Sports
It’s sort of unknown
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unior Nathan Brown is a fellow hockey player not for a high school but currently for a club league called the Des Moines Oak Leafs. He is the only student from Hoover among other schools from Dowling, Valley, Waukee, Urbandale, Norwalk, Dallas Center-Grimes and Johnston.
Brown has been playing his favorite sport of hockey since he could at the age of four.
“My parents put me on my first pair of ice skates when I was two,” Brown said.
Most athletes don’t start their sport until they have started school let alone learning their ABCs. Brown gives that credit toward his dad.
“My dad has always liked that sport; he got me into it. After my first year I just got hooked.” Brown said.
Hockey, unlike other sports, is played all year round. Players aren’t necessarily on the same team but they are constantly playing.
“I play on a 3A team over the summer. It’s not professional; we’re not getting paid to do it. There’s a bunch of kids on my winter team that play on it,” Brown said.
Many of Brown’s friends from high school don’t play hockey because they didn’t have the early influence.
Junior Ben Markey is a close friend of Brown. He has never played for a team but enjoys watching a game now and then.
“I never ice skated before and it was kind of too late by the time I started getting into it,” Markey said.
Markey admires Brown’s talent for hockey and gives him credit for some of the abilities hockey gives.
“You get a lot of quickness and agility for other sports he wants to play. He’s in good condition too,” Markey said.
Markey doesn’t have the same drive as Brown does with hockey. Markey would rather spend his time in front of the TV watching a game of football rather than a throw down on the ice with hockey.
“I don’t think a lot of people know about hockey so they aren’t that into it,” Brown said.
With many of his friends not in to hockey, his friends find it hard to hang out with him.
“He’s playing almost all year round and he has practice about every day,” Markey said.
Brown’s practices work on a whole range of skills including puck handling, shooting, passing, speed and acceleration for an hour and a half, four days a week.
“They (coaches) always lay down on Monday practices what the other team does. We watch video tape and we just prepare our week,” Brown said.
Brown truly lives and breathes hockey with at least one game a weekend.
“I just like the atmosphere. I like winter and I love when fall rolls around because I know hockey season’s coming around. I just love to play,” Brown said.
Sports like football, baseball and basketball are commonly known in the high school realm of sports. But some sports such as hockey just don’t get the credit.