Chapter SIX

I can still feel it. Saturday night at the farm, lights low, the kettle starting to whistle. The game came on before the dishes were done. Grandpa in his brown recliner, aunts and uncles crowding the couch, cousins sitting on the floor. The farmhouse was full. Saturday was not just game night. It was the family gathering. The television pulled us together. Everyone talked at once, cheering and reacting and sharing every shot and every save. Nobody cared about numbers. We cared about each other. And when the Leafs scored, the whole farm shook.

That was the spark for me, the moment I understood that sport is not about winning or losing. It is about belonging. You feel it when the crowd rises together. You feel it when a room full of voices turns into one. You carry that feeling with you forever.

I felt it again years later when I walked into a professional locker room for the first time, and again when I lay on the middle of an NFL field in Detroit, staring up at the lights before kickoff. The heartbeat was the same. The pride and the trust and the belief that everyone in the room and everyone on that field mattered. That is what I want every kid to feel. That is what MyStreakers is built to pass on.

Now the spark lives in new places. You see it in school gyms and on outdoor rinks and in community centers where kids set up one on one challenges with their friends. They stream highlights from their phones and record the moment they score and share it across town. Teachers join in. Parents tune in. Neighbours follow along. The same pride that filled our farmhouse now fills these spaces. The connection has not changed. Only the tools have.

Technology is moving fast. Two minute clips. Live updates. Streams straight from the rink. But the point is not the tech. The point is what the tech brings back. It makes it easier for kids to show their effort. It makes it easier for families to stay involved. It makes it easier for schools to build pride together. That is what we mean when we say play local and follow global. A challenge that starts in one gym can appear beside another across the country. A streak in a small town rink can show up on a national board.

The best part of sport has never been the highlight reel. It is the early morning practices and the late bus rides and the tiny moments that turn teammates into family. MyStreakers gives those moments a place to live. Every streak is proof that someone showed up. Every scoreboard is a reminder that effort matters. When a kid wins a one on one challenge, when a teacher starts a new game at school, when a parent cheers from the stands or their phone, that is the spark catching again.

I think about that farmhouse often. The laughter and the kettle and the warmth of everyone squeezed together watching the same game. Back then, sport connected families. Now it connects whole communities. Different screens. Same heartbeat. We did not create that spark. We simply built a way to keep it alive.

Because when kids play for pride instead of payout, when fans follow for fun instead of fear, when communities lift each other instead of the stakes, sport feels the way it should. That is what MyStreakers stands for. It is not changing the game. It is bringing the best part of it forward.

Every teacher who says let us make this a challenge, every student who keeps a streak alive, every parent cheering for their kid. That is how it spreads. Those are the sparks that start the next wave of belonging. Connection always finds a way. And that is what we are lighting again.

Play local. Follow global. The next generation of streaks begins right here, and the future of belonging begins with them.