Hockey and Lessons on Life Poem Review by Top Papers

The paper explores how a hockey playing career can literally mirror the arc of a human life: there is the hopeful youth, the rampant prime, then the sudden decline and end. The paper discusses how many young Canadian men become first aware of their own mortality when they discover that they can no longer play anymore - or that the dreams of stardom they harbored are no more. Additionally, the paper examines how tragedy is never far from a hockey rink and how those who believe the game is shielded from such things are gravely mistaken. Lastly, the paper pauses to consider the author's own obstinacy in still playing the game long after he should have stepped aside and how, even though he really knows better, the allure of the sport is too much. In the final analysis, the paper asserts that one's approach to hockey and the reasons why one still plays the sport in the twilight years of life reveals a great deal about the person within and about the needs the sport is meant to address; in effect, the game becomes a mirror on the soul.