I think that the author wants the audience to experience what Ali Ahmad's usual day in getting through ramadan. He mentions "Ali would not eat or drink again until the sun set in nearly 14 hours." This not only gives me the feeling that fasting is difficult but shows me the struggles that Ali Ahmad is going to probably experience.

I think that Freeman includes this quote from Hassan Cheaib to exaggerate the dedication and effort that goes into fasting. The use of the simile really shows that the students are like warriors who can fight through an extremely productive day without eating or drinking. It expresses a comparison to the feeling of a warrior winning a battle to a high school student surviving the ramadan tradition.

Why would it take 5 months to diagnose Boogard's brain condition? What was the authors purpose in mentioning this long span of time? My guess is that the author wanted the audience to assume that Boogard's condition was especially rare as later on the author mentions how other players that were diagnosed with C.T.E were not in there 20's.

I think that Boogard wanted to create a lasting name for himself and this is exactly what he did. Boogard wanted others to always think of him as a big scary figure that was always feared upon. This is truly shown after his fight with Fedoruk.

This really shows that the game of Hockey was never truly played. They basically went out on the ice to fight. This confuses me as the author never really mentions why they fight or the purpose of these violent acts. Were people upset not getting what they payed for? Or was this something they expected and wanted to happen? These were all questions that arrised when reading through this article.

At first, I was confused on why they removed his brain for examination but when reading on, I was able to create an inference. I think that they wanted to remove his brain to understand why he didn't acknowledge the pain and the toll that was occurring. I think that Boogaard was blocking this pain with motivation and the idea of achieving a goal regardless of the consequences. This shows that Boogaard is divergent and different from other people.

This sentence portrays Boogaard as an essential role on the team. It lead me to the assumption that Boogaard was like a knight on the team. Since he was seen as "noble" and "barbaric", he was expected to protect the team. I think that Boogard's ability to fight far outweighed his skills on the ice which shows his significance on the team.

I find it very interesting on the way the author writes this part of the paragraph. Reading it at first confused me as I didn't understand what the author meant when he said, "The extra points were a luxury" and, "The bravest had to go for two every touchdown." However, I realized that the only way of understanding this part of the section was knowing how to play football. After reading it over again, I finally understood that the extra points meant the one additional value that was added upon the score when the kicker successfully passed the field goal. "The bravest had to go for two" meant that they had to run up a two-point conversion every time. I think that the author wrote this way to focus the attention towards Johnston rather than re-explaining what he meant in terms of the sport.

The team acted as a family regardless of where they were at. This ties back to the idea of work and sports of being the same as the team equally supported each other through every event. I think that this interaction is crucial because it is what allows the team to have perseverance through this difficult time.

It is obvious that the author is creating a similarity through work and sports as he explains Paddy Lyon's contribution on the football team and at work. The author begins by explaining how Lyons carried his team towards a 28-21 win then transitions to talk about how this idea of leadership is shown at work too when he rescued a significant amount during 9/11.