Head On

Dana feels herself slipping into the proverbial “zone.” She almost thinks it’s a shame to waste being so dialed in on a practice, but even that thought fails to break through the barrier that shuts the rest of the world out. Her breathing slows as a sense of calm comes over her.

In front of her, zipping across the ice in a zigzag so tight a dragonfly would be envious, her friend streaks across the ice. She dekes the puck a few times before a quick flick of the wrist sends the puck flying.

Dana tracks it with ease as it trails through the air, looking to eke past her left shoulder. She pulls her legs in, raising her body just enough. The puck hits her shoulder, the smack of it against her pads dulled by the thick weave of her practice sweater. It flies off, already forgotten as Dana refocuses her eyes, looking for the next attacker.

A sharp whistle blows, piercing the air and halting everything around. Dana can almost feel the dilation of her eyes relax as the trill brings her back into real time. She blinks twice before looking towards the source of the tiny, metallic shriek.

Coach Marsten, her auburn hair flowing out of her helmet, lazily placed on her head and unclasped, skates towards the center of the practice rink. “All right, ladies, that’s good for today! Everyone circle up.”

Dana lifts her facemask, pyramiding her helmet over the crown of her head. She can feel the loose, blond strands of hair caked to her forehead where they broke free from the lazy braid she wove hours ago. Resting her stick against the goalpost, she reaches for the water bottle cradled in the top of the net. With a squeeze, a jet of water arcs into her mouth. Some of it misses, splashing her chin, but she doesn’t mind. The coolness is refreshing, and she enjoys the feel as it trails along her jaw and joins the sweat that soaks the collar of her jersey.

“Jurik, you too! Just bring the bottle with you, everyone’s waiting.” Coach calls from the center of the rink where a circle of the other fifteen women on the team are already surrounding her.

Dana doesn’t apologize as she leaves her stick behind, skating towards center ice with another quick swallow of water. Saying anything would just call more attention to her, which is the last thing she wants when she’s already embarrassed for being too slow.

As she glides up to her place in the circle, her friend, Brandy, pats her shoulder with a gloved hand. “Nice save, Dana. Thought I’d get ya with a fakeout.”

Dana gives the girl a wink. “Not after you told me you’ve been working on it all week.”

Brandy shrugs as her unclasped mask dangles loosely from her helmet in front of her face and the two girls share a smile.

Coach Marsten looks around at the team that surrounds her. “Good job out there today, girls. We’re looking smooth. It’s starting to sink in but remember what we’re working on. None of these are specific ‘plays.’ We work on tools to use in scenarios as they come up. It’s a system. We’re getting better at it, but I’m still seeing too much of the rigid pass-twice-then-shoot type of play. We position ourselves and when we find the opening we use it.”

There’s a chorus of nods and grunts of agreement as the team soaks in the words of wisdom. Most of the speech has been said before. The girls on the Great Lakes University women’s hockey team come from junior teams that emphasized memorizing plays to repeat in games. It was the way most teams manage to reign in the inexperienced hotshots getting excited every time they have two feet of ice in front of them. So, when they come to a team like the Steamers, there’s a period of reprogramming that needs to happen where they stop looking for the play and start looking for the right tool to fit the situation. Especially a young team like GLU with over half the squad only first or second year students.

For Dana, the speech is only a passing interesting. As a goalie, her game has always been scenario-based. A goalie doesn’t have “moves” or “plays.” A goalie has nothing but situations to deal with: heavy traffic, breakaway, sharpshooter, power-play. Her only move is “stop the puck.”

Coach Marsten draws Dana back in from her reverie. “Jurik, that’s good goal-work. I like how dialed in you are. We’re gonna stick with you starting this Saturday. Just remember that cutting off the angles works both ways. You can drop back to block off those angles from passes. But if you don’t have to worry about the pass, you can block those angles up front and suffocate them under pressure.”

Dana nods, instinct recognizing that the cadence of Coach’s voice is looking for response. But her mind tuned out when she heard the confirmation that she was starting for this weekend’s game.

The season started off tense for Dana. She came onto the GLU Steamers on scholarship with high hopes surrounding her name. Best in her junior league, tending three shutouts throughout her team’s playoff victory run, she had caught the attention of multiple scouts. But she chose GLU as her hometown university. It was the only choice, as far as she was concerned. Since first playing hockey as a pipsqueak in a local rink’s pee-wee league at six, she had looked up to the Steamers as her idols. As she grew and watched women’s hockey gradually grow with the inception of a new, professional league while she was in middle school, playing for the Steamers had become a stepping stone for an even bigger dream that hadn’t seemed possible for her before. But even as “just” a stepping stone, the Steamers had been the team she had watched every chance she could, cajoling her parents into buying tickets any time she had a weekend off from her own games and practices. So, when the opportunity came, it wasn’t a question for her. There was no other team she would join, no matter how prestigious.

Coming in, it was a naturally competitive environment, made even more cutthroat by the fact that both previous goalies were gone, one to graduation and another to moving away internationally to be closer to family. That left the role of starting goalie open for Dana and Heather, another incoming freshman, to fight over. The first few practices had been tense with the two openly at odds until Coach Marsten sat them down to have a talk. It had revolved around cohesion and appreciating that all roles on the team were important and both girls had nodded and played nice since. But the competition between the two had never truly subsided, only being covered by a thin veneer of politeness. Even all the way into November, each practice was a tense setting of both watching each other carefully and doing everything they could to outdo each other. In some ways, Dana was glad for it as it had pushed her to learn more and improve faster than she ever had before. When the time came for the first official season game, Dana had gotten the nod for starting goaltender and had managed to hold the role throughout the season so far. Now that they were back from Thanksgiving and heading deeper into the season, practices almost felt more critical than before as her chance to solidify her spot. Every week that it was confirmed by Coach that she was still slated to start was a small relief for Dana.

“Okay, ladies. Hands in. Let’s hit the showers and call it a day.” Coach Marsten gestured the girls in, pulling Dana out of her second space venture.

Skating in tight, the ladies all press a hand into the center of the group as the team captain starts the traditional call and answer for the rest of the team to finish.

“Fire Up!”

“Steamers!”

The team brakes and everyone makes their languid way towards the locker room. As Dana turns to retrieve her stick, she hears Heather call out. “One of these days I’ll catch up to you, Jurik!”

It was said as a jest, but Dana feels the jeer like a bee; cute, but it stings. Still, she isn’t going to give Heather the satisfaction of showing that it bothers her. “Not if I can help it!”

Dana rolls her eyes to herself as she reaches the net. Not the best line she’s ever come up with. But it serves the purpose, and she sighs with relief as she looks over her shoulder, spotting Heather, her own bulky frame, disappearing past the bench and into the locker room. Any more playing nice would be more than she wants at the end of practice, when all she does want is a shower and dinner.

As she grabs her stick, the wooden greatsword practically as big as her, she lets herself smile. She lets herself feel the pride of keeping her starting place for yet another game. Turning to head towards the locker room, she sees Jana and Brandy skating towards her.

Holding up a hand for knuckles, Jana makes it up first. “Nice work, Tendie! Starting another game!”

Dana grins as she bumps Jana’s hand with her own mitted paw. Brandy is right behind, tapping her shoulder with the butt of her stick. “You’d better be as sharp on Saturday as you were today. I’m gonna’ feel like a real loser if everyone else gets past you when I couldn’t.”

Dana rolls her eyes. “Yeah, thanks for that. No pressure, right?”

Jana chuckles as the three start making their way towards the locker room together. “Oh please, you thrive under the pressure, Brandy. Besides, you’re on a six-game hot streak, right Brandy? Eight goals total in that span? No way are those hags from Ohio gonna keep up with that.”

Brandy groans. “Great, now I’m the one getting jinxed.”

The three girls laugh and jostle each other as they reach the edge of the ice. As they’re stepping off the ice, a little way down they see a slender figure in a black tracksuit exit from the visitor tunnel. He sports dark brown hair that looks like it gets cut every three days and stays perfectly in place as he steps onto the ice..

Jana is the first to stop. “Ooh, is that the new figure skater everyone is hot for?”

The other two girls stop, following Jana’s gaze. Brandy grins. “Yeah, that’s the one! Who knew they made butts that tight in Nebraska?”

Jana snorts. “How do you know he’s from Nebraska?”

Brandy elbows the taller girl. “Because I know how to pay attention! His track suit says ‘Omaha Youth Figure Skating’ on it!” There’s a pause before Brandy gives the others a sly look and adds, “and I may have looked him up after watching him skate earlier this semester.”

Jana giggles as she gives Brandy a look. “Such a stalker! Gonna go make a move?”

Brandy’s face scrunches. “No way! He’s pretty and all, but I don’t need a distraction like that in my life right now. Besides, look how perfect he looks. The dude probably spends two hours in front of the mirror each morning.”

Jana rolls her eyes. “What about you, Dana? Two freshman phenoms on the ice? Sounds like a match made in heaven.”

Dana flushes, her cheeks burning red even through her post-practice flush. “What? No! I’m with Brandy. Who needs a relationship in the middle of the season? Besides, Brandy’s right. Just look at him. I bet he’s the highest maintenance pretty-boy on campus.”

Jana lets a chuckle go as she reaches up to take off her own helmet. “Never say never, Tendie. Sounds. To me like you’re just setting up a classic enemies-to-lovers story.”

Dana snorts, hoping her blush isn’t too obvious as she elbows Jana in the ribs. “Shut up! You read too many smut books!”

Jana ignores Dana’s jab and lets her pitch-black hair fall over her dark-brown neck and padded shoulders as she undoes her ponytail. She calls to the boy just as he’s about to step on the ice. “Hey! I’d give it a minute for the Zamboni to go. The ice is pretty torn up right now.”

The boy turns and flashes a smile. Dana notices that his teeth aren’t as perfect as she imagined, though his hair defines perfection from every angle. As he grins, he calls back. “Thanks for the warning! How long until they clean it up?”

Jana shrugs, her own smile charming as can be. “He’s usually pretty quick about it. Give it ten minutes and he’ll be here.”

The boy nods. “Great, thanks!”

As he turns to sit on the bench and wait for the Zamboni, he gives the three girls a wink. Brandy and Jana openly giggle, but Dana scowls, glad she can use the end of practice as an excuse for the flush she feels burning brighter and brighter with every second this interaction continues.

Taking the lead, Dana turns to stomp towards the locker room, her skate blades thudding on the thick rubber floor. “Ugh, cocky too. Yeah, no way I’d bother with a pretty-boy like him.”

Jana giggles, following Dana into the tunnel. “I dunno, I think he’s cute. Bet he’s confident enough to keep up with hockey brat like you too, Dana.”

Brandy, following close behind the others, pipes up too as she slides her own helmet off. “Don’t fall for it, Dana! The cuter they are the more trouble they are! Especially if they know it!”

As the ladies make it to the locker room, joining the rest of their team, Dana sulks her way to her locker, starting the arduous process of removing the forty pounds of gear she’s wearing. She relishes the task, though, as it’s a moment of quiet for her. While the other girls all chatter and jostle each other, taking turns in the showers and making plans for the evening, Dana methodically removes her gear, letting her mind process the events of the practice.

Today, though, her mind drifts back to the interaction at the edge of the ice. That boy. Emory was his name, though she only knew that because of his relative fame around campus. Something about him just rubs her the wrong way. It isn’t that she has a distaste for male figure skaters at large, or so she tells herself. But anyone with so much overconfidence can’t be anything but trouble. Being full of yourself as a freshman is as unappealing as anything else she can imagine.

As she finishes taking off the last of her gear, Dana goes about removing her base layer, peeling the sweat-soaked polyester from her skin. Grabbing her shower kit, she heads to the block of stalls while most of the other girls are already making their way out. Turning on the already-hot water from whoever was in there last, she lets the water flow through the yellow strands of hair, as she begins the process of feeling clean once again.

Sparing the boy a final thought, she simply wonders to herself how anyone could be so confident in themselves anyways.