Bogosian Blogs One More Time

The season has come to an end and that may or not mean the end of Zach Bogosian’s blogging for the time being. We’ll see if we can catch up with him after (or during) the World Championship and at the draft party (he’ll be the special guest), but for now this is his last entry. If you missed his earlier contributions or just want to reread them, they’re all right here. Enjoy.

Well, my first season is all done. It would be a lot better if we were in the playoffs, but I’m really looking forward to going to Switzerland to lay in the World Championships. I’ve never been overseas before, and to be able to put on your country’s jersey for the first time- I’m pretty excited about that. I know enough guys that play in the national program in Ann Arbor and Ron who played for Team USA before, and everyone always tells me that there’s nothing like putting on that jersey. My dad is going to go over with me and that’ll be great.. They have a package for family so he’s going to do that. I don’t think he’s ever been overseas either, and he definitely hasn’t seen me play for our country, so he’s looking forward to that just as much as I am.

Looking back over the whole year I think my rookie season was a really cool experience overall and it was really interesting for a guy like me to see the complexion of the team change. I went from playing 12 minutes a night to playing twenty-something. The guys that we lost were all good guys and I loved playing on a team with them, but we’ve really made some big strides after the deadline. It’s hard to say good-bye to class act guys like Mathieu Schneider and Nic Havelid, but we got some good players and picks back. O’Dell from the OHL is a good young player that I got to know a little bit at the Draft Combine last year. It’s changed our image for sure and it looks like we’ll be a really young team again next year, and that that’s exciting.

Obviously the highlight of the year for me was making the team, but after that it was playing with Toby and Schneids. They were great guys to play with and I had a lot of fun playing with both of them. I’m looking forward to playing with Toby for many more years hopefully, because he’s a good player and he’s a smiley, goofy kid just like me. He’s such a good skater and he’s so smart on the ice. He helps me out a lot. He’s still young but he doesn’t play like it.

I you didn’t know how old he was you’d never guess he’s that young based on how he plays. He plays so well, like he’s been in the league for 15 years. I think we communicate really well, and it goes both ways. We give each other help. He’s such a nice kid, and even if he makes a mistake it’s not like you can get mad at him. We read off of each other really well. If I think something’s there I let him know and he lets me know if he sees something. We just look out for each other, and we know we can both skate with the puck and jump up. If one guy jumps up the other one knows to stay back. We both know we’re going to get our chances. It’s fun playing like a guy that. I don’t have to worry that he’s going to make the right play because I know he can make top plays at top speed. He’s really strong defensively, and what I don’t think people realize is that he’s only 5’10” but he uses a bigger stick than me. I’m 6’3” and I use a big stick. His is an inch longer than mine, because he wants that extra reach as a little guy.

I’ve been lucky in that I’ve always had a good partner here. I’ve never had to play with someone that was always yelling at me or anything. Mathieu was a really good guy and now Toby is just like me. They both understood me and knew I was pretty easy to laugh at and laugh with.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the playoffs until I got over to Switzerland for the World Championships and I’ll be watching Schneids. When I go back home I’m only going to be an hour and a half away from Montreal, so it’ll be easy to keep track of how the Canadiens are doing. We get all the games on TV and hopefully I can make it up there for a couple. Everyone from home is a Montreal fan. They’re Thrashers fans now too, but they grew up Montreal fans so we’ll all be pulling for Mathieu. It’s cool to know guys on the teams in the playoffs. You want to see your friends do well, and he’s getting up there in age. Obviously you never want to see a guy that old end their season with an injury like he almost did. When you get to his age if you have to have surgery you never know if you’re going to be able to bounce back or not. But he’s back and acting like some big tough guy, playing through the pain. It’s really funny if you know him, but he’s doing it and I give him credit. I’m really excited that he was able to come back and play and now he’s getting a chance to compete for the Cup. I’ll pull for him no matter what, even next year, no matter where he plays. We’ll always have that kind of bond.

Thanks for all of your support this season and I can’t wait to get back on the ice again next year.

Zach