Page 8 of Playmaker

That year, a week or so before training camp, I’d stubbornly decided that hewouldfinally acknowledge me and my hockey. Bad idea, and Mom had tried to gently dissuade me, but I’d finally commanded his attention at dinner one night and boldly announced that my U10 team was going to win our division’s trophy that year.

For the couple of seconds he’d stared at me in surprise, I’d been sure I’d finally gotten through. He’d finally noticed me.

But then he’d exhaled hard and turned his scowl on my mother. “What is she still doing playing hockey? It’s not a sport for girls.”

“I’m good at it!” I’d shot back. “I’m the second line center on a boys’ team!”

That hadinfuriatedmy father. He’d been enraged that I was taking a coveted space that would be better suited for a boy who had potential to go somewhere in the sport. When I’d refused to back down—when I’d shouted at him because I’d been so mad—he’d sent me to my room.

I hadn’t even made it out of the kitchen before he told my mother, “She’s not playing any more hockey and that’s final.”

I’d gone to my room and cried until I almost threw up. Some time later, Mom came in with the reheated remains of my dinner.

“Eat,” she’d gently told me. “You’ve got practice coming up.”

“Dad says I have to quit.”

“I know.” She’d stroked my hair. “But you’re not going to quit. Dad doesn’t want you to play, and that’s not fair, so it’s going to be our secret.”

It was the most defiant thing I’d ever heard my mother say up until that point. She never told us to keep secrets, and she’d always told us that if a grownup said “this is our secret,” that was our cue to come straight to her or Dad and tell them.

Somehow, even at that age, I’d known this was different. That this was her pushing back against my father in a way that kept my dream alive and kept a roof over our heads. My siblings and I weren’t stupid—we’d heard him threaten to make her and us homeless if she stepped out of line. While defying him by keeping me registered for hockey probably sounded trivial tomost people, Mom knew—and nine-year-old me knew—that it was dangerous.

But she did it anyway.

All these years later, I still wondered sometimes if that was the night she’d finally started gathering up the courage to leave. If she’d begun forming her escape plan during that fraught dinner, or if it had already been in the works by that point. For some reason, I never wanted to ask.

Whatever the case, training camp happened while Mom and Dad were still married and I was still secretly playing for the Orchard Park Tigers. After the first day, while we were having lunch with Dad and some of his teammates, he’d laughed about how I’d taken up hockey.

“There’s no point,” he’d chuckled. “Piss away money on gear for a few years, maybe get a pitiful scholarship to a college with a women’s team, and then never even make a beer league.” He’d scoffed. “What a waste.”

In the moment, as rage had boiled quietly behind my ribs, I’d hated his teammates for laughing along. Years later, Mom had told me they’d been visibly uncomfortable, but they obviously hadn’t wanted to get their captain fired up.

“You didn’t notice how they felt,” she’d said. “But I did. It gave me a lot of courage that I needed a few months later.”

No, I hadn’t noticed. It had, however, fueled that fire that made me want to prove myself on the ice. The next two days of training camp, I’d fumed as I’d watched Dad and his team and the prospects through the puck-scuffed glass. I’d vowed to be there one day. To prove to him that I was just as worthy of a place on a professional team as he and my brother were.

Someday,I’d told myself over and over,I’ll be on the ice while he’s behind the glass. If there isn’t a team for me to play on, I’ll fuckingmakeone, damn it.

Yeah, I’d cursed even to myself. I was nine, but I was a hockey player. My vocabulary was what it was.

And now, almost two decades later, with a lot of the anger cooled but the determination still burning fiercely in my belly…

I skated out onto the ice to join the Pittsburgh Bearcats for training camp.

I smiled to myself as I glided between players I’d known since my youth and major junior days, and as I watched the young prospects and their awestruck faces. This wasn’t my first professional training camp, but I doubted the novelty would ever wear off.

I’d made it. Despite every obstacle that had been laid out in front of me, I’d made it. The pro women’s hockey league I’d helped get off the ground was thriving, playing in front of sellout crowds all over North America while multiple cities clamored to be part of the next expansion.

Reporters were crowded in at one end of the rink. Along the side with stands for the spectators, dozens of kids—especially little girls—pressed their faces and signs to the glass, wearing huge grins beneath Bearcat beanies. Several had on jerseys from the team; I’d heard those had all but sold out the minute they’d gone on sale.

Nine-year-old me had imagined breaking into the men’s league and finding a place there, but this was even better. We had our own place. Our own teams. Our own fans who were here to seeus.

Maybe someday the novelty would wear off, but I hoped it didn’t.

And maybe someday, it wouldn’t sting so much to remember the one face that would never be in that crowd, cheering me on with all the pride he brought to his son’s games.

That thought threatened to sour my mood, so I shook it away. I grabbed a couple of pucks on my stick and tossed them over theglass. There was nothing in the world better than the way a kid’s eyes lit up when they caught a puck. I loved how they’d hold it up triumphantly and squeal with joy while snow still tumbled down on them from the puck in their hand.

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