Written by Chris Wassel | 23 August 2008

What makes a 19 year old hockey player hang up his skates? Not to mention a young man that many felt had a future on the biggest hockey stage in the world, the NHL. If you are not aware of the story, Stefan Legein, a Columbus Blue Jacket prospect, has told the team this week that he will not be in training camp come September. Confirmed reports say he has told his agent he has decided to quit hockey all together.

My first reaction on hearing this was not unlike many. Is this kid nuts?!?

In time though and with a little thought you can reason out a number of answers that do make sense if you try to look at all angles fairly. The first, and most simple reason, is that if your not enjoying what your doing, you can't do it well anyway. When we do things that we are good at and love at the same time the results are always better. As much as I find it hard to say, there is a chance that we have come across a player that has had enough of the hockey life. Lets face it the grind of playing hockey at it's highest levels is something that many of us can't understand. The travel alone is brutal,training to be in shape is year round chore, and having a life outside of hockey would be almost impossible. The second train of thought is that he is interested in other areas of life. Maybe he wants an education? He might have dreams of being a Doctor or a Fire Fighter. Don't laugh, I was 19 once and so where you. Maybe you are 19 now. We all had our dreams and hopes of what we wanted to become and what we wanted to be, some of us still do. I've often wondered if sometimes, keep in mind that key word sometimes, if the dream of playing hockey is the parents dream, not the kids. The thing that strikes me funny about this story, no matter how I looked at it, is the fact that both the mother and father knew nothing about their son had quitting hockey. A 19 year old kid, with a future in the NHL in front of him, didn't talk with his mom and dad about what might be the biggest decision in his life? Am I the only one that finds that strange? Could that be because the pressure from mom and dad to succeed at hockey is so unreal that it has driven the boy from even talking with his parents because he already knows they wouldn't support him? From what I have seen in my time following sports I can't say it's impossible for that to be the case. Of course I can't say that this IS the case with Stefan Legein either. Frankly I hope it isn't. I also hope that he has the full support of his family to do whatever it is that the kid wants to do, he is going to need it. As I started out, most are bashing the choice made here to quit hockey, he will need some positive reinforcement from somewhere. Turns out, hockey isn't everything to everybody.

Then again, this is just a damned opinion.

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