who knew what kind of trouble I could have gotten into?\u00a0 I had just broken up with my third\u00a0girlfriend, finished my second year of college, so of course I was thinking\u00a0about where my future lay.<\/p>\n What\u00a0the fuck were my parents thinking?<\/p>\n In\u00a0all seriousness, nothing happened that first, fateful trip to Brantford.\u00a0 Well, nothing bad anyway.\u00a0 Instead, I had a truly unforgettable time and\u00a0became even closer with newly found hockey family.\u00a0 When I stepped out of the airport and my mom\u00a0picked me up, she asked me how the trip was. \u00a0My response was, \u201cCan I go next year?\u201d<\/p>\n Fast\u00a0forward to now.\u00a0 Since Brantford \u201911, I\u00a0have gone back for the 2012 tournament and played hockey in New Jersey four\u00a0times.\u00a0 I have just graduated college and\u00a0despite all the unpacking, I know I have to pack up part of it again next week\u00a0to get ready for Brantford 2013.\u00a0 But\u00a0this year\u2019s tournament is a little special.\u00a0The 2013 tournament marks the five-year-anniversary of the event.<\/p>\n So,\u00a0what does that mean to somebody who has only been playing in it for three\u00a0years?\u00a0 Well, I can never claim the title\u00a0of OG VASHL, that\u2019s for sure.\u00a0 But at the\u00a0end of the day, I really don\u2019t think it means a damn thing.\u00a0 What really matters is the fact that I was\u00a0offered the chance to join the ranks of one of the most committed groups of\u00a0people that I have ever encountered.\u00a0 I\u00a0really don\u2019t know of a group like the VASHL. Their dedication and integrity is unmatched and of course, they know how\u00a0to have a good time.<\/p>\n Anniversary\u00a0or not, I am gearing up for Brantford 2013 like it was any other time we were\u00a0getting together to play hockey.\u00a0 We\u00a0always go for the hockey, but I always go for the people.<\/p>\n [1]<\/strong> Having now played for three years, age has little impact on the\u00a0VASHL, when taking in account the ages of Darryl Clarke and Paul Saunders,\u00a0whose combined ages total 4,958,393.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summer, 2010. What\u2019s a summer bound college student, straight out of their freshman year, to do with one\u2019s self? While at lunch with this ragtag group of fans, somebody (myself or otherwise) mentioned the Walter Gretsky Street Hockey Tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[86,16,84,29,85,83,71,46,22,47,13,21,45],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","tag-86","tag-16","tag-anniversary","tag-brantford","tag-dylan","tag-five-year","tag-funployees","tag-gretzky","tag-hockey","tag-street","tag-vashl","tag-view-askew","tag-walter","item-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vashl.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nelementary and high schools (including myself) and was an avid fan of all the\u00a0major leagues, found it especially baffling. \u00a0Needless to say, when I ran it by them, they were still okay with it and
\ngave me the go ahead.<\/p>\n\n
\n\n