Who Do I Blame For My Team’s Dek Hockey Loss?

My Waterloo Dek Hockey team (DekHogs) lost their first game of the season and fell to 6-1-0. In this day an age, a majority of people love to blame someone else for their misfortune. For all of those 'blamers', this post is for you.

Let's face it. The world we live in nowadays is more about the 'blame game' than reality. How many times have you seen a person blaming their own trials and tribulations on someone else? A loss is never their fault. Right?

Really? Get over yourself.

The mass media doesn't help either. They just love to blame a loss on some microscopic reason that they personally manufactured.That mentality trickles down and penetrates ever aspect of what some people feel is reality.

"We lost that game because the referee was an idiot."

"That guy (or gal) cheated, and that's why we lost the game."

"It's to bad that the other team brought in a ringer."

And the list of excuses goes on and on. To be honest, it isn't just the sports world that sees this type of rhetoric. I've seen it plenty of times in the business world as well. Especially on social media.

Tons of people want to make sure that their network of friends know, without any reason of doubt, that the bad luck they were forced to endure was not their fault. I find it sad that the world we live it has come to this. All of us have seen more finger pointing than just taking your lumps anymore.

So who do I blame for our loss Thursday night? In a word, nobody. Sometimes you just lose, and there is nothing you can do about it. You can execute the game plan, but no matter what you do, you don't win. It just happens.

Prior to my dek hockey experience, I spent the past seven years as a youth baseball coach. During that time, I stressed over and over to those young minds that you win as a team, and you loss as a team. But most importantly, sometimes you just loss... no matter what you do.

As far as Thursday night's game, we had plenty of chances to score a goal or two or three. There were several times the dek hockey ball hit the front of the goal and bounced out. Their goalie made some great saves, their players were in the right positions, and in the end, the Dek Hawks won the game fair and square.

To reiterate, they won fair and square! We had a ton of fun playing the game, we did all we could to win, but we lost. Nothing more.

As a youth baseball coach, I found that the hardest lesson to teach those young minds was that you can do everything right, but when the game is done, sometimes you still lose.

I wish more youth sports programs taught that lesson. Not keeping score, so everyone feels like a winner, is not the answer. But that's a post/debate for another time.

The youth these days, who get lost in a virtual video game reality, never really learn that lesson. They can just click the restart button. Unfortunately there is no 'restart button' in the real world.

It took a few years to teach that to my son, but I think he gets that now thanks to my continuous preaching of that important lesson. And you know what? He still loves me despite the fact that I destroyed his video game reality.

Again, sometimes you just loss. We need to teach this younger generation to deal with this fact... you don't always won.

I had a great time playing the game, and it was a ton of fun.  But my DekHogs team lost Thursday night. We did everything we could to win, but they earned that victory. Congrats to the Dek Hawks. It wasn't the end of the world. The sun still came up this morning.