How a holiday on P.E.I. turned into a hockey dream for this 9-year-old Australian
CBC
Flynn Sturrock had barely even skated before coming with his family from Australia and joining the North River Flames hockey team in Cornwall, P.E.I. Now he loves the sport and is determined to keep playing.
The nine-year-old and his family came to P.E.I. in September for a long holiday from Melbourne, Australia, where hockey is not the popular sport it is in North America.
"It seemed fun, and I wanted to learn to skate," Flynn said in an interview with CBC News on Thursday.
"He's a go-getter … he wanted to become a Canadian, so hockey really tickled his fancy," his mother Jenny Sturrock said. "He's actually really impressed me because he'd never really skated before."
Flynn attended tryouts for the North River Flames, where he said he was by far the slowest skater.
He admitted he was "very nervous… what if I didn't make the team?"
But he did make the team. His mother said Flynn leaned in to the opportunity and has taken every chance to improve, pushing to attend family skates at the local rink and studying YouTube clips of hockey customs.
And his teammates and coaches encouraged him every step of the way.
"Everyone has embraced us and helped us, so for Flynn, he has been shown nothing but the true Canadian love," his mother Jenny said with a big smile.
"Whenever he had fallen over or accidentally been the person who has been offside, his teammates rush in, give him a pat on the back and say: 'Come on, mate, let's get moving forward.'"
After several months, however, Flynn hadn't yet had a career-defining moment: his first goal. So at a recent tournament, teammates Alex and Jack decided to try something, with their coach's support.
They told Flynn to stand at the net, and said they'd try to pass him the puck so that he could score.
After two tries, the Australian boy indeed got the puck in the net.
"I was yelling with excitement," Flynn said.
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This First Person column is the experience of Robyn Schleihauf, who lives in Dartmouth, N.S. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
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