Jake Fink wasn’t always a fan of hockey. In fact, he once took a short hiatus from the sport.
“Yeah, I tried it in kindergarten. I just did not like it,” Fink said with a chuckle.
His laughter was appropriate in that moment because, a short time beforehand, Fink had been named a PIHL All-Star for the second consecutive year.
“It honestly makes me proud,” Fink said. “Just to be able to work and see where I am now, it’s just been an honor to show that like hard work does pay off to get where you’re at in your career.”
Fink’s hard work has paid off when it comes to individual success. He ranks within the top three of the PIHL in goals (21) and total points (33). For his career, he has 90 points and is on track to crack the century mark by the end of this season.
“He really is the ultimate perfectionist,” Greensburg Salem coach Anthony DeFazio said of Fink’s work ethic. “Like he’ll stand there with five pucks and aim for a piece of twine on the net, and if he doesn’t hit the piece of twine, he’s very upset about it. … I mean, he does not take ‘good’ for an answer. Like, it has to be great. And I think that’s really an important quality in an athlete.”
Though Fink strives to be perfect in his training and on-ice production, he knows that it is unrealistic to expect things to play out that way. Some things require time before they can come to fruition.
Case in point is the Golden Knights’ current 5-8-2 record, seventh in the Class A Gold standings. Fink believes the team is trending in the right direction, but everything might not go their way for them to achieve his second goal for this year, a playoff berth.
“We are a young team, and it’s just a learning process that we have to build, and we’re hoping for a playoff push this year if everything goes our way. But next year we’re just going to put everything into it.”
Coincidentally, the Golden Lions are in a similar position to last season, when they had to win out to give themselves the best chance of reaching the postseason. But a midseason loss to Meadville gave the Bulldogs the tiebreaker, ending Greensburg Salem’s year.
From Fink’s perspective, though, the Golden Lions have learned from their early-season struggles and are simplifying their game plan.
“We just played Chartiers Valley before the break, and that was like the best structured game that we’ve played,” Fink said. “I felt that, like we just played so, like, simple that it works. And we just made the little 5-foot passes that we needed to, and it got out of the zone, instead of just making the, like, long stretches and like hoping.
“… But I feel like as the season’s gone on, we have simplified our game more than like at beginning of the season.”
Though Greensburg Salem lost a 5-2 decision to No. 1 Chartiers Valley, there has been an internal shock of confidence for the Golden Lions with five games remaining on the schedule.
“After the Chartiers Valley game, we built up so much confidence from just that one game alone because we know that we’re a good team, but we just have to put it in,” Fink said. “We just have to believe in it. And I feel like, if we have, like, a good little spark there, I think it can really, like, start something great. In my beliefs, I believe that we are a good playoff team, but we just have to believe in it.”
Fink has put in the work to have a strong belief that his team can reach the postseason. And from his perspective, so should his team.
Only time will tell if his players have done the work or if they need more time to do so.