What’s Your Why?

“What's your why?

What's your purpose?

What's your passion?”

Three-time Olympic ice hockey medalist Kacey Bellamy challenged students to answer those questions during her inspiring Chapel talk in celebration of the Women’s Sports Foundation’s annual National Women and Girls in Sports Day this morning.

Watch Bellamy’s Chapel talk via Brooks School’s Chapel Videos

“I want students to look at how they face adversity,” Bellamy said after sharing a motivating speech about ups and downs in her athletics career to the campus community on February 5. “We face adversity every single day in our lives and it's how we react to it [that matters]. I hope that they can just take one thing, dig a little deeper in their life to try to improve it, and that it becomes a trickle effect from there.”

Bellamy knows a bit about getting, and staying, motivated. The former professional ice hockey star — who played for the Boston Pride, the Boston Blades and the Calgary Inferno — has earned an Olympic gold medal, two silver medals, made nine appearances in the World Championships and played in the Four Nations Cup 13 times.

“No matter what you're going through in life, if we face adversity the right way, we can accomplish anything,” Bellamy told students.

Off the ice, she helped lead the then-reigning world champion U.S. Women’s National Hockey Team in a boycott of the World Championships in 2017. Their goal was to get USA Hockey to provide women with pay and benefits comparable to that of the sport’s male athletes.

CNN reported at the time that Bellamy’s and her teammates’ fight for gender equality scored the squad a four-year deal. According to the news outlet, “The financial terms of the deal weren't released but one thing the women got was the formation of a group that will oversee the advancement of girls' and women's hockey."

When former Brooks School Athletic Director and current Associate Director of Admission Lori Charpentier (above on left) introduced Bellamy (who played for her during high school) in Chapel on Wednesday, she commended the pro's generous leadership. “I've dedicated much of my professional career to making the world of sports a better place for young female athletes,” she said. “And to me, there's no better example of an athlete giving back to that world than Kacey Bellamy.”

Now retired from ice hockey and pursing a career in motivational speaking, Bellamy shared words of wisdom and concrete advice (see slides shown during her talk above) to Brooks students that will surely resonate long after she departs campus.

“If you have one percent of doubt, you're probably not going to be successful,” she told them. “…The right mindset turns challenges into opportunity. With belief and absolute conviction, you control the moment instead of the moment controlling you.”

Choosing the National Girls and Women in Sports Day to meet and speak with students at Brooks was no coincidence.

“I think my story, about losing back-to-back medals and seeing how far women's sports has come in the last ten years, is very unique,” she shared following her remarks and medals show-and-tell, before signing autographs and meeting one-on-one with student athletes during lunch.

Ultimately, she said that she just wanted to share a simple message to inspire young athletes: “If you put in the right work, the right effort, you can achieve anything — and it all starts with belief. That's it.”

See a photo album from Bellamy’s visit on brooksschoolphotos.com