Hockey Tournament Mind Blown

My adoptive family is a hockey family.  My mom's family hails from Boston and if you weren't aware that Boston is a hockey town, then I'm letting you know that it is.  My uncles all played hockey growing up and all had a decent amount of skill.  All of my cousins (myself included) tied on their first ice skates once they could walk.  I remember being three and learning how to skate (and I was a "late bloomer" in our family).  Skating lessons followed for years.  I chose the figuring skating route, but most of my cousins (girls included) have chosen to play hockey.  And here's the thing.  They are all amazing at it.  My four year old cousin just got her first skating medal this month.  She's four.  A medal.  And not a participation one either.  When I say they are amazing, I mean it.

Here's another thing about my adoptive family.  My mother is one of eight siblings.  There is not one sibling who lives further than one hour away from my mother's parents.  Not one.  There are 23 first cousins.  Only one lives more than an hour away (and is planning on moving back soon).  Two of us went "away" for school and we've both moved home.  That's just how we are.  Two of my aunts are neighbors.  Not like in-the-general-area neighbors, but honest to goodness next-door-sharing-property-lines neighbors.  And my grandparents about a mile away.  And we live seven minutes up the street.  And my other cousins are 12 minutes in the other direction.  To say we're close is an understatement.

How are the two related?  Well, my cousins are amazing at hockey.  Which means that they've all been making their high schools' varsity teams since they were freshmen.  And because they live close, but in different towns, the two teams end up playing each other.  A lot.  And because it's fun to watch, the rest of the family shows up for support.  And to give them credit, my cousins are incredibly supportive of one another, even when their teams are playing each other.  I have some great photos I took at the games this season of all three boys on the ice at the same time.  How amazing!  I've watched them pond skate since they were little kids so it's not an unusual sight, just a different one as they were wearing different jerseys this time.

I've been going to a lot of the games lately because it is tournament time.  I have cousins on two different teams, plus my home town is in the same league.  So I've been cheering them on, driving an hour to the rink after work and on weekends, and screaming for hours as one team and then another would play.  Sadly, that journey has come to an end for one team, but not before they took out my hometown.  I was actually cheering against my hometown.  Weird.

So I was looking back through the pictures and reflecting on the season they had.  This particular team is losing nine seniors and will probably have to build themselves back up.  Their amazing goalie is graduating, a tough loss for the team next year.  I was looking over the bracket, amazed at how far they'd come.  I saw where they beat my hometown, where they beat another, and where they finally fell.  They were the top team going into the tournament which I knew, but never really thought about.  As a side note, the other team won the tournament.  Great talent I know!

Gee, I wonder how my team ranking coming into the tournament?  Down the list I go.  Wow, there's a lot of teams on here!  Oh look!  There's my hometown!  Only 1, 2, 3... 6 from the bottom.  Wait a minute.  Wait just one minute!  What team was that three from the bottom?  Oh.  My.  God.

My sisters' school was in the tournament.  The high school that both of my first parents graduated from.  The school that KungFuPanda is about to graduate from.  And where Sandlot plans on attending next year.  There they were.  Right there.  Lost in the preliminaries.  But still.  Could you imagine the possibilities there?  What a small world.  What if they had made it to the game against my cousins?  Stranger things have happened.  What if my sister and I had both been at that ice rink at the same time?  What if my first parents had?  They are proud alumnus after all.  Freaky.  As in twilight freaky.

Even though they were in the same tournament, it turns out that my cousins never played my sister's school.  Neither did my hometown.  But still.  I was not expecting to see them in the same bracket and it threw me for a major loop.  Our paths could have crossed.  When I was driving home from the game the other night, I probably did cross paths with my first father.  We were on the same highway at the same time, me on my way home and him on his way to work.  I'm never on that particular highway ever, so it was sort of unnerving knowing that he was probably just ten minutes behind me.  So many what ifs and possibilities.

Family Stuff

I've been doing a lot of family stuff lately.  My cousins have been busy with sports and I've been in the stands cheering them on.  It's been a lot of fun and I've been taking lots of pictures.  That's why I haven't been doing Picture Sundays because I've been busy taking photos of my cousins.  I hope to get going with my other photography soon.  I'm a huge fan of outdoor photography and there hasn't been a lot to photograph lately outside.  There are no flowers, no pretty trees, and even no snow.  Just blah.  Hopefully spring will get here soon!

I was really lucky and got to hang out with one of my uncles this past weekend.  I haven't seen him as much lately so it was a lot of fun to watch Saturday Night Live with him and play with his dog.  We had some good laughs and caught up.  My uncle was there for me as a kid a lot and stepped up to teach me about sports when I showed an interest.

I also got to spend some time with Rudy's family this weekend too, which is always a lot of fun.  It's so cool to see another family's dynamic and to sort of find a way to fit in.  His family is awesome and it's great that I got to hang out with them for a bit.  It's very interesting for several reasons.

For starters, I'm not like the people in my adoptive family.  Sure, we have a few similarities.  But because I'm supposed to be "one of them", the differences are glaring.  Out of the twenty-three cousins on one side, I think three of us have dark hair.  And the other two are very young and weren't around when I was growing up.  I have a different skill set, and I act differently than my adoptive family.  My adoptive family is amazing and I wish I could be more like them at times.  It's taken a lot for me to realize that it's OK to be different.  Now I'm slowly learning how to embrace the differences and to love myself for my uniqueness in my family.  I'm not the only unique one and I'm learning to love it.

Now, when it comes to Rudy's family, I'm not expected to be like them.  I'm not "one of them" in the sense that I am supposed to fit in immediately into the family.  They get that I'm different, that I have another set of genes, that I'm not supposed to act as if "born to" them.  Instead, they expect me to be different, to act differently, and to think differently.  There's no pressure.  I like them a lot, they like me, and we get along really well.  I don't have to "fit in" and when I do, it's even better.  We share a lot of laughs and good times.  And at the end of the day, I usually leave smiling (except when my team blows a big game, but we're not going to go there, and that has nothing to do with Rudy's family).

It's interesting to see how that all comes into play.  Rudy's family is a lot like my adoptive family in certain ways and its been fantastic for me to be around that without any added pressure.  It makes for a nice visit when we manage to make it up to see them.

Sports

I love sports. I've always loved them. I love playing sports, I love watching sports, and I love anything to do with sports. I follow sports online, always know the scores from last night, and as my boyfriend loves to tell me, it's sad that his girlfriend cares more about football than he does.

My adoptive parents are not into sports. It was a challenge when my boyfriend first met my dad because my boyfriend loves sports and couldn't connect to my dad over something he always figured would be a given. My uncle taught me about football (I then tried to explain it to my dad but he didn't get it), my uncle taught me to throw a football, and I watch games with my uncles. My grandmother and I discuss baseball, I watch hockey when I'm bored on TV and I'll go to nearly any sporting event I get invited to.

It always made me feel a little big like the alien child. I had to leave my house if I wanted to watch the Super Bowl. I liked weird teams (the Saints oddly enough) and my parents never tried to share that area of my life. My mom tried at one point. She watched the Red Sox win the World Series with me in 2004, and my dad once let me watch football for a half hour before he requested (it wasn't really a request) that I change the channel.

I think you could have knocked me over with a feather when I started talking to NeverTooLate and realized that my love of sports did come from somewhere. It's a pretty common thing to like though so clearly genetics have nothing to do with it. And maybe they don't. Still, SinginInTheRain happens to have a favorite football team. It's the Saints. And all of this happened before they won the Super Bowl.

Weird things like that make me laugh at this point. You can't tell me that I'm not somewhat in-sync with my first family.