from Joel Ward at The Players' Tribune,

When I was 24 years old, I scored 16 goals for the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers in my senior season.

It was my final year playing college hockey in Canada. Four years of grinding it out, chasing an NHL dream that, with every winter in Charlottetown, seemed further and further away. There was no template — no guy who did four years, graduated and made it to the show. There were no scouts at my games, no agents calling me after practices. Sixteen goals in college hockey doesn’t quite pop off the page for a guy who is older than a good number of NHL players.

If, back then, you would have offered me just one single game in the league … I would have taken it and run. And I know I would have given everything I had in those 60 minutes, even if I knew there weren’t any more after.

So when people ask me how I ended up playing 726, that’s what I tell ’em. I played every game — every single game — like I was it the only one I’d ever have. That’s how I made it to this point.

And this point, right here, it’s the end.

I’m retiring today.

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