The End.

I had a conversation with a friend a few weeks ago after his season ended. I asked him if we were crazy for putting so much of our happiness and mental wellbeing into a game. He replied that yes, it is crazy, but we can’t help it because that’s just who we are.

In some ways, it seems totally surreal. Seven months ago did I really pack up my life and move across the country to play in a gym I’d never seen with a bunch girls I hadn’t met? In the next week or two my last bruises will disappear and I won’t have anything left to show that the season happened.

Our season ended on Saturday afternoon in the Dalplex. We needed to win by 17 to make playoffs and I think we focused too much on that. Mentally, we started the game like the score was 17-0, instead of just going out there and focusing on each of us doing the things we needed to do. But, the point Coach Speedy made after the game was that two weeks ago we were written off for dead, and people said that we didn’t stand a chance. We won two straight so that our last game mattered the most. It ended the best way it could have: in our hands, by our own will, with no chance to say “if only…”.

There are all kinds of things I won’t forget about this season. Like the time Speedy bet Alicia $10 that she couldn’t carry a Happy Meal box as a purse for an entire roadtrip. Or when we were in Moncton and Claire, Katelynn, and I showed up at a gym prepared to teach a gym class a few basketball drills, only to find the bleachers filled with 300 students ready to hear a 45-minute presentation on healthy eating, fitness and goal setting. I won’t forget the look on Emma’s face at her Seniors’ Night, the sound of Jord’s cackle on the bus, or Meg’s ability to say exactly what we needed to hear at halftime.

We’ll take a couple of weeks off to rest and then we will back in the gym doing work. An athlete’s most important weapon is her insatiable desire to be better tomorrow than she was today. Maybe I don’t have anything physical to show for the season, but I’m older, wiser, and stronger right now than I was in August. And tomorrow, I’ll be stronger than I am today.

So I’m signing off. Thank you all for coming on this journey with us, it has been so much fun putting my thoughts and feelings into words and getting to share them with you.

Yours,

Allie