The Bucket List

Chapter 2

Lets just say, getting into practice was very awkward.

My bags and equipment was slung over my shoulder and I was heading down in the back elevator to the locker rooms. The hall was not like the rest of the Garden, carpets and dark in a way. It was weird, but I trudged along until I saw Coach Julian who ushered me over.

“Emily, Right?” I nodded, and dropped my pads to talk to him in a more polite manner. He was the one who set this up for my sister.

“Okay, we are going to set up a little video shoot, so that they can play that tomorrow during the game. The shoot is after practice, so we are just going to give you a jersey, which is being made right now. Um… the locker rooms are right there, and Tim will give you all the heads up about the rundown of practice.” Coach said, waving me off and walking to the press that was trying to get a good question out.

I opened the door and a room of men; at least a half a foot or more, were sitting. Tim Thomas came over and hastily brought me to Tuukka Rask’s empty spot. He pulled his ACL a couple of weeks ago and hasn’t been cleared. My assumption was he was going to be cleared within the next two weeks.

“I’m Tim, and you will just sit here okay?” Tim seemed almost nervous trying to direct me to the spot.

“Thanks I guess.” I said, shrugging the equipment off and began to open it. I shuffled the pants and other pads around trying to find my cup, and when I did, I pulled down my pants and pulled on the jock.

“What are you doing?” A man said. French accent, so defiantly a Canadian.

“Putting on my pads?” I said, but it came more like a question. Tim gave me a look like I shouldn’t get into this, but I just couldn’t resist. What other way could I show I got enough balls to be here that go against someone practically twice my size?

“You took off your pants.” I saw the man; it was Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton.

“You play in boxers, cant I play in my undergarments?” I said sweetly. Shawn Thornton was laughing at the sight.

“I like your spunk kid. What’s your name?” Shawn asked me, coming over in half his uniform, to come and give me a hand shake.

“Emily. Emily Connell.” I said, shaking his hand lightly, and pulled socks out of my bag. Not the socks you put on your feet, the one that go on your legs. I pulled them up and Velcroed them to the cup. Shawn sat next to me instead of Horton and Lucic. More of the older men, mostly the married men, felt comfortable talking to me. The younger guys kind of stayed with themselves.

“Emily, I know its going to be hard today, because it is a new team, but don’t worry. Stick by me and I’m pretty sure they wont take too many slap shots at you.” The captain Chara joked with me. I looked up, then looked up again to see him face to face…. Sort of.

“You’re really tall.” I said, my neck cracked when they finally got sight of his face. I laughed to myself a bit.

“That’s what they all say.” Chara shrugged. Tim Thomas laughed too.

“Now you know how I feel. At least Tuukka has some height.” Tim sighed too, before leading me out through the tunnel. The benched appeared beneath my feet and soon enough I was on the ice of the infamous Garden. I broke out into a huge smile.

“Yeah, it hits me sometimes too. I just can’t help but smile.” Tim Thomas said, smiling as well. “Okay, so you are going to be at that net all the way over there, while I will be at this one. However, you will have Chara always by you, just because he is the captain but also because I’m pretty sure he thinks you are going to get hurt, so…” With that he skated away, and me following suit, except for in the other direction.

The sound of skates digging into the ice echoed as more and more feet began to move. The sound filtered up to my ears as I roughly scraped the blue crease, harder until white snow was piled at the crease edges.

“Relax, I’m sure the ice doesn’t want to take your abuse.” Tyler Seguin joked. “Seriously though, how come almost every goalie does that?” He slowly slid a puck through the piled, looking directly at me.

“I don’t know, I kind of just do. I never really thought about it.” I said, tapping the edges of the Tapping the pipes. Tyler smiled at me and shot the puck lightly at my pads. The puck rolled lazily away from my blue pad and I looked back up at him.

"You are going to have to shoot harder if you want a chance to get it past me." I joked. Suddenly, he got ahold of another puck and slid it between my skates.

"Like that?" Tyler smirked.

"Something like that." Rolling my eyes, I slid down into a butterfly and stretched out. Tyler skated away, and I just blanked out, staring at the ice thinking of everything and nothing.

Thoughts, useless ones that meant nothing, pooled into the back as if they assumed I was going to fish them out and bring them to the full attention that they thought they deserved. Instead thoughts of Anna opening her presents floated in my mind.

"Emily! Come over here!" I snapped my head over and there stood Anna. She was all alone on the bench. She was jumping up and down, the beanie I made for her wrapped around her head, and an old jersey of mine was being worn like a dress by her. Smiling, I slated over to the bench.

"What are you doing here!" I shouted, staking as fast as these heavy pads allowed me to. She smiled and pointed to a woman standing awkwardly behind the bench.

The woman was mousy haired and extremely tired looking. When she looked at me, dislike In her eyes, I realized it was my mom.

"This was my last Christmas present, and mommy brought me." she smiled brightly, showing her missing two front teeth.

The muscles in my mouth pulled mechanically up as hers did, and I gave a soft wave to my mother as a peace offering.

Skates scraped the ice behind me, and a round on "Hey, your that Anna girl coach was talking about."

"Omg! Where is Lucic? I love him so much." Anna whispered in my helmet. I smiled at her and called out "Oy! Lucic! Donde esta?"

"I speak French not Spanish Emily." Lucic said, his voice coming from my left side. "So what's up? You must be Anna I am assuming."

Anna placed her hand over her mouth in shock before I pushed Milan in front of me introducing Anna to him.

"This young girl, is the reason why I am here today. It's my" I looked at my mother, whose cold hard stare met my soft one. "sister's wish for me to be here."

"Well hello there little lady," Milan said, striking up a conversation with her and dragging Horton into it. He was all smiles, saying how Anna reminded him of his own daughter. I smiled, excited Anna was having such a good time.

I brushed past a couple of the other guys before getting to tue tunnel and yelling to my mom. Sh walked over, heels clicking in the obvious annoyance she was holding in.
"what?" She looked at me, tapping hr foot lightly when looking down at me.

"Thank you for bringing her. She will love the guys and I know this may not be important to you, but it's important to us and I'm glad you understand that." Her gaze softened a bit, understanding filled her eyes as she realized I was making a piece offering. She nodded once as if she understood and walked back to he seat behind Anna.

I sighed, knowing that this was her support, and skated back onto the ice.

"Hey Emily, come over here." Thomas called me over. He was standing near the center face off circle. I skated over and looked at me.

"Do you want to talk about anything?" Tim looked at me, and suddenly I was reminded of the Harry Potter and Dumbledore relationship in the second movie. I shook my head and he raise an eye brow.

"My father was the supportive one. He still is, but he doesn't come to any games that I know of." I smiled slightly. Thomas just opened us arms and gave me an awkward hug.

"Well you father would be extremely proud of you and your sister right now." I nodded slightly. I shrugged out of his hug, but the rest of the team saw the embrace and came skating over into one big group hug.

"This isn't a hugging practice. We can't hug the Canadians into a win, two laps and Connell get your butt over here." he. Boys quickly lumbered away, skating around the perimeter of the ice while I skated over to the bench and Coach Julian.

"They want to do the shoot now for the video so instead of doing sprints and suicides you can go and get the god damn video done." Coach pointed down the tunnel to a photographer who was waving his Arms at me. I amped back at him and walked towards him, saying a quick thank you and looking for Anna who was following behind me.

"Emily can I come with you?" Anna ran a little ways behind me. I smiled, and nodded, and she appeared by my side.

"Milan said I looked adorable today! Can you believe that? He said I was adorable!" My sister babbled on while I smiled encouraging her mindless chatter about boys.

"Ah you must be the newbie looking for the photo shoot. Here will do." A woman around 20 ushered me over to a secluded corner in front of a green screen. She quickly shot a video of my smiling and then shot a video of Anna smiling, because this was all for her. She dismissed us back to the practice, and walked away. Anna ran into my arms before I went back onto the ice. Her small arms wrapped around my neck.

"You will do great. I believe in you!" Anna whispered into my ear before running back to our mom. I smiled at her, and then got back onto the ice.