Hockey Is My Boyfriend: Part One (4 page)

S
eptember 2003

Eighteen months later

“
I
don’t want
to play with girls,” I bitched to Phil.

I knew I sounded like a five-year-old boy. We were in his family room, hanging out. We were still good friends, even though Phil had a steady stream of cute girlfriends. I didn’t think he got that serious with anyone though. Whatever, it wasn’t like I minded.

I kept talking. “I can’t believe I won’t be playing on the same hockey team with you guys this season.”

In the spring, Coach Jerry had spoken to my parents about switching me to girls’ hockey. He told them I might be a good enough player to have a chance at a U.S. college scholarship, but I needed to get seen by the right people. Which meant trying out for a girls’ rep team this year.

“Me either.”

Phil was playing his Fender guitar without being plugged in, but I knew he was noodling around and still paying attention to me.

“You know, I figured we’d have a good shot at the championship this season. Ian McGuire would be our goalie, and you’d be our top centre instead of Alexander what-his-face. He is such a tool.”

Phil nodded, but even he wasn’t into discussing hockey as much as I was. I had put the whole issue to the back of my mind all summer, but now that September had rolled around, I was starting to get worried. What was it going to be like, playing with a whole new team in a whole new league? New situations made me nervous.

“Girls can be so bitchy sometimes. I hope that the team won’t be all cliquey and weird.”

“I bet they’ll all love hockey as much as you do, and you’ll make some great friends. Plus I won’t have to worry about you being surrounded by guys all the time.”

“Worry? I’m not interested in guys like that, so don’t waste your time.”

“Just checking in.” Phil smiled. “Hey, do you want to hear the new song I wrote?” He was always writing music.

I nodded. “How come you never write lyrics?”

I would have preferred to hear him sing and play, because he had a cool singing voice. He sang other people’s stuff, but not his own.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I want to, but it’s tough to get inspired the way I do for chords and stuff.” Phil plugged into his amp and started playing. I closed my eyes, listened, and relaxed. It was helping me take my mind off my worries.

M
y hockey tryouts
went pretty well. I ended up on the top female team on the North Shore, the Avalanche. It was a little weird because they had all been playing together for a while and I was the only rookie on the team. I wasn’t the best player, but I was definitely one of the better ones. Over the summer, I had really amped up my gym training, and it was paying off on the ice.

My biggest issue had to do with hitting. In boys’ hockey, I was used to hitting. Here we were allowed to contact other players, but not to hit. What exactly was the difference?

I took two penalties in our first game, and our coach, Peter Miller, went nuts on me. He was a screamer, not like Jerry.

I found the whole game different: the passing was better, but the shooting was weaker. The goaltenders seemed to be better, but maybe that was because the shots weren’t so hard. Sometimes, I felt that the intensity was lacking. Boys would kill themselves to make a tiny play like keeping the puck in the zone, but girls seemed to be more in control. A little out of control was good in my books.

Unfortunately, there was some girl-gang thinking in the room. The team’s captain, Laura Armstrong, was a really skilled player, an aggressive centreman with a powerful shot. She was also a capital B-Bitch, and she didn’t like that I had come in and taken the place of one of her friends. On the ice, if I was open, neither she nor her close friends would pass to me. Since she was a big playmaker, that was going to be a problem. It was pretty stupid, but the coach hadn’t noticed yet so I hoped it would get straightened out. I could care less if they snubbed me in the dressing room, but if I couldn’t make a difference on the ice, what was the point of even being on this team?

One Thursday night, early in the season, the whole team was waiting at the arena because of some confusion with ice times. Laura decided that I needed to pass some random initiation rite.

“We all did something when we were rookies, so now it’s your turn, Kelly,” she declared.

Bullshit. I was willing to bet that Laura’s initiation was a handshake and a welcome to the team. I was also sure that she had cooked up some plan to humiliate me.

“Initiation rites are a throwback to prehistoric times,” I said. “I’m not doing it.”

“Well, if you’re afraid. It’s too bad that you lack the Avalanche spirit.”

“I’m not afraid, it’s stupid. And what’s in it for me, other than looking like an idiot?”

Laura frowned. “Why should something be in it for you? You’re part of a team and you should act like it.”

“No, you should act like it. You’re the captain.”

She really bugged me, all my life I’d been a team player but usually the team goal was about hockey wins and not popularity.

“How do I not act like a captain?”

“Well, like Sunday’s game. Late in the third period, I was wide open on the half boards, and you insisted on dishing off to the other wing. We lost the puck and a scoring opportunity. I don’t care if you like me, but on the ice you should use every player, that’s how we win.”

Suddenly, there were some whispers and a bit of head nodding. Clearly I wasn’t the only one suffering from Laura’s selective ways. She flushed pink and then tossed her hair.

“Okay, if you pass an initiation rite, I will pass to you more.”

“Not just to me, to everyone when it’s right and not only your friends,” I insisted. April always called me the patron saint of lost causes, but this was a chance to make the whole team better.

“Sure.” Laura started smiling, and I figured that she had a task in mind she knew I could not pass.

“All right, fire away,” I said, crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t have to streak the rink.

She pointed to the next sheet of ice where some guys our age were standing after their game. They were rep players, dressed in suits.

“See that guy—the cute blond guy. You have to get him to kiss you, in front of us. And you have to get a date with him.”

A
kiss and a date
? Yikes.

I totally got that I was a late bloomer. I mean, I was seventeen years old, in grade twelve, and I hadn’t actually gone out with a guy. But if you had spent most of your life hanging out with boys who constantly farted and burped, made lame sexist jokes and threw tape balls at you, maybe you would find it hard to switch gears and find the same boys attractive.

“Why him?” I wondered, and Laura pursed her lips.

Rosie Mair, our big defenceman, piped up. “Laura had a big crush on him last year. But apparently the feeling wasn’t mutual.”

Laura spun around and gave her a death glare. Rosie just smirked; she was about 160 pounds of solid muscle and not afraid of anyone.

Apparently, Laura figured that if she couldn’t get anywhere with this guy, a socially backward tomboy like myself had no chance. Her mistake.

When I looked closely at him, I realized that it was Nicklas Ericsson. We had actually played on the same team back in Bantam house, when he was a super-skilled but totally undersized forward. Then he had an enormous growth spurt, and the rep coaches had started salivating. He went to a different high school and I hadn’t talked to him in a couple of years, but I figured there was a possibility he would come through for me here. Anyway, I had never stepped down from a challenge.

“Okay, a kiss and a date,” I said.

I hopped off the bleachers and headed over to the other side of the rink. There was a ton of giggling and whispering behind me. This was totally the kind of thing that made me never want to play girls’ hockey. I would much rather have a stinky jock thrown at me or a water bottle dumped on my head. Physical pain was better than the mental scars from something like getting rejected in front of two hockey teams.

As I approached the guys, they looked at me and then looked away. Not a good start, but whatever. I approached Nicklas from the far side, so my team would not be able to see that he recognized me.

“Hey Nicklas.”

“Hey Kelly,” he responded. “How are you?”

He was always a polite guy. Up close I could see why Laura had been smitten. He was definitely cute, with cropped blond hair, blue eyes, and a squared-off jaw. I vaguely remembered that he was Swedish or something. Not my type though. I preferred guys who were smart, funny, and dark-haired. If memory served, Nicklas was no brain trust.

“Um, could you please shake my hand and pretend we’re meeting for the first time,” I asked.

His friends looked at me like I was an alien. This initiation rite was not going to be humiliation-free. Nicklas raised an eyebrow, but shook my hand and then waited for the next request.

“I need to talk to you alone for a sec.”

We walked away from the other guys, who were now quite interested and watching us. One guy caught Nicklas’s eye, and they both grinned; probably girls asked him out all the time.

“Look, I’ve joined a girls’ team this year, and now they want me to pass this stupid initiation rite.”

“Which is?” Nicklas looked worried.

“I have to get a date with you and kiss you, here at the rink, in front of them.”

He looked at me like I was nuts. I looked over his shoulder and saw my whole team watching us intently. Nicklas shook his head. It was pretty clear that he didn’t want to be seen with me in public.

“Yeah, right. Sorry, Kelly, but that’s not happening. You’re not my type.”

I saw my opportunity slipping away, and decided to lay the whole thing out for him.

“You know, it’s not like this is a big dream for me either. Laura, the captain, has promised to pass the puck and play more fairly if I get this done. So I’m doing it for the good of the team.”

Nicklas laughed. “I should have known. Kelly Tanaka would never come on to a guy except for the good of the team. You were always all hockey. And is that Laura Armstrong?”

“Yeah, do you know her?”

We both looked across the rink where Laura was smirking and talking to her buddies. The longer this took, the less likely I was succeeding.

“Too well.” He was smiling too. “But listen, you don’t like me or anything, do you?”

“Like you? Nicklas, we haven’t spoken in a couple of years! It’s not like I’m stalking you. Plus I could never date a guy who’s such a puck hog.”

He threw back his head and laughed out loud. “I almost forgot what you’re like, Kelly.”

“So, you’ll go on the fake date? We could go for a run, or maybe to a movie you want to see. I’ll pay for everything. Please.”

He hesitated for a moment. “Sure, let’s go and see Kill Bill. I’ve been meaning to catch that. You’re buying me popcorn too. I’ve got no game tomorrow. If we catch the early show, then I can still meet up with my buddies afterwards. But Kelly—no tracksuits—you’ll have to dress up. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“Like I would wear this if I didn’t have a game.”

“No, if I remember correctly, you might wear something worse. Dress up,” he repeated.

“Whatever. Thanks a lot, Nicklas. I’ll get your number and call you later.”

“Wait, aren’t you forgetting the other part of the dare?”

“Oh yeah, well a quick peck on the cheek would be fine,” I hedged. Nicklas was looking big and masculine up close, and I was a little nervous. I had only ever kissed one guy before.

“No, this is for Laura, who drove me nuts for months.”

He turned sideways so my teammates would have a perfect view. Then Nicklas bent down and put his arms around me and kissed me big time. My arms went up around his neck automatically. His mouth was wet and hard, and I could feel the bristly hair where he hadn’t shaved. But beyond that, I could feel this electricity coursing through my body, as if it was waking up and I was suddenly extra alive. I think he felt it too, because we kept kissing. I could hear hooting from his teammates and screaming from my teammates, but the noise was all far away.

When we finally broke off the kiss, I staggered back and stared at him. He might have been a puck hog, but he was suddenly looking pretty damn good to me.

“Shit.” We both said it at the same time.

I backed away from him. His teammates were making comments like, “Hey babe, is it my turn now?” but I walked by like a zombie. How could a kiss affect me so much?

I managed to shake off the daze by the time I got back to my team. A couple of players came up to hug and high-five me as if I had actually accomplished something. Laura walked over, and I took a deep breath.

“Did you get the date too?” she asked. Her tone was less arrogant already.

“Yup. We’re going to a movie tomorrow.”

“How the hell did you do that?” she asked in amazement.

“I just asked.” I shrugged. There was no doubt I had had an unfair advantage but I wasn’t telling her that.

She looked skeptically at me, as if measuring my attractiveness against hers and still coming up short. Then she smiled thinly. “Well, welcome to the team.”

This probably wasn’t the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but that evening Laura kept her word and started passing the puck around more, which was great. And then later in the dressing room, some of the girls were really friendly. I figured that they were the ones Laura had already pissed off.

Maybe my hockey season was coming together after all. I should have been happy, but with this fake date looming, all I felt was nervous.

E
veryone
on the planet could have given me dating advice. But since my problem combined sex and fashion, the perfect person to see was my best friend. April was a total fashion diva. We were the same height, but she came to school in outfits that could have come off the pages of Vogue, or Teen Vogue anyway.

About a year ago, April broke her ankle and had to stop doing ballet. She’d turned her energies towards acting and had gotten a commercial, as well as starring roles in all the school plays. She was really cute with light brown hair, greenish-grey eyes, and perfect skin. April had been dating since grade eight, so she was the one to ask about this crazy electricity thing.

I went over to April’s the next day to talk and to get some fashion advice for the movie date.

“Do you think that a kiss can change your life?” I asked, diving right in.

April nodded. “Definitely. But I think you may have a reason for asking this, so spill.”

“I kissed a guy, and it kind of rocked my world.”

“You kissed someone?” April was stunned.

“Why is that so shocking?”

“Um, because you’re seventeen and as far as I know, you’ve never even been interested in guys. You’ve been a total freak until now.”

“I like guys.”

“Yes, to hang out with, to play hockey with, to go running with. Not to make out with. Was it Phil?”

“No. Why would it be Phil?”

“Because he likes you, and you guys are always hanging out.”

“Phil is at a swim meet this weekend, and besides, he has a girlfriend.”

“Phil always has a girlfriend. Who is it this week?”

“I don’t remember, someone from Handsworth, starts with ‘A.’ Anita? Anaconda? Antarctica?”

April wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned in for the interrogation. “If not Phil, who did you kiss?”

“Nicklas Ericcson.”

“More info, please.”

“He’s blond, I think he goes to private school in West Van. He plays right wing for the North Van Triple A Midget team.”

“A hockey player. I should have guessed. So, how did this happen?”

“An initiation prank. I had to get a kiss and a date.” I explained the whole thing to April. “But the thing was, when I kissed him—wow, it was amazing. And I started liking him, which I never did before. I wanted to, you know, kiss him some more and stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah, like my whole body wanted to get in on the action. I think he must be an extra good kisser.”

“Not a total shock. You’re a very physical person, Kelly. I’m surprised that something like this didn’t happen before. You’re finally becoming normal.”

“I’m normal!”

“Really? Have you not noticed everyone around you dating and hooking up while you lead a nun’s life?”

I made a face. “Charmaine doesn’t date.”

“Charmaine has the world’s strictest parents. They’d like to arrange her marriage if they could. What’s your excuse?”

I didn’t say a word. My mom would like nothing better than to see me go on a date.

“So, is he cute?”

“I guess. Laura thought he was. But he doesn’t like me or anything; he’s only helping me out here. Oh yeah, he told me I need to dress up for our date so I don’t wreck his rep.”

“Charming, yet true. Oh boy, this is my big chance. If you’re getting interested in guys, you can start dressing better.”

“What’s wrong with what I wear?” I looked down at my body: Cons, jeans, a green t-shirt with the faded logo of a Squamish Peewee hockey tourney. Okay, maybe I could look better.

April was scornful. “Nothing if you’re ten—no actually, if you’re a ten-year-old boy. You need to maximize your assets.”

“My assets?”

“You need tighter jeans and tops that fit properly in nice colours. If you want to get laid, you’ll need to fix things up a bit.”

Did I want to get laid? That sounded like ten steps beyond where I was. All I wanted was to go out on my fake date and maybe get another of those electrical kisses, even if Nicklas was only doing it out of charity.

Off we went to the mall. Shopping was April’s very favourite pastime. In the first store, April stuck me in the fitting room and kept bringing me clothes.

“Come out here,” she commanded, after a few minutes.

I stuck my head out from behind the curtain. “April, I can’t. The jeans you brought me are waaaaay too tight.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Let’s see.”

I crept out. She eyed me up and down. “They fit you. God, Kelly, you’ve been wearing guy’s jeans so long you have no idea. You have a great ass! You need to show it off.”

I looked behind me in the mirror; my butt looked like a regular butt to me, maybe a little on the big side from skating.

“Wait, what’s wrong with that top?” April asked, frowning. She walked all around me. “What kind of bra do you have on?”

“A sports bra.” What other kind would I wear?

“Oh my God, I have to take you underwear shopping too. Do you not have a real bra? Please tell me you don’t wear boxers!”

“Of course not, I wear boy cut briefs.”

“What colour are they?”

“White cotton. Cotton is better because it breathes,” I said, quoting my mom.

April pretended to bang her head against the wall. “God give me patience. I knew you were socially stunned, but I didn’t realize the extent of things.” She took a deep breath and put her shoulders back. “Okay, we’re getting you a whole new wardrobe today. And when you get home, you have to promise me to throw out your old baggy jeans and any t-shirts with hockey stuff on them.”

“But jeez, that’s pretty much my entire closet.”

“Exactly,” said April, nodding. “And I’ll be over later to make sure you’ve done it. It’ll be like an episode of
What Not To Wear
. Look, Kelly, you came to me to look better, right? And it’s not just for a guy. Looking good makes life go more smoothly.”

I doubted this idea, but April was full of self-confidence on the subject. I submitted quietly to her advice and bought everything she told me to. My mom would be thrilled that I was finally using my clothing allowance, and hopefully Nicklas would think I looked nice. Whoa, where did that thought come from?

Back at her place, April sat me down at her dressing table. “Okay, makeup time.”

“Really? I don’t want to wear a lot of makeup,” I protested. This date was turning into a way bigger deal than I thought.

“Don’t worry, Kelly. After all these years, I know you.” April and I had been friends ever since I moved to North Van seven years ago. “Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes, felt April’s fingers near my eyes and then a sharp pain.

“Ouch! What are you doing?” I asked. My eyes flew open, and she was holding a pair of zebra print tweezers with one of my hairs in them.

“Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to clean up your eyebrows? You have nice brows, but when I take out a few stray hairs, it’s really going to open up your eyes.”

“But it hurts,” I protested. My eyes were watering as she kept plucking.

“Don’t be a baby. I’m sure getting slammed into the boards hurts more than having your eyebrows plucked.”

Well yeah, but at least in hockey I had equipment on to protect me. Afterwards, April got some ice to cool my sore skin then continued with makeup. Other than the eyelash curling, nothing else hurt.

“A natural look is totally your style. You have great skin; so just some mascara, tinted lip gloss, a touch of eye shadow in a nice neutral colour.” She worked on me as she spoke. Then she brushed my hair. “No ponytail tonight. Wear your hair down.”

When she finished, she put me in front of a mirror.

I looked totally different.

I had on these dark navy jeans that were tight at the top, low-rise, and flared. I wore a navy cotton top with a deep v-neck and I had cleavage—yes, cleavage—for the very first time, thanks to the engineering magic of La Senza. I also had a thong on, which was pretty hard to get used to, and it made me think more about sex and Nicklas. I borrowed a crazy fringed jacket from April, and I was ready to go to the movies for my charity date.