Ex-Hawk (ON HOLD)

Chapter 1

My mom was a figure skater. She was a natural at skating and I guess she passed that on to me.

My mom got me onto the frozen pond near our house when I was little kid. She took me everyday and she would teach me how to skate.

The summer before I started school for the first time, I was able to skate by myself.

It might have been a long time ago but I remember my mothers reaction. She was beaming. She congratulated me and took me out to buy whatever toy I wanted from Toys-R-Us afterwards.

My mom wanted to sign me up for figure skating that year and she thought it would be a good idea to go show me some of the older and experienced figure skaters practice.

We sat there for a while but I soon got bored. I jumped off the bench and looked through the glass the the second rink.

In the second rink I saw 3-on-3 hockey. I had never seen anything like it before and it had fascinated my 3-year-old self.

"Get back over here," my mother said but I didn't look away from the game.

"Look Mommy," I said pointing at the glass.

My mom walked over. She knelt down beside me and said, "Those are hockey players, Bryn. Not figure skaters. Let's go back and watch the beautiful figure skaters."

"No," I told my mom. "I wanna watch the hockey players."

My mother just pursed her lips and watched with me.

When my mom got home she told my dad all about how I showed little interest in the figure skaters and watched the hockey game the entire time.

My dad was a football player and hadn't been all that enthusiastic about me being a figure skater in the first place.

He suggested that I play hockey.

It took a while to convince my mother but she finally gave in.

They signed me up for fundamentals and that's this all started.

It's like my 3-year-old self recognized my potential in hockey.

I played AAA every year growing up.

I was the female prodigy in my hockey league growing up.

I got a scholarship for hockey at Western University in London, Ontario so obviously I went there.

I lead the team for years and after a while I was all over the news.

Everyone thought I was some female version of Wayne Gretzky. I was interviewed a couple times and each time I did say that my dream would be to play for the Blackhawks.

I chose the Blackhawks at age five and stuck with them for the rest of my life.

Luckily my message got out to the Blackhawks but unluckily they wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.

I ended up being drafted to the Devils and played for them for three years.

I didn't talk much, I mostly just played on the ice and for everything else, I was in the background.

Now I've been traded to the Lightning and I'll be playing for them for six years and I don't want it to be much like the past three years.

I've heard people refer to there teammates as their second family and I want it to be exactly like that with this new team.

Tomorrow at practice I was going to make an effort to meet my new team.

***

I park near the entrance of the Amalie Arena. I look at the arena for a moment and then decide that I like it better than the one I used to practice in New Jersey.