Mine is not a story of a career ending injury or a forced departure from my sport. I wasn’t beaten or bruised out of the game I loved, and my time on the ice wasn’t unjustly cut short. Rather, mine is the story of a reluctant retirement. I knew there was a new chapter ahead for me and yet I wasn’t quite ready to leave hockey. How could I say goodbye to the sport that transformed and drove so much of my life to date?
Like many of you reading this, I started playing at a very young age. I spent countless hours training and as the years went by hockey began to open doors for me. At 15 I had the opportunity to move away from home to train at a boarding school, and from there was recruited to play at the Division I level. While playing in college I was able to be a part of one of the best team environments I have ever experienced. Although we never won a championship while I was on the team, the players, coaches, and training staff all prided themselves on having a championship culture – something that resonated throughout my everyday life, not just at the rink.
I will never forget my last home game with the Dartmouth Big Green. I knew it would be the last time I played with my best friends at a competitive level, the last time I would hit the ice wearing a jersey that meant so much to me. I was filled with feelings of nostalgia for all of the time and energy spent at Thompson Arena and a deep sadness for what I was going to miss about it all. We all went into the locker room to sing our win song together. “Not Ready to Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks had been with our team for years. The song is about standing up for what you believe in and coming together as a team in the face of adversity. As we all gathered together to sing along in unison, I felt as though I was singing the lyrics not only for my team and for all that we had been through together, but also to the sport itself. I didn’t want to let go of it all. Even though I knew the friendships wouldn’t disappear and I could still play pickup, I knew there would be something missing in my life. When it was all over I really understood the value of exhausting yourself, showing up at the rink every day even when you had a million other things going on, sticking with your teammates so you could go through it all together, and finding my best friends as a result of that.
Fast forward one year and I am in Louisville Kentucky starting my engineering career. I came into this job nervous but excited. Although it wasn’t exactly the same, a lot of the feelings I had resembled the feelings before the start of the hockey season. When I first started work I set up a meeting with my manager to let him know about my style of work, how I give and receive feedback and how I appreciate up front communication. I learned this from all of the coach-player meetings I had over the years. While it was second nature to me, my boss seemed perplexed that I would even mention some of these things to him. Soon enough, I realized why. Feedback was rare for him, and for most of the people at my workplace. I understand this varies between companies and different industries but I was truly shocked at the lack of day-to-day feedback between my coworkers. When I played hockey the feedback was constant. “Berg, stop shooting bottom left on this goalie”, “Berg, nice work on the penalty kill”, “Berg, get your head out of your ass!” I loved it. You always knew where you were at. You knew if you needed to be pushing yourself harder, if you needed to change something you were doing because your coaches and teammates were constantly TELLING YOU! Out loud. With words. Now I was being thrown into corporate culture with the expectation of constant feedback and was receiving none at all.
In my first year of work I am realizing that the championship culture I experienced in the realm of sports is something that I need in my career and I will keep trying to create that for myself and those around me. Maybe it will take a few years, maybe I’ll need to change companies or industries to find it, but I’m also aware that wherever I go it will be my responsibility to build that environment. In hockey it was built naturally by a focus towards a common goal – to win games and championships. As an individual at a massive corporate company that common goal is harder to find and I’m left to define personal goals for myself. The process of figuring them out has taught me that all of the skills we learned as athletes will carry through to our careers and everyday lives in one way or another, it just might take some time and patience.
