To Prove What You're Worth

To Prove What You’re Worth
Chapter Two

First thing Coach Houda was going to test me on was my speed. He put four cones about four feet out from the corners of the rink. I had to skate around those cones and the goals as fast as I could.

“I’ll be timing you. Get ready.” That was no surprise.

I grabbed one of my three hockey sticks and skated to the starting line, the mid-line that divided the rink into two equal sections. I took my stance and squeezed my stick.

Coach came to stand next to my starting line. He held a stop watch.

“Ready. Set.”

It seemed like forever before he said:

“Go!”

I shot off like a rocket. I took the turns tight and close to the cones. I felt the wind on my face; it was a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was alive again.

It was too soon when I crossed the finish line. I wanted to go on forever.

I slowed and banked a turn, coming to stand by my testing Coach. He had a folder and was holding the clock next to what looked like times in a list form.

He started at the bottom, no doubt the slowest times, and moved the stopwatch up the paper. I held my breath as his hand kept going higher. It finally stopped very close to the top. He used a pen to put an arrow between two names and wrote mine down with the time.

“Congratulations, Mia, you are the fifth fastest player on the roster. You’re even faster than your brother here.”

I beamed and glanced over to the bench where Nathan was. He gave me two thumbs up.

“Now, we’re going to do it again but you’ll be skating backwards.”

After was an obstacle course of sorts. At first, it just looked like a bunch of cones scattered around the rink, but as Coach Houda walked me through it, I could see what I needed to do. There was controlled turning here, sprints there, it all made sense.

My time was fantastic, Coach said; he didn’t give me my standing in the roster like he had before, unfortunately.

Slightly out of breath and dry in the mouth, Coach let me go get a drink of water from Nathan as he set up my next test: puck control.

I skated over to Nathan and saw he wasn’t alone. I easily recognized Shawn Thornton sitting with him. They were talking rather animatedly. Nathan stood up with a water bottle as I approached.

“How do I look out there so far?” I asked after a squirt of water in my mouth.

“Your speed is still there, that’s for sure. You’re doing great.” Nathan patted me hard on the back after a sip, sending me into a coughing fit.

“Oi, that’s not nice!” I growled as I retaliated by squirting water back at him out of the water bottle I was currently holding.

I smiled triumphantly as I successfully got him in the face.

As he was wiping his face, Shawn Thornton, whom I had forgotten about, startled me.

“Are you cheating on your wife, Horton?” he asked his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Nathan stopped wiping his face and I stopped laughing, both of us with some level of shock on our faces. I recovered first.

“What? Me and Nathan? God, no! He’s my brother!”

Thornton looked surprised. “Nate, you never told me you had a sister!”

Nathan shrugged. “It never came up I guess.”

The Bruins’ enforcer turned to me. “What are you doing here?” he asked interested.

Before I could make a snide comment on how he should mind his own business, Coach Houda called my name signaling he was done setting up.

I thankfully skated away.

Puck control consisted of weaving a puck through a line of other pucks placed six to seven inches apart. My puck or my stick could not touch any of the other pucks. I had to get through the line back and forth four times each way. Coach Houda was watching intently to make sure that nothing touched anything it wasn’t supposed to.

It was hard, very hard.

The first time through, I messed up on the third row coming back. I wanted to scream, I couldn’t mess up on anything!

Coach only said to try again.

I got it the second time fully.

Next I had to weave around twenty cones in a line. There were four rows of them, and they weren’t placed evenly apart.

This was one of my favorite exercises and one that I excelled in. It required speed, and control of both the turns and the puck. I had to weave through all four rows of twenty as fast as I could. No touching the cones or I would start over.

As I took my starting position, I snuck a glance over to the bench. I saw Nathan and Thornton there, but now, there were even more players. I didn’t have a chance to get nervous or giddy. I didn’t have the chance to see who they were because Coach Jarvis blew his whistle and then it was just me, my puck, the ice, and those blasted cones.

(Milan Lucic’s POV)

I was putting my gear on, getting ready for practice. I was late today; it wasn’t the usual time I got here. It was because of a fight my girlfriend and I had gotten into. Stressed would be an understatement to how I was feeling today. I needed to be on the ice.

“All you do is hockey! You never pay attention to me anymore!”

My girlfriend’s words rang through my head; she’d said them earlier today and it had struck a cord inside me. I loved hockey so much, but I also loved my family and her. I couldn’t choose between them. I loved them both equally. Hockey required me to travel, plus the practices I had every day at the home rink added up until my girl had snapped this morning.

I had the sense of foreboding in my stomach; this was just a spark to something much bigger.

I was the only player in the locker room. I was lacing up my skates when my teammate, Patrice Bergeron, came in.

“Hey Looch, there’s a new skater on the rink. Coach Houda is testing him out with the cones and he’s pretty good at it. Shawn has been watching him from the beginning, said he’s passing the tests in flying colors. You guys should come take a look.”

Patrice had waited for me.

I nodded to him as I passed, I didn’t feel like talking.

As I emerged from the tunnel to the rink, my eyes focused on all of the team that was on the bench. They were watching the skater on the ice intently. My eyes shifted over to watch.

The skater was on his second to last row of cones. And he was moving fast and purposefully, weaving in and out.

One thing that caught my eye was that he was wearing my good friend and line mate’s practice jersey. Who was he? How did he know Nathan?

The skater finished the test with flying colors and rested his stick on his knees, his upper body hunched over. It was then that I noticed that he was very small. Probably the smallest out here right now.

One of our assistant coaches, Doug Houda, skated up to him and said something, motioning to the bench.

“Excuse me, buddy.” I looked to my left to see Nathan moving to the gate I was currently blocking. I moved and he went out onto the ice. He was carrying a water bottle.

The skater and Nathan met half way and the team and I watched as they hugged.

A couple of my teammates murmured to each other. The rest of us, as well as myself, were wondering who the hell was this guy.

A voice clearing his throat next to me caught my attention, as well as the team’s. Our Coach, Claude Julien, as well and the rest of our coaching staff had appeared. I noticed our general manager and president behind in the tunnel. What was going on?

I had no time to think about it because Coach had started speaking to the team. Practice had officially begun.

(Mia’s POV)

Nathan and I hugged tightly. I couldn’t believe I had gotten the best time in this final drill.

“I’m proud of you,” I heard my older brother whisper to me.

“Thank you.” I was proud of me, too.

We released each other and I took off my glove to shake Coach Houda’s outstretched hand.

“Sorry, Coach, my hand is sweaty.” I laughed.

“Hey, it’s part of being a hockey player, kid.” He returned my smile, and then motioned for Nathan and me to return to the bench.

What I saw there made me shake slightly from nerves. The whole team was there, and Coach Claude was talking to them.

This was it, the moment of truth. I gulped audibly.

Nathan heard it and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, offering support.

I recognized basically everyone on the bench. There were a few faces I couldn’t put names to because they were back up, or did not play too often.

I swept my eyes over my new teammates. There was Milan Lucic, Zdeno Chara, Brad Marchand, Tyler Seguin, Tim Thomas, and many, many more. My gaze was drawn over to the far left of the mass of males to the one and only Milan Lucic. His beard was big, although not as huge as Chara’s, but what startled me was that he was staring at me.

My stomach dropped. Did he know who I was? Did he know I was a woman?

Oh my God I can’t—

It was then I realized I was panicking and blowing everything out of proportion.

I took a calming breath. I needed to be brave. Who the hell was this girl who was panicking about being judged by a bunch of bearded men? They could go to hell for all I cared about. And where was the Mia who kicked ass?

What was I going to do?

I smoothed the wrinkle in my brow and put on an expression of determination, one that I knew all too well. I gently unwrapped my brother’s arm from around my shoulders.

Nathan looked at me questionably.

I leaned in close to whisper, “I appreciate the comforting gesture, but I’m going to do this like a true Mia Carter would. It’s time for me to man-up.”

Nate’s face broke out into a grin. “That sounds more like you.”

We stood just behind and to the left of the coaches. Coach Claude paused in his speech, took a breath, and glanced over at me. I immediately knew what he was going to do.

He was going to take the plunge. It was time.

“Now, as all of you know, Horton was injured at last night’s game. He has a concussion and won’t be playing in the rest of the finals. But he has graced us with his presence here today at practice.”

All eyes drifted over to us and there was a small round of applause. Nathan waved cheekily.

Coach Claude started to say something else when Chara asked a question probably most of the players were dying to know the answer to.

“Who will be taking his place on his line?”

“I was just getting to that.” Coach Claude answered; there was a small smile on his face. It was as if he was going to enjoy what was going to happen next. “I would like to introduce to you Mia Renee Carter, Horton’s sister, who will be taking his place as striker.”

All eyes were once again on me. There was a shocked and pregnant silence. Until…

“I told you it wasn’t a guy! It was a girl all along! I told you!” Shawn Thornton stood up and yelled at Patrice Bergeron. He then sat down and crossed his arms, looking smug.

That was totally unexpected. I never thought Thornton would be looking self-satisfied after that announcement. I looked around among the team to gauge their responses. What I saw was not surprising.

Pure disbelief, skepticism, confusion, there were even a few expressions of anger too. There was everything I expected.

One player, whom I easily identified as Milan Lucic opened his mouth. He was one of the few who had an angry expression on his face.

“Coach, you can’t be serious. I mean, look at her, she’s small, she probably can’t take a hit from us! Not to mention she’s a girl. How old are you anyways?” His last question was directed towards me as he glared at me, and it was very unnerving, but I held my head high.

“I’m twenty years old,” I said loud and clear.

Lucic bristled, “How can we expect to win with a little girl on this team?”

“Hey, you saw her skills with the last test with the cones. Give her a damn chance for God’s sake!” Nathan cut in glaring at his team. I could feel the anger and brotherly protective instinct radiating off of him.

Lucic looked at him, surprised. His best friend never yelled at him and it was disturbing.

“Actually, her testing isn’t done.” Coach Houda interrupted the argument. “Her last tests are her performances during drills and how she hits and plays during an actual game.”

“Yes, today we are just going to scrimmage. There will be two lines on each team, with a couple extras who will be rotated in. I already have the teams decided. Let’s get to it.” Coach Claude Announced.

Five minutes later, I was getting on the ice for the scrimmage. Surprisingly, the lines were not the regular ones.

The teams were as such: the centers on my team were Chris Kelly, Gregory Campbell, and I. Since there were only two lines and three centers, Kelly and Campbell had to alternate shifts in line two. Line one was my own. To my left was Rich Peverley; to my right was Mark Recchi. Line two had Daniel Paille and Shawn Thornton. My defense players were Adam McQuaid, Tomas Kaberle, and Shane Hnidy. They were to rotate out. My goalie was Tuukka Rask.

Team Bergeron, or as I named them, Team Death, was this: The centers were Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. The wings were Milan Lucic on the left and Brad Marchand on the right for line one. For line two, there was Tyler Seguin, and Michael Ryder. The defense was insane, Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg were paired up like usual for line one. Line two was Andrew Ference and Johnny Boychuk.

The teams were totally weird and somewhat unfair, but then, my old saying came back to haunt me.

Never lose faith in your teammates.

I let out a breath that I hadn’t intentionally been holding.

“Hold on,” I said to Coach Houda, who was waiting with the puck for Bergeron and me, we were facing each other on the center dot, to get into our face-off positions.

I turned around, very aware that all players’ eyes were on me, and made eye contact with Adam McQuaid.

I winked at him.

His eyes widened ever so slightly, nobody else saw it. He then gave me the littlest of nods. He knew that I was going to try to chip the puck back to him. He was ready.

I sighed so that it looked like I had been gathering my nerves. I faced my opponent again. Coach Houda was smirking slightly, knowing what I had been doing, while Bergeron was looking impatient.

I took my stance, legs wide to steady me, knees slightly bent. I held my hockey stick with my bottom hand near the blade and my top half way down it. With my position set, I did not move an inch. I then gave Bergeron my favorite thing in a faceoff, I stared him right in the eye. I let him know I wasn’t scared of him; I was trying to intimidate him.

I had done many faceoffs with Nathan, and he finally gave a name to my stare. He named it ‘The Eye’ because he said ‘it looked like I was staring into his own soul.’

Bergeron stared back at me, he didn’t move either. That was when I saw it, a slight twitch in his gaze. I smirked inwardly but did not waver on the outside. I had surprised him.

“Alright, be still.” Coach Houda said, although it was hardly necessary. He dropped the puck. Both of us broke eye contact as we watched, we couldn’t move until it touched the ice.

Finally, it touched and we attacked it.

Thinking I would be an easy steal, Bergeron seemed not put a lot of strength behind his stick.

That was a huge insult to me. So I not only got my stick underneath his, I rammed my shoulder into his chest. I pushed the puck back through my legs to McQuaid and disengaged Bergeron as he went down. He landed smack-dab on his ass.

Oh, I wished I had been able to see everyone’s reactions at this.

There was no time.

McQuaid took the puck as Lucic shot at him. He passed it to Kaberle, now Marchand was bearing down at him. Bergeron was just now picking himself off the ice. I made myself available to my defensemen toward the center of the rink.

To my surprise, Kaberle passed it to me. With Team Death’s defense now retreating, I started skating it up ice. The only person in my way was Bergeron, who was looking for redemption.

I wouldn’t give him any.

My wings were now waiting up at the blue offensive zone line and I knew both Lucic and Marchand must be closing in hard from behind.

I played it safe and passed it to Peverley. He and Recchi went to work against Seidenberg and Chara. My defensemen and I moved up into the attacking zone.

I made my way quickly to become a screen so that Thomas couldn’t see very well. That was my first counter with the big man known as Zdeno Chara.

Compared to me, he was huge. Being a foot and an inch taller than me would have that association. He was a full head taller plus some neck to put it into a visual sense. Scary!

He was the player who guarded me. In the games I watched, this was always his position in the defensive zone. Unless an enemy player or the puck was in his corner, he was always helping Thomas guard the goal. He would push the attacking player out of the way if he needed to. And that was what he did to me.

He was strong!

My face met the ice without me even knowing what happened.

I picked myself up easily and quickly and got back into position, screening Thomas once again.

That was when I heard him chuckle.

Keeping my eyes on the puck and where I needed to be, I addressed him. “Shouldn’t you be a little tense? You know, I’m screening your goalie and we’re in your zone.”

This made him laugh more. “But you’re so much fun to send flying,” he said with his accented voice.

Once again I found myself on the ice.

I swore.

This time I heard Thomas laughing also. I picked myself up again.

Great, I was being downsized again. I huffed out a breath.

“Carter, look alive!” I heard someone yell and then the puck whizzed right passed my face.

I heard it smack the glass behind me. I used my size and speed to get to the puck between Chara and the goal.

Sensing Chara coming right behind me, I got a brilliant idea. I was going to use my size to my advantage.

Bringing the puck to the right side of my body, I glanced behind me. Like I had hoped, Chara was coming after me, ready to smash me into the boards. He stick was to the right of his body, also ready to stab at the puck.

As I saw him about to sandwich me in, I ducked, pushing off the wall and pushed the puck up the boards past the big defenseman. The puck didn’t go far, just enough for me to quickly retrieve it when my move was done.

I went right between Chara’s legs.

I heard the faint yells and several ‘Oh my Gods’ from the bench and on the rink.

I retrieved the puck and swiveled toward the goal as I stood. I skated out toward the left faceoff circle and saw Recchi coming to the center into shooting position.

I passed it to him. He didn’t even tap it to set the puck up, he just took the shot.

I couldn’t see the puck, it was moving so fast, until it hit the netting in the back of the goal.

My team, as well as the part on the bench, cheered. Team Death, not so deathly anymore, stood and looked dejected. Probably unhappy that the girl rookie got past the Big Bad Chara and got an assist on the goal.

I floated past Chara and Thomas grinning cheekily at them. Thomas went and fished out the puck, somewhat angrily, possibly because he had let a slap shot past him. Chara was staring at me slightly open mouthed. That made me very happy.

“Hey, girl, what’s your name again?”

I turned my attention away from the two shocked players to Mark Recchi, who had skated over to me.

“Oh, Mia Carter, sir.” I said nervously.

“No sir needed. We’re teammates, right? Call me Mark.” I gazed amazed at what I was hearing. “Where’d you learn that move?”

“I didn’t learn it from anywhere. I just made it up on the spot.” I laughed, giddy again.

“That’s pretty great, you know? Z is basically invincible when it comes to his size and pinning you against the boards.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” I replied.

Mark nodded. “Here, let me be the one to bring you through your first high-five goal line.”

I agreed and I high-fived the rest of my teammates who had gathered around while Mark and I were talking. We then skated over and all five of us high-fived or fist pounded the rest of our team.

I was feeling more comfortable, and I felt like I had just gained more respect from the whole team, even Team Death.

I sat down on the bench next to Nathan and he congratulated me on my first assist in the NHL, even if it was just in a practice.

Wow, gaining respect was a lot easier than I expected.

Still, I had the feeling that some of my new teammates wouldn’t admit I was going to be part of the team until they saw my performance in Game Four tomorrow night.

I sighed, took a squirt of water, and got ready for my next shift on the ice.