At first, Carson Curran, of Clifton Park, just wanted to win free hockey gear. Now, he makes videos of trick shots that get tens of thousands — sometimes millions — of views.
In his most-watched video, he positions a shovel with a basketball on its handle 79 feet away from a hoop and jumps on the shovel, sending the ball flying toward the hoop. His first attempts are nowhere near the basket, but he gets closer and closer. And then, in the driving rain, Curran sinks the shot.
In a voiceover, Curran, 17, describes his initial uncertainty that he could make the shot, and his unwillingness to give up.
He said putting a motivational spin on his videos helps them get attention.
“Especially in this day and age, a lot of people can relate to motivational-type videos,” he said.
“Like, ‘Hey, never give up, you can fight through whatever you’re going through.’ Not just like, ‘Hey, you’re making a basketball trick shot, OK.’ ”
Motivation is a big part of making trick shots, Curran said, because it can be demoralizing to attempt a shot hundreds of times before he finally gets it.
“I would say the number one thing is getting up when you fall down,” he said. “When you can’t make it, keep going until you make your shot.”
Most of his shots are hockey or basketball — he played hockey for Christian Brothers Academy — but recent videos can also involve ping pong or soccer balls.
Curran started doing trick shots in 2013 for the pure joy of it.
“I started doing them back then just because it was a lot of fun,” he said. “The trick shots kind of motivate you to work hard, but it was also just a fun activity I did with my friends. I really enjoyed it, even if it was sometimes a struggle.”
In 2017, Curran and a friend started posting the videos on Instagram to win contests. Curran eventually won with a video in which he shot a hockey puck through a lacrosse stick with the net cut out into a small spinning net hanging from a tree.
Curran kept going, hooked on the feeling of a successful shot.
“It’s really motivating honestly, because when you make that shot, it’s like the best feeling. You can’t even describe it. It’s such a good feeling when you make a difficult trick shot,” the recent CBA graduate said.
That feeling is what keeps Curran persevering.
He described his attempt to make a hockey shot off of Shelving Rock in Lake George into a small net below the falls.
“That one took me three days to make,” Curran said. “It was probably around one hundred to two hundred attempts a day because I had like 15 pucks, I’d shoot them and then we’d have to go down and find the pucks and bring them all the way back up. … It was definitely a process, but it was worth it when I made it.”
Ideas for shots come to him throughout the day, Curran said. Sometimes he gets suggestions, which he said are helpful if he’s tapped out of ideas. The ones from family and friends are most helpful, because they know his style.
“I always want to go above and beyond. I want to do cool trick shots that people haven’t seen before; I want to be unique in that aspect,” Curran said.
He spends two or three hours a day on shots, more on weekends if he doesn’t have anything else to do. That helps him build a backlog of content he can post during busier times. Regular posting is important in building and maintaining a following, Curran said, but he focuses on quality over quantity.
Sometimes that means he has to scrap a shot he spent a long time making if the video isn’t good.
In one instance, he made a shot he thought would be a good video, but when he looked at the video, the black puck was invisible in shadow.
“That’s one of the ones that still haunts me to this day. I wish I had a better angle,” he said.
Sometimes, Curran knows, his ideas don’t turn out the way he expects. But he’s confident he can sink almost any shot he can think of, no matter how skeptical other people are.
“I’m like, ‘If I can get one thing, I can make this. If I can put it through the lacrosse stick, I can make this,’ ” he said. “If the puck can fit through things, it’s going to happen. I’m going to make it eventually. That’s what I think.”
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