Nicholas Y.
Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.
Norman Vincent Peale
Attitude is everything – in sports and in life.
Growing up in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, one could easily understand if Nicholas felt resentful about his lot in life
His family has very limited financial resources, and his mother has cancer. She is also hearing- and vision-impaired.
But instead, Nicholas sees himself as “a lucky kid.”
On a summer day in 2000 while playing hockey at the Britannia ice rink, H.E.R.O.S. founder Norman Flynn invited him to join the newly formed hockey program as one of its first participants.
Nicholas says he agreed to join H.E.R.O.S. primarily because he loves the game of hockey, but the program itself also sounded appealing.
His parents provided the decision tipping point when they offered the sage advice, “You never know what you can learn.”
Initially, Nicholas says he started to doubt his decision because it was challenging just to get along with all the other kids.
“We were all new kids who were thrown together, so it was difficult for us all to get along while we were playing hockey,” he says.
“I guess we all had our own problems as well as the cultural and racial differences.”
However, with time and effort, things in the H.E.R.O.S. Program started to turn around for Nicholas.
H.E.R.O.S. emphasizes the need for respect. Nicholas acknowledges that that crucial component of the program has had the greatest impact on his own behaviour.
“I found out that it’s the key to building and maintaining every relationship in life,” he says.
“That was a huge realization for me.”
Learning how to play and work with the other kids – with their own unique personalities, outlooks and issues to deal with – also helped Nicholas understand the importance of learning how to communicate well.
Nicholas’s willingness to learn, his dedication to school work, and his commitment to the H.E.R.O.S. Behaviours made him an obvious choice when the program selected its first representative to send to the annual Willie O’Ree All-Star Weekend in Tampa Bay, Florida.
For a young boy who had never traveled outside of Vancouver, let alone Canada, the experience was a real eye-opener.
And seeing so many volunteers at the tournament help “a bunch of kids who either have home problems or can’t afford the regular costs of playing hockey, and have a real good time doing it, was very inspiring for me,” he says.
Participating in the H.E.R.O.S. program also taught Nicholas a lot about how to set goals in his life and how to work hard to achieve them.
“It’s like in sports. If you want your team to win, you all have to be committed and determined to work hard and give it your all. It’s the same thing in life,” Nicholas says.
Nearing the end of his final year of high school, Nicholas is contemplating a degree in physical education or kinesiology when he enters a college or university, hopefully with the help of a H.E.R.O.S. scholarship.
Nicholas’s relationship with H.E.R.O.S. has come full circle. He started out in the program as a Participant, then moved up through the ranks to Mentor.
Now he is a Leader assisting the next round of youths by passing on his insights, knowledge and hockey skills in much the same way they were passed on to him.
“If I hadn’t gotten involved in the H.E.R.O.S. Program, I doubt very much whether I would have learned these concepts as early in my life,” Nicholas says.
“I think it would have taken me a lot longer to grasp the idea of giving back something and helping out in general. I’d probably still just be hanging out doing my own thing.”
