Player Plaza Blog

Being the Hero...

As I watched Yadier Molina hit the 2-run homer in the 9th inning,...

As I watched Yadier Molina hit the 2-run homer in the 9th inning to paralyze the Mets in game 7 of the NLCS, it reminded me of how good it feels to be the hero in team sports. I have had a couple of experiences in my athletic life where I was in a position to win the game for my team.

The first experience that comes to mind is when I was twelve years old and playing competitive soccer. The game was tied at the end of regulation, so we were headed into a shoot-out. Since this was the semi-finals of a statewide tournament, the pressure was on. Each team received 5 penalty kicks. I happened to be one of the players selected to take a penalty kick and also the goalie.....so literally, the game was completely on my shoulders. After each team had taken 4 penalty shots, the shoot-out score was tied at 4-4. I was the last to kick for my team. With the shoot-out score being tied at 4-4, the pressure was on for me to block the last penalty kick. Lucky for me, I did, which set my team up to win the game as long as I made a goal on the last penalty kick. It was funny because even though we were a bunch of twelve year olds, it was absolutely necessary that we won the game. Everyone could feel the intensity. You would have thought it was the World Cup. ;) Well, fortunately, I dug down deep and made the goal giving my team the win. It definitely felt good to be the hero.

I was fortunate enough to have a handful of those experiences during my years playing soccer, basketball, and team tennis. It was situations like those that really sealed my love for competition and winning. It somehow slowly becomes a part of you, and you find some way to turn everything in your life into a competition. Perhaps that is why I was passionate about creating this site and building an online gaming arena where people like myself could come and feed that competitive passion.

As you compete in head-to-head competition in Chess and Checkers, look forward to more games and functionality. Help us build the PlayerPlaza.com community and make it the best online gaming arena ever!

Much love.