In the spring of 2008, after I had been away from the game of hockey for almost five years, I recieved a call from an old coach of mine who coached me on a midget AAA showcase team during the summers of 2002 and 2003. He explained that he had been hired to coach a new minor league professional hockey team in a new league called the Eastern Professional Hockey League (EPHL). The team was based in Brooklyn, New York, and played in an old World War II airplane hanger on Floyd Bennet Field off of Flatbush Avenue. The team was going to be called the Brooklyn Aces in homage to the fighter pilots who fought to protect the United States during World War II. This all sounded really great and all but I was a bit nervous because I had not really skated at a high level since after I graduated high school. Of course I had no plans of letting this chance to live out a dream I had since I was a little kid, get past me. The fact that I could get paid to play the game that I love was a no brainer and I decided it was time to get back in shape. Fortunately I had about four months worth of notice to get myself in the gym and on the ice. I began training right away five to six days a week while working full time at my summer job at a garden center.
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The reason I was out of hockey for so long was a lingering back injury that I had recieved sometime within a year after high school. The pain was still there but I figured I could push through it if I wanted it badly enough. After the four months of training I found myself not only making it through training camp but signing a contract with the team. As it turns out I was one of only a handful of players to play in every game of the season with their team, on the Aces there were only three of us. The seven months between October of 2008 and April of 2009 were the best of my life. I was in the best shape of my life, doing well in the couple of classes I was taking at County College, and met my girlfriend Danielle.
Our team finished first by a lot during the regular season and met the second best team from New Jersey in the leagues best of three championship series. Unfortunately we lost two games to one and therefore didnt win the championship. On a personal note, by the time the season came to an end, all of the wear and tear on my body caught up to me. A few weeks after the end of the season I had to officially retire because I knew my back would not let me compete anymore. It turns out after I got an MRI done, that I must have played the entire season with two herniated disks in my lower back. As horrible as the whole experience ended for me, not winning the championship and not being able to physically play anymore, it was still the greatest time of my life and I'am proud that I got to have that opportunity. Below are my statistics taken from hockeydb.com which is a hockey database of all the players who have played professionally or at the NCAA division 1 level.
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