Men’s Hockey: Carson Meyer transfers back to Columbus roots
For college athletes, time spent away from friends and family is something they become used to through practice, preparation and games taking up their weeks.
For hockey players, having their families and friends cheering in the crowd as they take the ice is something about which many can only dream. This wish came true for Carson Meyer, who grew up in Powell, Ohio, just a 20-minute drive from the Schottenstein Center, where he now plays hockey for Ohio State.
After the junior forward moves on from college, Meyer will join the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team he’s expressed interest in since its Columbus debut when Meyer was young.
“I started playing hockey when I was 3 years old. It was the same year the [Blue] Jackets became a team here,” Meyer said. “That was a huge part of it, my parents hearing about the Jackets and taking me to games and watching them on TV with my dad and stuff like that. That was pretty much the majority of what drew me to the game.”
Meyer is not just a Blue Jackets fan; he’s also been a part of the organization, playing on the Blue Jackets’ Bantam Major AAA under-16 and under-18 teams for more than four years. The work he put into the organization paid off when he was drafted by the team with the 179th pick in the sixth round of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft.
Though Meyer was excited to play at Ohio State, his return to central Ohio came with hardships.
In his freshman year at Miami University (Ohio), he scored 10 goals and assisted on 16 more, priming himself for an impressive career at one of the nation’s top college hockey programs.
Disaster struck in his sophomore year as his game performances declined to only 10 points on the season. Nobody knew the root of his issues until Meyer revealed that a 25-inch tapeworm had taken up residence in his small intestine.
Tapeworms can cause fatigue and weight loss, so his struggles were easily explained. But it took time for Meyer to recover mentally and get back to where he was before his health issues.
“Last year, as bad as it went, not knowing what was wrong for the majority of the year, you start to kind of second-guess yourself every step of the way. All summer I was working out and working hard, but you never really know. You just get in your own head: ‘What if I can’t get back to where I was?’ and stuff,” Meyer said. “I feel like I’m back to where I was and I’m starting to take steps forward to be even better than I was at this point [last year], so it’s a great feeling, just refreshing.”
Entire article:
https://www.thelantern.com/2018/11/mens-hockey-carson-meyer-transfers-back-to-columbus-roots/