My name is Roy and I want to tell you why I play hockey. Sports play a very important role at my school. The entire town comes out to watch our football team on Friday nights. At first I put my name down to play sports as a way of making friends and doing what my friends do. All of my friends do sports. Although at the beginning I was just doing what everybody else was doing, I found that the positive side of taking part in a sport was the friendship it created. The people in my hockey team are now some of my best friends and our friendship has become even stronger by the fact that we won and lost together. Of course, going to the semi-finals in our state tournament was exciting but for me it is the friendship that keeps me playing. I think parents should realise that not every child who plays sports is out there to win every time. Maybe they just play to make a few new friends. I think that if you ask young players in my area why they do a particular sport they would say probably that not only does the chance of winning play a role in why they play sports, but there is also a larger, more social aspect to playing the game. And in this the trainer plays a very important role. Young players have stopped doing a sport just because the trainer was not a pleasant person.