Offside Dreams
The ice was always colder when she was alone. It was a bitter reminder, sharp against the soles of her skates, that the game she loved so much was a privilege only for men. Ha-eun’s breath misted in the frozen air, her face stinging from the wind as she skated alone in the near-empty rink. The sound of her skates cutting through the ice was the only music she had these days, fast, steady, and determined.
A lone spotlight glared down from the ceiling, catching the sharp edges of her hockey stick as she practiced slapshots against an empty net. The clock on the wall ticked past midnight. This was the only time she could afford to practice. After hours, when the public was gone, and the world outside felt like it had forgotten her.
She didn’t need the crowd, didn’t need the applause or the cheers of her teammates. All she needed was the ice and the game that she had lived for since she could remember.
Every time she finished a drill, her mind went back to the countless tryouts that had slipped through her fingers. The closed doors and cold glances.
You’re too small. Too weak. A woman playing men’s hockey? Get real.
Her knuckles tightened around the stick, knuckles raw from years of practice and failure. The words echoed like ghosts in her head, twisting with the memories of her rejections. From coaches, from teammates, from the very institution of professional hockey itself. She was never going to make it, not in this world, not in this league.
Women’s hockey doesn’t pay enough. The skills just aren’t there. You should be playing for a real team, not with men.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind, too, soft but firm. The disappointment in her tone when Ha-eun had told her about the latest rejection. Her mother had never understood the drive that kept her lacing up her skates year after year, even as the world told her there was no place for her.
Why don’t you just get a job, Ha-eun? Why do you keep pushing yourself so hard?
But Ha-eun had never been one to give up easily. That was the one thing she shared with her father. That stubbornness that ran in her veins, he had been the same, living through one injury after another, battling through pain until his body simply gave out on him. She hadn’t seen him in years, and there were days when she wondered if she would be just another hockey player who got lost in the system.
Another one of the forgotten.
Another broken dream.
The thought made her pause in the center of the rink. She rested her stick against the goalpost, staring down at the cracked ice beneath her. Her skates had left deep grooves, paths that seemed to stretch forever, and yet, each path she had taken felt like it was leading nowhere. She was never going to be the first woman to make it into the men’s league, she had known that from the start.
But… What if she wasn’t the one standing on the sidelines, forever watching men chase their dreams on the ice while she stood back? What if there was another way?
Her heart beat faster at the thought. Her eyes lifted to the empty bleachers. The lights reflected off the glass panes, and in that moment, she knew. She wasn’t going to keep waiting for an invitation.
She was going to create her own.
A woman on the men’s team? It was nearly unheard of. No one had ever tried it, but that wasn’t going to stop her. There were always whispers about it, about women pretending to be men to play in the big leagues. It’s not possible, they said. You’d get caught in a second.
The more she thought about it, the more the idea took root. A disguise, a name change, a few strategically placed lies. What was stopping her from getting a shot at something she knew she deserved?
The truth was, she had already exhausted every other option. The women’s league would never give her a chance to prove herself. The men’s teams? They had no room for players who weren’t born with the “right” gender. She was different, she was good enough.
Ha-jun.
The name felt strange on her lips, foreign yet freeing. She had heard it once in passing, someone calling out to their teammate, and that’s how she’d gotten the idea in the first place. Ha-jun. It was a simple name, one no one would question.
She could be Ha-jun. She could wear the uniform, play the game, and be on the same ice as the men who had no idea what she was capable of.
The idea pulsed in her mind, so real, so possible.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but nothing worth doing ever was.
She dropped her stick and dropped to one knee, pulling off her gloves. Sweat had begun to pool at her temples, but it wasn’t from the cold. Her chest rose and fell as she exhaled slowly, breathing in the smell of frozen rubber and ice. The rink was cold, but inside her, the fire was burning bright.
The fire that had never died, despite all the rejections. The same fire that said, I am worth it and I will find a way.
She stood slowly, her heart racing as she stared at her reflection in the darkened glass. Ha-eun. Or Ha-jun. Either way, she had to make it happen.
With one last deep breath, she picked up her stick again and glided across the rink, each stride a promise to herself, to the game, to the dream she was determined to make real.
