The Tales of a Future Hockey Wife

Chapter 1: Midget AAA

~Eleanor~

I have no idea what I am doing here. It is cold, dirty and it smells like sweat and hot-dogs. The South Island Arena
in South Victoria, British-Columbia is packed as always on game night. My best friend Olive and I are sitting in the front row, right behind our team's goaler. It's her fault if I am spending my Saturday night here instead of being at home in my pajamas watching a movie. Honestly, anything would have been more interesting than watching a bunch of high school boys hitting each other while trying to put a puck in a goal, but that is just my opinion. Unfortunately, in our town, not many people share my views on hockey. South Victoria is what you could call a hockey town, just like any town who is lucky enough to host a Midget AAA team apparently. The South Victoria Scorpions are legendary here. Every player is adulated by every hockey fan in sight. About half of them go to my school, so the frenzy is even worse from Monday to Friday.

I grew up around hockey players without giving any special attention to them. Ever since kindergarten, there was at least one boy who played hockey in my class. There were some at summer camp, in my swimming lessons, in my driver's Ed class. I was even paired with one in science last year. I never put them on a pedestal like my teachers and classmates did. I never understood why they were so special. We didn't give a damn about baseball players, swimmers, horseback riders or figure skaters. Why was hockey so important here? "Hockey is our national sport, honey, be a patriot," my father once told me when I asked him that question. He added a wink at the end to show me he was kidding, but I knew he was a fan of the sport himself even if he never played. I understood why the sport was popular in Canada, but why was the frenzy worse in South Victoria? I knew it wasn't like that everywhere in our country. One of my aunts lived in Vancouver and no one talked about the local Midget team on the radio. It was then that my father told me about Steven Fisher. In 1989, Steven Fisher was the hockey first player from South Victoria who made it all the way to the NHL. He was the first one. I think that's where it started. People felt proud to come from South Victoria because they were from the same town as the number 56 of the Toronto Maple Leaves just like people from Charlemagne are proud to live where Celine Dion was born. In my head, it doesn't make any sense, but that is not the point. The point is that every year or so, after he had retired, he would come to our school to talk to us about the importance of finding something we were passionate about whether it was sports or something else. Since his passion was hockey, all his references were about the sport. Young boys loved him so much, they begged him to come back next year. Young girls and the teachers were so infatuated by him that they did the same. I was always in the back of the auditorium, a book in my hand. What was the point of listening anyway? He was only repeating the same thing he did the year before. During my last year of elementary school, he was scheduled to come on my birthday. The only thing I asked my parents that year was to stay home. I remember telling my father that if I had to listen to his dull hockey speech one more time, I would faint. Very dramatic for an eleven-year-old, I know.

Hockey never interested me, so why am I here today? My best friend, Olive's, brother plays for The Scorpions. He so nicely gave us tickets to the opening match which happens to be tonight. His excitement was palpable. He handed us the tickets with shaky hands and a toothless smile. His eyes were wide, you could almost see him jump from excitement. It was understandable though since it's his first game at that level. He is one of the youngest players at only fifteen years of age. Most players are our age, 16. As they enter the ice one by one, I recognize most players by the name behind their jersey. Joe Walter is in my math class, Tony Lowes in my English class, Gary Hillman is a senior, Joey Turing was in my Spanish class until he dropped out a few months ago, on the exact day he turned 16. It is not uncommon for hockey players to drop out at 16 to focus on hockey full time. It becomes harder and harder to stay in school with games on the road and the demanding physical training the coaches require. Joey is not the only one who dropped out or who plans to drop out. The team's captain, Benjamin Johnson, probably won't finish high school if everything goes to plan. I have no idea what his plan is, though. I am not familiar enough with hockey to understand his options. I try to think that I am not judging their decision to not at least finish high school, but deep down, I know I am. Benjamin Johnson, Benji, is in every one of my classes, but we never talked. He's the kind of popular kid who doesn't care about his social status. I've never seen him be mean to someone or disrespect anyone. Now that I think about it, he's definitely boyfriend material, but only if he would not play hockey. I promised myself to never date a hockey player.

I can't say that I totally understood everything that went on during the game, but I can't say that I didn't enjoy it either. I kept trying to follow the puck's movements as it glided on the ice. After the first goal was scored, I kept wishing for a second one. I wanted to feel the joy inflame the crowd once more. I wanted to raise my arms in the air to create a perfect wave. I wanted to feel close to the strangers beside me just because we were supporting the same team. Sports really do bring people together, it's a mesmerizing thing to witness.

After our crushing victory, 3-1, Olive's brother insisted that we come to the party organized at some bar afterwards. In South Victoria, when hockey is involved, age does not matter. As long as you arrive with a player, no one will ask your age. Weird, right? It only works on game nights, though. If an underage kid tries to walk into a bar on a "normal" day, no matter who they are or you they are with, they will be sent home. Everyone but Benji Johnson apparently. There have been many rumors of him being allowed in the bar even if he's underage. But, since today isn't a normal day, here we are, at the most famous bar in all of South Victoria, sitting at a too crowded table, drinking shooters to celebrate. I am happy that we won and all, but I still don't get why we need to celebrate. This wasn't a championship or anything like that, so why are we shouting people's names? I am about to ask Olive if we can go home when he sits beside me with two small glasses filled with some alcohol. The guy who had his name shout out only a few seconds ago sat beside me, his cheeks red even in this subdued bar light. He winks, one of his beautiful green eyes disappearing as he hands me a glass. We drink it up without looking away from one another. His bright eyes burned holes in my skin. Holes that were instantly filled with small pieces of him. He was slowly inserting himself inside my skin, and I let him. I let him become a part of me, forgetting all the promises I ever did to myself because, at that moment, it didn't matter that I knew him since kindergarten. It didn't matter that we never spoke before. The only thing that mattered was his deep green eyes that were oh so easy to get lost in. All night, we did not speak a word about hockey. We talked about our lives, our families, everything that made us who we were.

From that moment on, I became a hockey girl. Every chance I had, I sat in those dirty bleachers watching a sport I hated just to support a boy. I constantly smelled like bad overcooked hot-dogs and my feet were always cold. Ever since that day, hockey became my second life, my second nature. I did everything at the arena, I did my homework, I read, listened to music, studied, everything I could do there, I did. When Steven Fisher came to the arena for a small conference, I went. Not because I was suddenly a fan of his, but because he was. All because I fell in love with the team's captain. For the next year and a half, I proudly wore a Scorpions' shirt and went out on the arm of a Scorpion. I loved him with all my heart and so did he.