Homeward bound after a whirlwind few months

“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” – Vince Lombardi Having arrived back to campus after travelling through the night home from the west coast on November 8, we were all pretty tired, but there was no rest for the wicked. We knew we had to leave on Thursday evening for the three-hour drive to Maryland,  so the next task was the sorting out of our academia. There are two academic advisors who work in the Robins centre facilitating every UR athlete who is on a scholarship. They aid us in choosing classes at the beginning of each semester and monitor our progress in these classes throughout the term, in conjunction with our professors. I’m undecided if that’s a good or a bad thing! We had missed a lot of school having been away at the A-10 weekend, then flying to California, so we had to contact our professors and academic advisors in an attempt to sort out all of our schoolwork that was overdue. We lost 2-0 to an experienced and very cultured Syracuse side, so that meant that it was the end of the road for us. Dublin native Liz McInerney played the centre mid role for Syracuse; it was really nice to get to chat to Liz and her parents – who were over on holiday – afterwards. While I really felt we could have gone a step further, it wasn’t meant to be on the day. However, we left Maryland that day as champions of the A-10 conference for the seventh time in 11 seasons and had the title of one of the best 16 teams in America.

It’s very strange to think that the competitive season is now over. It really does fly by, purely because we play two matches every weekend so it is compressed into 3 months, in comparison to around 8 months back home. After having such a successful season, we haven’t many hockey-related commitments scheduled between the time we finished playing and the Christmas holidays. The first few days after we lost were very strange, because we had a lot more time on our hands. The majority of this was spent socializing and playing catch-up with schoolwork. It was only then that I realised the amount of time we give to hockey during the week. Thanksgiving break was from the 22nd-26th and we had no classes for almost a week. Two of the sisters on the team and their family very kindly offered to take me into their home for the five nights. They live in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which is a 4.5 hour drive away. The two days leading up to Thanksgiving are said to be the most travelled days in America throughout the whole year. For this reason, it took us 8 hours to get to West Chester! Thanksgiving Day reminded me a lot of Christmas day, minus the presents. It was nice to have a dinner that was quite similar to the one we get on Christmas day too! The day after Thanksgiving is known across America as Black Friday. It’s the equivalent of St Stephen’s Day for the shopping fanatics, except it’s far more intense.  The shops stay open all night long and there are huge sales. If I was a morning person and a shopping fanatic, this would have been a dream come true. Unfortunately, I’m neither! However, I was told that I had to experience Black Friday, especially considering I was staying a 20 minute drive from King of Prussia, the largest mall on the east coast. It was about five times the size of Dundrum shopping centre! I’ve never walked in and out of so many shops in the one place in my life. The weeks leading up to Christmas tend to be filled with due dates for papers and different assignments – that’s pretty internationally known, I think! I put in a lot of hours in the library prior to Thanksgiving break, meaning that I didn’t have an overly strenuous amount of work to do the week I got back. I just have two more assignments and two in-class exams to sit during finals week, and that is my first semester as a college-student in America done. The American football season is over for UR but the men’s and women’s basketball is in full swing. I’ve been to games for both in the Robins Centre, which has a fantastic arena. UR are very strong in both men’s and women’s basketball. Students get to go to college sports events for free but we all must book our ticket online, print it off and present it upon arrival into the arena. The procedures for dealing with the crowds are seamless. I find basketball far more entertaining to watch for two reasons: I have a better understanding of it and we get to watch it inside, out of the cold! While football is entertaining and exciting, not knowing a lot of the rules can make it a small bit boring at times, though I certainly have learned a good bit about it since I’ve been here. All the UR athletes try their best to go to each other’s sporting events. Swimming, field hockey, football and soccer have all already had their seasons and are finished now but basketball is in-season so we all try to go to their games when we can. Lacrosse and baseball won’t have their seasons until next semester.

As portrayed in the movies and on TV programmes, recruiting is a massive business over here. We have had two recruits visit the college this past semester; one on an official visit and one on an unofficial visit. Basically, an official visit is when the college has expressed interest in the girl, and will pay for them to travel to the college and stay on-campus for the night in the room of a player on the team. An unofficial is when the college doesn’t pay but the girl is still allowed to come and stay in the room of a girl on the team who she knew prior to meeting the management team. Typically, by the time a recruit comes on their official visit they have already committed to coming to the college and playing hockey for them. So the official visit gives them an opportunity to get a better feel for what life is going to be like. The advantage of an unofficial is that it gives the recruit an insight into what life could possibly be like so they have all the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision. The layout of an unofficial/official visit is similar: the recruit and their parent(s) arrive, meet some of the team, go for lunch in the dining hall with the management and some players, get a tour around campus, have a meeting with the management then the parent(s) leaves and the recruit is left in the capable hands of the girls on the team, who have to entertain her for the night, usually by taking it easy in the locker room or the dorm rooms then the recruit leaves the next day. One thing I struggle to understand is that these recruits are all (usually) in their junior year in high school which is the equivalent to 5th year in the Irish schooling system. To put this in perspective, the management have been talking to one of the recruits longer than they have known me, and she still has two years left to finish in second level education. I suppose my case is an exception considering how swiftly it all happened! Another interesting aspect to recruiting is the DVDs that prospective players send into the hockey staff in the hope of getting looked at. It’s basically a mix tape of their best skills/clips from play. Girls from 15-17 years of age hire professionals to video them playing. They then send in these videos and the management have to filter through them in the hope of finding someone who catches their eye. When the management find someone they are interested in, they then go to watch them play for their club/school by travelling to wherever it is they are from. I was unaware of all of this because international recruiting, for the most part, tends to be quite different. However, there are some keen international students who will send in mix tapes. I was just fortunate enough that Ryan got to see me play on two occasions when Ireland U18s had test series vs Belgium and Scotland in Ireland the year before last. I began my journey back to Ireland on the morning of December 13. I flew from Richmond to Boston and had a 12-hour stopover. I decided a month or two back that I was going to leave the airport and take advantage of the time I had to spend in Boston. I motored around on the underground train (more commonly known to Bostonians as the “T”) from place to place. I went to the New England aquarium, Fenway Park (home to the Boston Red Sox baseball team) and the Prudential Centre (the main shopping centre in the heart of Boston). It was so cold in Boston; I was wearing about four layers the whole day long! I arrived into Shannon at 5.45am on the morning of the 14th and was met by my parents and four of my friends who, very kindly, made the early morning trip out to welcome me home. I’m really glad to be home. Having been back a few days, it felt like I was never away for four months. Sitting in my house in Limerick, having completed my first semester as an international student-athlete in a very academic American university, I’m glad I decided to go. It hasn’t always been rosy, but it’s most certainly been worth it. In four short months I travelled through eight states, hitting both the east and west coast of the US. I have enjoyed it so far, getting to meet some great people, and I look forward to grasping hold of more opportunities as they present themselves during my time in America in the future. For now, I will enjoy my time back home for the holidays and look forward to heading back over early in the New Year.