To Whom It May Concern: 

           I wanted to write and express to you how proud I am to work for UnumProvident and truly taken back by our sincere role to not just improve our local community but to be a leader. During the recent holidays I have told this story many times to family and friends; I wanted to share it with you. I heard about the Maine Sled Hockey team UnumProvident sponsors from reading a corporate communication and felt that it was something I wanted to participate in. I have had very limited exposure to people with disabilities and thought that they would need a lot of help to play a sport as physically challenging as hockey. I laugh to myself about it now, but when I first started to be apart of the Maine Sled Hockey team I thought I would take it easy on the ice since they were disabled and I was not.

Our first game was a tournament this November which I had the opportunity to play in. It became very apparent to me very fast that my preconceived notion of “taking it easy because my opponents are disabled” had no merit because they sure were not taking it easy on me. Being from a sports oriented family where sports have always been a large part of my life, my competitive drive kicked in. I found myself playing as hard as I could as to not let my team down who I have been practicing with for over a month prior to the game.

I was taken back by the entire experience. There we were all on the ice playing a game, disabled and non-disabled, and there was no one with an advantage over anyone else. Everyone put everything they had into playing this game. There was so much heart that anyone with any appreciation of athleticism would have been captivated. We played at a very large ice hockey rink in New Jersey that had 5 individual ice rinks. During the sled hockey games there would be around 80-100+ people who would just walk up and start watching the games. There were more people watching the sled hockey games then all the other people watching the regular ice hockey games in the other ice rinks combined.

After we played our games all the teams had lunch together, cutting up, and just had a good time together. Before this experience I would have been very conscious of their disability and felt that I needed to walk on eggshells or be extra nice. It was not that way at all, I stop looking at them as people with disabilities as if that is what defined them but just as my friends, teammates, and peers. I walked away from this experience with a different outlook regarding individuals with disabilities and very proud of UnumProvident for giving me this opportunity.

Thank you for being a leader in Maine’s community and offering everyone the same opportunity I had to be a part of this. It was really special to see how important this event was to so many people and I wish you knew how much good sponsoring an event like Maine Sled Hockey has done for so many people.

             Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Angelo Castigliola III
Enterprise Security Architecture
UnumProvident