What if… I am as good as they say I am?
*taken straight from the streets of wikipedia:
Zack Adam Kassian (born January 24, 1991) is a Canadian (heck ya he is) professional ice hockey winger with the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League (NHL). Selected 13th overall in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, he began his career within the Buffalo Sabres organization before being traded to the Canucks in 2012, his first year in the NHL. During his junior career, he won a Memorial Cup with the Windsor Spitfires in 2010. Internationally, he competed with Canada’s under-20 team at the 2011 World Junior Championships and won a silver medal. Listed at 6-foot-3 and 214 pounds (of pure muscle right? Sweet potatoes and asparagus, get on it), Kassian plays in the style of a power forward (what the Canucks have been craving since those bygone days, sry Taylor Pyatt) and is known for playing with aggression and physicality (gotta look after your brothers in skates).
Kassian was born in Windsor, Ontario, to parents Mike and Shirley Kassian. He has two older sisters and an older brother, Mike Jr. When he was eight, his father died. Kassian has recalled his father’s role as having been filled by Mike Jr., who was nineteen at the time, while he grew up.[1][2] He first began playing organized hockey at the age of eight with the Kingsville Kings. Growing up, he was a Toronto Maple Leafs fan (you are forgiven), though he has listed his favorite players as Boston Bruins defenceman Bobby Orr and Todd Bertuzzi, a fellow power forward who was starring with the Vancouver Canucks during Kassian’s youth.
Yes. Yes I am.
@Kass I proofread that poem you didn’t ask for. I think it is coming along nicely.
~ Belief will change my world ~
“Today gentlemen, I am honored to stand beside you, more honored to skate with you onto the rink of battle. There is another honor to be bestowed upon me, that is the answer that comes with the question:
WHO AM I? I am KASSIAN.
That’s right and I need you to remind me that all throughout this game, I will conquer what has not been conquered. Defeat will not be in my creed. I will believe what others have doubted. I will always endeavor the prestige, honor, and respect of my team. I have trained my mind and my body will follow.
WHO AM I? I am a KASSIAN.
I will acknowledge the fact that my opponents do not expect me to score and succeed, but I will never give up. Weakness will not be in my heart. I will look to my comrades, to those who have brought me into this world and to those who have trained me and I will draw strength from them.
WHO AM I? I am KASSIAN.
I will gladly go out onto the rink of battle, and I will skate, hit and do everything that I can do, and I will reach the opponents net by any means at my disposal. And when I get there, I will arrive violently. I will rip the heart from my enemy and leave it bleeding on the ice, because he cannot stop me.
WHO AM I? I am KASSIAN.
To my side I have comrades, comrades that have been with me through thick and thin, through sacrifice, through blood, through sweat, through tears. Never will I let them fall. Never will I let them down and I will never leave a defensive zone unchecked, because our opponent does not know my heart.
WHO AM I? I am KASSIAN.
No one will deny me, no one will defy me, and no one will tell me who and what I am and can become. Belief will change my world, it has moved continents and countries, and put man on the moon, and it will carry me to the second line.
WHO AM I? I am KASSIAN.
Defeat, retreat those words are not in my world, I don’t understand them, I don’t understand when things go wrong, I don’t understand mistakes, but I do understand this: I understand victory, and I understand never giving up. No matter how bad things go, my heart and my mind will carry my body when my limbs get out of position.
WHO AM I? I am KASSIAN.
Today will be that day, not tomorrow, not next week, but right now, right here, in my mind, and for my team.
WHO AM I? I am KASSIAN.
History will remember me, and I will not have to worry about him being kind. I will define myself. I will write my own praises. And no one will tell me what I can and cannot be. I will never go to Utica, not without giving everything that I have got.
COZ WHO AM I? I am a CHAMPION.
WHO AM I? I am a CHAMPION.
Who am I? I am Zack Kassian.”
The Zack Kassian Showcase 