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Culp and Norman, who have both played hockey since they were 7 and skated well before that, were part of both teams. Dreamy stuff. "One of my teammates, I remember when we first won we just hugged each other. When you win, that's when you really know you did everything you could to get to this point," Norman said. "This year, doing it again, we hugged each other and we cried with joy." It was the same result, although a very different season. Last year's team finished 66-5-1, so there was the weight of expectations when the season started in August. Instead of beating opponents by eight goals, there were many more 2-1 type games. "It wasn't as individually talented as the team the year before, but honestly it made it more exciting," Culp said. "It wasn't as expected, which made it better." (Photo provided)
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The team traveled to tournaments in Vermont and Canada, and beyond. It won the Illinois state championship, and won six games at regionals in St. Louis to earn the automatic bid to nationals. Like last year, when the Mission won a triple overtime game just to reach the finals, its toughest game wasn't its last. The Mission, ranked third nationally throughout the season, won a high-scoring semifinal with the second-ranked team. "The semifinals at nationals always seems the hardest," said Culp, who plays left wing. "It was a really scary game, against a really talented team. The fact that we were able to pull through, it was like, who is going to stop us now?" Culp, who will play hockey collegiately at Long Island University, followed in her older brother's footsteps into hockey. She played with boys teams, but eventually joined the Mission when she was 12 through a friend whose father is a coach. "It's the best girls program out there," Culp said. (Photo provided)
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Norman, whose brother Brandon is a goaltender in hockey, has been with the Mission program that trains out of Bensenville for six years. A former figure skater, she always had a passion for track, too. She went downstate in the hurdles and high jump in seventh and eighth grade, and now competes for the Yorkville track team. Hockey, though, is clearly a labor of love. "I'm very committed and spend a lot of time with it; I can never hang out with anyone on the weekends," said Norman, a defenseman in hockey. "But you know what, it's my dream to play hockey. I love the sport." Norman, like Culp, hopes to play in college. She wants to major in American Sign Language. She has a cousin who is deaf, and ever since she was in sixth grade Norman went to the library to teach herself how to do sign language and the alphabet. "I've always had a goal in life, to do something that helps people to live their life," Norman said. Meanwhile, there is much hockey to still play. Norman, Culp and the team got off the plane on a Monday, and had practice for spring hockey the next day. She said the team really wasn't focused on winning a national championship, and couldn't predict the outcome. They started counting down with 15 games left, crossed each game off when it was done and won each game. "To watch the clock count down, knowing that wow, you've won two national championships, I've never heard of something like that before," Norman said. "It's something special." (Photo provided)