This year in May, I was playing lacrosse and got cross-checked in the back of my head, I was knocked out and figured I was okay. Then about four or five days later I went to play 3-on-3 hockey.
I was a goalie and, about 10 minutes in, two people came in and I moved out to play the angle. I got hit by accident, my helmet came off an my head hit the ice and I was knocked out again.
So I finished the game and, after, my mom picked me up and we went to urgent care where they did all these tests and found out I had gotten a concussion from the lacrosse game. And then I had gotten a second one in hockey, so it turned out to be very bad.
I could not even look outside my window without sunglasses because of the light sensitivity. I had trouble sleeping and extreme headaches followed by dizziness. I felt sick to my stomach and really could not do anything. I did not go to school for two weeks and it was terrible.
I went for a car ride to the doctors so they could check up and see how I was doing. When we were driving, I got dizzy and it looked like every car that passed us was driving straight at us. Those two weeks were extremely terrible.
So, if any of you ever hit your head, and it really does not have to be hard, please get it checked out as soon as you can because it is very serious.
Now, last weekend, I was in hockey tryouts. Kids should not be trying to hit somebody hard, but they were. And this kid was big. I was hit from behind into the boards and hit my head.
When I got up, I was very dizzy and could not try and go forward without falling. I sat out until I felt OK enough to give it another try. I went out and I was fine. On the next shift I did not even have the puck. I was making a sharp turn to get back on defence and got hit extremely hard in my head and had to be helped off again. As I was on the bench, I looked out and the same kid who had hit me hit another kid into the boards from behind and he was helped up. The big kid was told to sit for 10 minutes.
What I want to say is, do not go out and try and be cool by hitting the hardest because it’s dangerous. It needs to stop or just slow down a little because there are kids that go out there just to hit hard and it’s not what hockey is for.
I wish a good start to your hockey or ringette season!
