The Child circled around the empty rink a number of times, dragging his feet along to the cries of the Coach.

“Be like Lemieux!”, the Coach cried. “Be Jagr! Be Spezza!”

The Child found some determination hearing the names of his modern heroes, kicked his skates back, and rushed towards the puck. He pushed forward and handled the puck with his stick and then focused squarely on the empty net. Pushing the puck from side to side, the Child reached the slot, and fired a shot towards the net with all the force and aggression he could muster.

He missed completely. The puck bounced off the corner, and settled in the snow along the boards.

“Go after it!” cried the coach.

The Child grabbed the puck from the corner, circled around, and fired another shot at a sharp angle. He missed completely.

The Child looked back at the Coach while skating towards the puck on the other side. With his eyes focused squarely on the Coach, he fired another shot. Again, the puck went nowhere near the net.

Dejected, the Child skated back towards the bench. The Coach frowned, but was not ready to give up hope.

“If you take a thousand shots, eventually one will hit. Just keep shooting,” the Coach instructed. “You will score.”

“What about the nearly thousand times I miss though? Someone else will grab it, I might hurt someone, the other team can pick it up, people will laugh at me…” The Child wasn’t too keen on this strategy. Nevertheless, it had worked for the Coach before.

“Never mind about that; come, we’ll take a break. Let’s grab some food.” The Child skated off the rink, pulled off his skates, and put on a pair of sneakers. The two walked towards the lobby, and spotted a café therein.

The Coach was also the Scout, looking for the final member of the local Womens team. The Child took a seat with the Coach in the arena café, buying a hot chocolate while the Coach ordered a sandwich.

The Child could not wipe the frown from his face, thinking back to all the shots he missed. To have been practicing this long, and not hit the net even once was something that did not sit well with him. A year earlier, he had hit a post. He still thinks back to that with mixed feelings of optimism and regret. Optimism, because it was the closest he had ever come, but the regret overpowered the optimism. He had never come any closer. The Child sat there, moping about the lost opportunities and failed attempts he was becoming accustomed to.

A young woman, a pair of skates tied over her shoulders, came to the café and sat down at the table behind the Coach and the Child. The Coach nudged the Child out of his moping, and pointed towards the young woman seated behind him. “She might be the one,” the Coach whispered, gazing at the woman seated behind the Child. “She might be the right one,” the Coach repeated. “I’m going to ask her.”

Already, the Coach had it figured out. As a Scout, the Coach had enough experience in assembling the rest of the team, and could identify the characteristics that were needed to fill in that last gap. Yes, this woman might be the one, streaking down the left side, taking a crisp pass from the centre, pulling a tricky move around the defenceman, and putting the puck home past the goaltender. The Coach could already see it; where she would play, how she would fit in. Should she be made the captain? She’s probably too young for that. But she’ll be good. Maybe someday. She’s probably had a very good history. It looks like she’s played with some other great players; there were others who had walked into the café with her that also looked good. She definitely has the potential to be the star. She’s got it all; talent, charisma, and charm. She will be front and centre on the team picture, the Coach thought.

“You can’t just ask her,” the Child whimpered. “What do we know about her? Nothing!”

“There’s nothing wrong in asking,” the Coach told the Child. “If you take a thousand shots, eventually one will hit.” The Child thought back to the first several shots he had taken; statistically speaking, things did not look good.

With that, the Coach stood up from the table, and approached the woman.

“I couldn’t help but notice your skates. I’m assembling a hockey team and think you might be the one I was looking for to complete it.” the Coach asked.

The young woman was startled. “Oh, hockey?” she asked. “Oh, gee, that’s nice of you to offer, but I don’t really think I would help. I haven’t played hockey before, I’m here for figure skating.”

Figure skating. “Oh, I see. Well, good luck with that,” said the Coach .

The Coach, slightly embarassed, apologized, and sat back down. The Child looked on, somewhat disappointed, but feeling a little smug; he refrained from saying “I told you so”, but perhaps his restrained smile gave it away.

The Child later returned to the ice, with the Coach following after. The Child put on his gear, stepped on the ice, and charged towards the lone puck sitting idly at centre ice.

The Coach, rather perplexed by the episode that had just transpired, could not think of any legendary players to inspire the Child as he rushed towards the net with the puck. Inadvertently, the Coach called out to the Child, “Be Chara!”

The Child, puzzled by the reference to the Ottawa defenceman, fired the puck waywards, again failing to come anywhere near the net. He looked back at the Coach, who sat head down, muttering something incoherently.

“Be Chara, child. Be Chara.”

I have recently been in the market for a car. While I’m not too knowledgeable about cars, I have been thinking for some time about what a car means to someone and how it defines a person. There are so many factors to consider, but perhaps the first thing that I began thinking about was deciding between an import or a local model. They both have their pros and cons.

I find these days that a lot of my friends have decided to go with imports. Most of the people I know who imported were highly pragmatic people, with no intention of portraying a certain image with their car. They just wanted to have a car to go from one place to another, and not have their lives defined by it. Many of them have been with their cars for some time now, and while there are the occasional problems (often because foreign cars may not be well accustomed to local roads and weather conditions), they have never complained. The cars are reliable, safe, and have their own inner beauty.

At the same time, the foreign car has certain limitations. Often, they tend to be more expensive. While the cost of materials may be cheaper, when you add in the freight and other charges, it adds up. Whenever anything goes wrong with the car, it can often be a very expensive task to get things back in shape. Also, they often have certain quirks that cannot be dealt with appropriately in North America. Sometimes the part you need can only be found back at the manufacturer abroad; that makes maintenance quite expensive. Granted, they generally need less maintenance overall.

As for North American cars, the options are much more limited. To find a good local car is not an easy endeavour, but it may be worth the effort in the long run. Local cars tend to be built for the surrounding environment, thus often making them more suitable for many people. The initial purchase of these cars tend to be cheaper, informed advice is more readily available regarding their particularities, and parts are generally cheaper. If anything goes considerably wrong, you would not need to go far for service.

While the cost of parts may be cheaper, these cars tend to need maintenance more often. In many ways, they tend to be more expensive even though the initial purchase cost may be less. Sometimes these machines are built more for style and image than performance, which becomes noticeable after some time. Even then, people I know with these cars end up spending even more money on maintaining the style than on ensuring decent performance.

One friend of mine frequently urges me to go with a North American car in order to support the local market. Too often, he says, people go out and buy foreign cars and then the North American market suffers. He reminds me that people living abroad don’t buy North American cars much, so if we don’t support our own local economy, the entire system will suffer as a whole.

I’ve also received advice going the other way, that a foreign car is the best option. One friend keeps on telling me that if I went ahead and settled with a foreign car, I’d be much happier for it. He reminded me that owning a North American car would make it difficult to spend my money on things important to me, since so much would end up going into maintaining the car. I recently even visited a foreign dealership where salespeople worked very hard on convincing me of the benefits of their machines, though nothing I saw then interested me.

In my family, I’ve seen both. My eldest brother has settled comfortably with a North American Cavalier, while my two other brothers have foreign cars. Overall, they all seem really happy with their cars, so I guess it really just depends on one’s own personality. At this point, I have no idea which option would be better for me.