Great Moments Are Born from Great Opportunity

By Melissa Walsh

Herb Brooks-isms are popular in my home. Five of us play hockey, and we’ve all seen Miracle more than a dozen times. Though viewing the game as a seventh-grader in 1980 is still a vivid memory for me, the lesson of the miracle game as applied by my four hockey-playing sons has had a deeper impact on my can-do spirit. The mental strength modeled by my goalie is the most remarkable.

I tell my boys, “There’s good-crazy and bad-crazy.” I believe living out a passion to mind the net falls under “good-crazy.” A true goalie amazes onlookers with his puck-blocking talent and his deflection of criticism when he can’t block them all. As a goalie develops, he trains his mind to counter the literal shots of the puck and the figurative shots of severe judgment. He grows his heart, quickness, and thick skin for his mission, focusing on one thing: making the next great save. And when he’s made a great save, he feels that he’s stopped time.

Great moments, like stopping time, are born from this opportunity of accepting the risk of playing net. When a goalie’s hot, wow, it’s magical – great split-second moments of staying big to stone the break-out shooter, or reading the attacker like a clairvoyant to foil the deke, or making a swift swoop of the glove to catch the snipe.
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I don’t have the special, good-crazy gift to play net, but I have the passion to step out and use my head, heart and hands to raise four sons and build a business. I hear these words: “You were born for this. This is your time. Go out there and take it.” I’m seizing each great opportunity with the belief in great moments

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​© 2011 Melissa Walsh