On and Off the Rink

Chapter One: Milkshakes

Author's Note:
This story is from the perspective of Ciara Payne who is captain of her high schools female ice hockey team. Hockey is her life, and her team is her family. This is all about to be turned upside down though, because of the schools budget cuts.
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"Come on ladies lets pick up the pace a little!"

Ten more seconds...

"One more set of sprints! Come on, finish strong!"

Five...

"Okay hit the showers girls! Practice is over, off the ice!"

And it was over.

My legs burned as I skated off the ice and walked over to the bench. I slipped off my skates and shoved them into my black and blue bag that sat at the end of the bleachers. I sat down next to my bag taking in my atmosphere. From the bleachers you could see the window that led to one of the school hallways and the announcers box. Banners with our school logo hung from the walls and ceiling. It might not have been the nicest arena I've ever been in, but for a small town on the coast of California it was pretty nice. I should just be thankful that we had one.

We had just started pre hockey season, and I couldn't be happier to be back on the ice. Hockey felt like my life and I couldn't trade it in for anything, even if my legs burned just like they did right now. I slowly pushed myself off the bench thinking about all the pep talk Coach has given us throughout the years. I made my way down the long hallway towards the locker room, lost in my thoughts the whole time. 

I was the first one in the girls locker room, which meant I would get first dibs on showers. I slipped off my jersey just as the other girls came ambling into the locker room after me. I took off the rest of my gear, placing it in my locker, and made my way to the showers. There were about twelve showers which was the perfect size of our team, but twelve was a huge problem.

For a regulation ice hockey team to actually play, they need sixteen players at the very least. We only had twelve, so we either had to recruit new members or not play in the league. We luckily didn't need to have a proper roster for another two weeks. For now I didn't need to worry, I could save that for later.

I grabbed my extra clothes, towel, and shampoo and conditioner from my locker and headed into the shower room. I picked the shower on the very end, which had the best pressure and stepped under the water after organizing my stuff. I thought back on today's practice, but more on how excited I was that the weekend had finally arrived.

After about ten minutes in the hot water, which was heaven on my muscles, I made my way back out where the rest of my team was getting ready to leave. There were two rows of lockers in the girls locker room with benches circling the outer rim of the room. In the back corner where the lockers broke off was a large white board and some fold up chairs for pre-game pep talks and planning sessions. I made my way over to first locker in the main row and started to change back into my street clothes.

I slipped into a pair of dark wash skinny jeans and also a old Beatles t-shirt that used to be my dads. I rattled through my bag attempting to find my black converse sneakers, but failing to locate them. Sadie tapped me on the shoulder while lacing up her sneakers and pointed to under the bench. I looked down, and of course my sneakers were already sitting there unlaced, but stupid me had to have the worst memory possible.

"So anyone up for our weekly milkshakes?" A rumble of okays and yeahs rumbled through the locker room in a response to my question. Every Friday the team went out for milkshakes down the road, which is why coach always makes these practices the hardest of the week. He keeps telling us to stop, because it leads to an unbalanced diet, but it's already a constant tradition that we will never end up breaking.