I was thrilled one year when I was younger when not only did my brothers get hockey sticks for Christmas - but I did too!

Kerrigan recalls a childhood moment of inclusion: receiving the same hockey gift as her brothers. The excitement is less about the object than about being recognized as equally entitled to participate in a sport-coded space that often defaults to boys. Read in light of her later athletic career, the anecdote becomes an origin-story vignette—early encouragement and access to equipment can be decisive in shaping confidence and opportunity. The quote also gestures to family dynamics and holiday rituals as sites where gender expectations are either reinforced or quietly revised, with a simple present functioning as a symbolic permission to play.