Like many Ottawa Senator fans, I watched their playoff game on Friday (vs the Habs) from a very loud bar and last night in their heartbreaking loss and subsequent ouster from the playoffs. The CTC was the place to be as people were going nuts and on their feet for the whole game – what an amazing feeling to know so many people (at least 18,000+) are behind you and think you can do it. People screaming their names, cheering on the team, waving towels and flags.
I cannot even fathom what that level of energy would feel like.
But imagine for a second if you had that – cheering you on daily, wherever you were working, whatever you were doing. Imagine what it would feel like to have people chanting your name as you compiled that last binary and got ready to push it to Production (maybe even untested because hey, 18,000 people believe in you) OR maybe finish that last report where you’ve put in more effort then you thought you ever could and don’t need to mark it as draft because you already know it is going to be THAT good… you are… THAT good.
Instead, it can sometimes feel like you have a crowd of BOOs or maybe even the one naysayer screaming the loudest at you, holding you back – I don’t know what I’m doing, this is too hard, it’s going to slow, I’m failing, I’m messing up, it’s going to be late, etc, etc, etc. This can be even harder when at 12AM you check the IM status of everyone on your list and see a lot are online or away and you realize you need to become your own cheerleader to keep pushing through.
Crowds of cheering fans would make it a lot easier, you would gain an infinite amount of energy… but the real stars… the real playmakers are the ones that can funnel that energy from within when their 14th attempt fails and they need to start over again. You can see it in any game, those players are fueled by some other power then the crowds (who are great), they know what has to be done and they are willing to do it. Because as great as the crowds and fans are, at the end of the last game, they all go home and the real playmakers are the ones that show up the next day to start training for next season when no one is around.
