There wasn't much a ten year old kid could do by herself and I wanted to do everything. I liked playing hockey, but I had never actually played in a league because where I lived, they didn't exactly have a girls' hockey league. It was more of a baby ballet on ice, you know, figure skating class. I wasn't wanting to twirl around on the ice half naked in tights and tight hair and makeup. I wanted to wear the bulky uniform that me look small and feisty, I wanted the game to be rough, not elegant.
My friends played for the Hawks team and I always watched the games from the stands, bored out of my mind. My brother got to play, but I did not and it sucked. My mother tried to get me to play, but my father wanted me to do a different sport. Not claiming that hockey was for boys only, but he was wanting me to have a sport of my own so he could glout about his kids who played two different sports and could master it.
I sighed, watching Chris play while my father stood by lower boards, yelling during the game. Yes, my father was one of those parents. He was in the category of people that everyone hated, no one wanted to sit near, and who had no family with him at games either. I liked sitting away from everyone else and watching the game. Being ten years old, I still had a mind of my own. Boys and crushes didn't appeal to me, it was friendship and goofing around that counted for me. Hell, I didn't know what love was. I found my parents' kissing quite gross, to be honest.
Adam Banks was who I liked watching. He played every game with Larson and my brother. They were a power trio and the three were chosen to do all shootouts and penalty shots. Christoper McGill is my brother.
Banks always looked in the stands, his father waving proudly at him, but Banks wasn't looking for his father, it was me he looked for. Oddly enough, I never knew why. We were good friends and of course, my brother was jealous because I was a girl. And girls don't play with boys. No, we play with our girl friends and play dollies all day. My brother was practically an enforcer, he was bigger than most boys, not because he ate too much, but because our father was not a small man, he was a buff broad shouldered man, and so was my brother.
As the game had finished, I jumped down the steps and reached the boards before the boys headed back into the locker room. I went to school with my brother and his friends, and all the boys from the team. It was a different school than some, not necessarily for the rich, but I thought it was.
With a smile, I brought my arms to the top of the boards. "You played great today, Adam."
He smiled, his cheeks reddening. "Thanks, Allie...I, ugh, noticed your dad."
She sighed. "I know, I never sit with him."
He nods. "Well, I should get going. We're playing hockey later at the outdoor rink by my place if you wanna join us."
She pondered about it. As much as she wanted to, she could not. "I can't. My dad doesn't like me playing hockey."
"Can't isn't a word in our vocabulary, Allie. It's can and will." He tapped her shoulder with his hockey stick before skating off the ice to meet her brother and friends in the locker room.
Allie walked off to go wait outside the arena. She liked being friends with Adam because even when everyone said she couldn't, he always told her she could. He believed that girls could play hockey, but not in the boys' league. He knew it was a little more rough and it was for boys, not girls. Just like the girls' league was for girls, not boys.