Hopes and Dreams

Chapter 3

Noman's Field, Saskatchewan, Early September

The rink is normally where people go to beat people up.

Well, sort of. More accurately, they come here to be free to whack each other with sticks with sharp blades at the end.

And trust me, being hit with a hockey stick hurts. I still have a scar on my left jawline from when Drew Mikaelsen whacked me (by accident) when we were overly competitive seven year olds on the novice team.

I quit hockey at eleven, much to the dismay of my parents, to pursue creating art. And I don't mean watercolours and oils and such (I have absolutely no talent for that), I mean figure skating. Pliés and pirouettes and axels and camels and twizzles, contrary to reviewing plays, trying to weave between other players and getting smushed every time.

Now, being on the ice feels free. It's almost like flying...except it's not. It's moving - speeding - at a pace that feels humanly impossible.

The tempo of the music speeds up and I move my feet, emphasizing control as I skate backwards and begin to prep for a triple axel - one of the hardest jumps I know, considering that I've never had a real coach. Everything that I've learned has been from YouTube and other videos, and somebody (usually my dad or Maggie when they're on break, or in today's case, our Zamboni operator, Mr. Osmond), normally supervises me for safety purposes. I don't even have a real routine, I just come out here and practice jumps and spins, in the hope that maybe someday, I will be able to compete an actual routine.

All Noman's Field ever cares about is hockey. The town even goes crazy about air hockey. From the Initiation level to the junior level, everybody in the town comes out to support their teams. Both boys and girls play, from their earliest ages until middle school, for girls, or graduation form high school, for boys, sometimes even afterwards. Normally, about 10 to 15 of the people from each graduating class sign contracts to play at the college level, normally for the University of Saskatchewan, though we have had people play for places such as University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, or McGill. Some others, like my brother, went and played for American universities; Harry chose a Big Ten school (after playing a few years of junior hockey), but John and Maggie played for Dartmouth in New Hampshire (in John's case, right out of high school). And then there are the "legends" who move on to the Junior A level and then the NHL, like Roland, who played for the Victoria Grizzlies in the BCHL, and was the third-pick in the NHL draft by his dream team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, five years ago.

Hamilton's Ice Arena - owned by my family - has three rinks to accommodate this fanaticism. The smallest rink, Snowflake, is used for beginning skating lessons and for the youngest teams, up to the atom level, the medium rink, Icicle, is used for the older teams (Pee Wee through Midget), and the largest rink, Arctic, is normally open for free skate and practice, besides for the days where we host a game, whether for our competitive teams or for the games between adults the staff arranges. On those days, if they aren't playing, people will go out of their way to get the best seat in the Arctic rink. My dad is currently the head coach for the Pee Wee through Midget teams, Maggie is in charge of the entire girls program, and the expectation is that Harrison will return home after college to coach the Pee Wee and Bantam teams, relieving some weight from our father.

Each level only has two teams each, one for boys and one for girls. Normally, the girls team travels significantly less, because families want to invest more in their boys teams, I guess. And our town doesn't have any girls teams at the high school level, since most girls drop out and become cheerleaders. Maggie became a junior coach to the little kids as a teenager (before attending Dartmouth for academics, joining club hockey, and being invited to join their Division I team her sophomore year) and Francesca began an internship at the local newspaper reporting on sports (or, more accurately, hockey) after their times playing at a competitive level ended, much to the dismay of my mom, a former cheerleader herself. So Allyson wasn't entirely accurate when she said that both genders play hockey in this town; they only do to a certain age. Although she was captain last season, she's made no mention of what she plans to do this year, since she's supposed to be a Midget this year, the level that we lack a girls team at.