Culture is the surroundings and beliefs that one grows up with that shape them into who they are as a person. One’s culture can have many factors such as family, sports, and economic class. Personally, I define my culture as an Irish upper middle-class female teenager, a hockey player and a part of a large, loving family. There are many factors that have made me who I am today, but there are three things that separate my culture from everyone else’s and have taught me very valuable lessons: hockey, my family during hard times, and my siblings. In my 14 year hockey career, I have been taught many lessons that are applicable to real life situations. However, in the past year, I have learned one of the most valuable lessons that has completely …show more content…
In round robin, we were up against the number one seed, number five seed, and number 13 seed. No one would have ever thought that my team would make it out of round robin, but we did. Next up came the semi-finals. It was my team, Belle Tire, against the number three seed, East Coast Wizards. Belle Tire came out as a big red machine and rolled right on to the national championship. Before the game my coach said, “No matter what happens today, I am honored to have coached you girls. There is not one person in this rink that would have predicted us being in the finals, and yet you girls defined all odds. Now let's go win this title!” This is exactly what we did. Up against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the fourth seed, we came flying out of the gate. No one saw it coming, but as the final buzzer rang Belle Tire had won 2-0. My team piled on top of each other, crying tears of joy. They passed out our medals …show more content…
I was not home when they got the call because I was out of state at a USA select camp for hockey. The rest of my family had gotten the call that my Uncle Dan, who had had cancer for the past year, was in the hospital and not doing well. They didn’t know how much time he had left. The rest of my family raced up to Grand Rapids, where he was, while I remained at my camp, no idea any of this was going on. My family had made it up there in time to say goodbye as my Uncle Dan took his last breath. I still remained in the dark about the whole situation. It wasn’t until the next day that I was called out of breakfast to take a call, it was my parents. They proceeded to tell me what had happened as we sobbed on both ends of the line. The next day my mom drove down to Ohio to pick me up from my camp. As we drove back to Grand Rapids, I asked my mom, “Was he in pain?” My mom answered no, telling me that he still had his huge smile on his face. When we got to the funeral home, it was the first time I had seen the rest of my extended family since his death. Everyone came up to me, embracing and crying. We were all devastated, but knew that he was watching over us. Then the Irish came out. At the funeral home, many of my family members and friends went up to the front and told