Shooting Star

Chapter 10

I will never forget this moment, ever.

We were playing our semifinal game against the Belleville Bears, when a defenseman on the Bears came out of nowhere and checked Kylie so hard she flew into the air, about five feet, and landed, slumped, wobbling dangerously on the top of the glass pane before toppling over and hitting the ice with a horrific crunch.

Play stopped. No one wanted to move, to see if she was all right. We were all in shock. Kylie’s eyes were closed, she had been knocked unconscious.

"Kylie," I whispered, skating over to her side and staring at her lifeless body.

The referees were interrogating the player who'd made contact with Kylie. What she'd done was a check to the shoulder, but the impact was so large that Kylie had gone airborne.

The referees were talking to the people upstairs about how legal the check was. Coach Hiller was furious and was screaming to the refs that the player should be thrown out.

I remembered it clearly; I’d watched the play unfold.

Kylie carried the puck into the neutral zone after receiving a pass from Stephanie. She passed centre ice and continued into the offensive zone, when the player charged, bent her knees, and made shoulder-to-shoulder contact.

I watched in horror as Kylie's eyes rolled back, her head lolling, and I screamed out loud as the entire arena went silent and we watched Kylie fly through the air.

She hit the glass with a sickening crunch, a moan escaping her lips, and then going limp.

Our entire team had dashed over to that pane of glass, whether on the ice already or on the bench, watching.

The referees had shooed everyone away as they tried to get her down, which failed. They couldn't get her down without causing brain damage if they dropped her. Then, she shifted, and fell to the ice. My mouth had remained open in a silent scream, I was in utter and complete shock. The buzzer sounded, signalling the end of the second period, but I barely noticed it. All I could comprehend at the moment was the sight of my teammate, my best friend, lying lifeless and helpless on the ice, unconscious.

I shook my head out of the memory as I felt my eyes sting. I skated back to my team, who were staring at a lifeless Kylie lying on the ice as the medical team was being ushered out onto the ice with a stretcher.

The team then laid the stretcher down, gingerly picked Kylie up and onto the stretcher, strapped her nice and good, and wheeled Kylie out of the arena.

When she was finally lifted off safely, her mom and dad rushed to her still limp body and I could tell by the look on her mom's face that she was crying.

"The semi-final game between the Belleville Bears and the Carlton Admirals will resume after an unexpected second intermission," the announcer said.

Coach Hiller called, "Ladies, over here now."

We all looked at her. Coach Hiller looked awful, her eyes were red and her face was white. Panicking over one of her best players being taken down, I thought.

"Listen," Coach Hiller croaked, then cleared her throat. "Because Kylie won't be playing the rest of the game, we need to step it up. We're also losing 4-0, but they think they've got the upper hand now that they've taken out one of our star players and they have a huge lead over us. We still have a stellar team. I don't want you to think about how Kylie's hurt, I want you to play for her. Play like you've never played before. Play to win. For Kylie."

We let her words sink in. Then I nodded. "You got it, Coach."

The referee's whistle blew. We lined up for face-off once again, and we were off.

All I could think about was Kylie as I won the faceoff and charged on net. I chanted in my head, Kylie, Kylie, Kylie, like I was channelling her skills.

I fired a snap shot on net and the goalie missed. The puck went into the net so hard it hit the left post, ricocheted, and bounced off the right one, and back onto the left post. When it finally trickled in, I skated over and glanced at the net.

Five puck marks on each post, I thought triumphantly.

"Goal scored by number 29, Brianna Miller, Bears lead 4-1," the announcer called.

The arena was cheering.

"Talk about playing for Skylie," Alyssa said, bumping my shoulder with hers.

"Nice goal, Miller," Coach Hiller said. "I hear you messed up their net pretty bad."

"It was a hard shot," I shrugged.

"I was worried it wouldn't go in, when it kept bouncing off the posts like that," Michelle smiled. "I'm glad it did."

"As am I," a voice said.

I knew that voice: Kylie, I thought.

"Nice goal, Breeze," Kylie said weakly, though still smiling.

I smiled at her. "Are you all right?"

"I'm perfectly fine," Kylie said. "Win the game for me, will ya? I don’t know if I’ll cleared to play in the final, if we get there. But if we do, it’s gonna take a lot to keep me off the ice.”

That was all we needed to hear.

I scored two more times in the third period, bringing the score to 4-3.

I assisted on the fourth goal, passing to Alyssa who fired a one-timer on net with 30 seconds to go in regulation time.

"This semi-final game between the Bears and Admirals will go to overtime!" the announcer yelled.

"Nice job, girls," Coach said. "We've closed the gap."

"Have we ever!" Ruby said, smiling. "You couldn't stop Breeze, she was on fire!"

"It was nothing," I smiled. "We've got this."

But when we got back onto the ice, the Bears acted like, well, Bears!

They were more vicious than ever, checking at every legal time, knocking our players left, right, and center.

Coach Hiller called a time-out after 3 minutes of no scoring and getting pushed around by the other team.

"Girls, we need this win," her voice shook. "We need it. Badly."

The referee signalled that time was up and play resumed.

We got a major scare on a breakaway goal that had me charging for the lone left-wing streaking up the side and slapping one on net.

Steph went the other way after the girl deked her, and fired on the open net.

Luckily for us, and when I say luckily, I think it was somewhat of a miracle, the puck somehow went wide and into the boards.

I rushed past the shocked player and grabbed it, starting the rush back to the other side.

I passed to Annabeth, who passed to Alyssa, who passed to me. I passed back to Annabeth. Annabeth directed a shot on net that the goalie blocked with a pad.

I jumped on the loose puck and backhanded it wildly. Somehow the goalie got a piece of it and it ricocheted off of her shoulder and onto the ice, where Alyssa slammed it home.

The crowd's eruption and the buzzer going of almost drowned out the announcer calling, "GOAL! THE CARLTON ADMIRALS ARE MOVING ON TO THE FINALS!"

I jumped onto Alyssa as our entire team jumped off of the bench and onto the two of us. All of us were screaming in excitement, in relief, in raw emotion.

We were going to the FINALS.

~ I'm going to end it off there. More chapters will come as they get edited, and I will continue to edit the first ten chapters. Hope you liked it, COMMENT if you want more!