Ema Jaskova '22 Recruiting Profile

I am a person who leads by examples and my own experiences so let me tell you my story.

I’m from a small country in the middle of Europe. I have been playing  hockey since I was 8 years old. My whole career I played with the boys. I have played in the national team since I was 14 years old. 

When the Covid started everything stopped. No skating, no gym, no school, nothing. I didn’t know what to do. I was thinking about quitting because everyone was telling me that it doesn’t have any future. Girls hockey, especially in Slovakia, is on a really low level, so I would never do it for a living. But I didn’t know anything other than hockey. That’s my whole life, because of hockey I am who I am today. So first I started working on my mindset because that was the only thing that kept me from reaching my full potential. I started working out by myself at home, I went for a run, I stretched every night and I read the motivation books. I knew this is my chance to overcome others because most athletes spend this time just chilling home doing nothing. I took advantage of it and it paid off.

About a half year later, my boys team was invited to a tournament. All the guys there were the same age or a year younger than I was. Coach took me with them and I was the only girl there. We played around 3 games, after the first game coach put me in the first line with two best players on the team. He even put me as a captain' assistant. It was probably my best tournament I've ever played. Actually the second, the first was playing the world national women championship in division 1, but that’s another story. After the tournament the SZLH wrote the article about the first “post” covid hockey tournament. They even wrote a paragraph about me where my coach said that he was nicely surprised that even after a long covid break I was skating with the guys at the same level, even better than some of them. After reading this I realized that it’s really just about mindset and hard work, so I set my next goal and it was playing in the USA. It was my biggest dream since childhood. I started doing school online, so I’ll have more time for practicing and making money because Slovakia is kinda a poor country and our schools are for free. That time I was a junior and I know my parents will never be able to pay for the school. So I skated in the morning, I worked during the day and I studied over night. I was doing this for maybe a half year and I sent so many emails to different schools. Some of them didn’t even reply, some of them rejected me because of my english, some of them didn’t give me good financial aid and I almost gave up, but I sent one more email, and I got in. I got good financial aid, the coach was fascinated by my playing and the school was okay with my english. My parents took a loan for me to get there and I helped them with money I saved. The next weekend I bought the flight ticket and in less than a month I was living my dream life. I will never forget Kents Hill for believing in me and supporting me in every possible way. And I will never forget my parents for taking me at 6am to rink for practice. 

I set my next goal and that is playing D1 hockey. I will do whatever it takes to fulfill my other dream and I will work hard on the ice, off the ice and mentally. Even when I get in, I know I will probably not be the best player on the team, or the fastest or the most scoring but I know I will work hard to become one and I will overcome everyone. I will support my teammates and help them to reach their full potential because we can win only if we work as a team.