The Cocky Hockey Captain

Chapter 15 ● A Man's (Wo)Man

I'd been heckled by friends or family of the girls I'd fought my amateur matches against. It still hadn't prepared me for what I encountered when we descended the bus at East Pembroke High.

I heard it even while I was still inside the bus, waiting for the line of boys to file down. It sounded as though the director of an orchestra stood outside, conducting everybody into one big, unison and resounding boo. It came deep from the throats of many people, fueled by half a century's worth of rivalry. I had no particular stake in the whole matter, yet I found myself embroiled right in the middle of it as I descended the school bus and met a wall of loud people whom I found very creative with their picket signs as well as their curse words.

Gee, and here I thought all Canadians were polite.

Someone stumbled against me from behind. I startled, only to realize that it was Dean. He had his hand on my shoulder, steering me onwards. I hadn't realized that I'd been rooted on the spot just after picking up my gym bag, dazzled by everything around me. I let him push me all the way into the building and into the locker room. The Bears were emanating aggression off them and I could almost smell it. And it had nothing to do with the gross, musty and damp scent of boy locker rooms.

We did quick work of putting on all the equipment in the black and green colors of our St. Andrews and with one last speech from Coach Martel, accompanied by nods from Assistant Coach Gauthier, we made it out and onto the ice.

Full disclosure, I'd never been to a professional hockey arena before. I'd seen glimpses on TV or the occasional sports bar and restaurant I'd gone to with my dad and Miguel. I was sure that a pro one would be a hell of a lot bigger than this one, yet at that moment it felt huge. Or maybe it was that I felt very small in the middle of the icy expanse, surrounded by people who shouted that we were either ready for hibernation, or dead meat, or Winnie The Pooh. Although that last one made me smile.

"C'mon, Bernal," I heard Pace's voice zoom by me as he skated in a wide circle.

I pumped my legs to follow right after him and joined the rest of my team as we warmed up on the ice. When it was just us it wasn't so bad. But of course as soon as I thought that the crowd started cheering like a celebrity had just walked in the house, and I looked around to see that it was the Eagles in their blue and yellow uniforms skating onto the ice.

Oh shit.

They were just as big and aggressive as we were. In the grand scheme of things, this should have comforted me. Had they been bigger than my Bears I had more of a reason to feel like I was in trouble. The problem was that just because my friends were just as big and mean didn't mean that I was, too. I was a fucking girl in the middle of the most testosterone riddled game there was in this entire nation. I swallowed thickly, yet there was a knot in my throat that wouldn't let my saliva go down during the entire time we lined up for the national anthem.

"Are you okay?" somebody said around me. "Charlie?"

I looked up at Hunter Perry, one of our strikers and precisely the boy I was trying to sell to Lena Lee. He'd stopped in front of me, holding his stick across his body with both hands. I nodded jerkily and he gave me a loopy grin thanks to his mouthguard. He chewed it out and spat it into his glove.

"It must suck to be you, to start playing the game and be stuck in one of the most heated rivalries of the whole province of Alberta," he said as a way of comforting me. He started chuckling as I glared. "There we go, that attitude will help you better."

Brian Levesque, our First Nation Assistant Captain, braked right in between us. "Don't rise to this dork's bait. There's no reason to be nervous, we got your back."