The Life of a Hockey Sister

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

"Hey Sweetie, I emailed Coach Baylor about the team." Dad says as soon as I open the door.

"Great," I say sarcastically, shutting the door behind me. 

I go in and see they’re watching the Columbus Detroit game. Mom has already fallen asleep. I find Drew laying on my bed even though I already called it.

"Ooo if you couldn't see the sarcasm on that." Drew says. I laugh weakly,

"Get off my bed," I tell him. He rolls onto the floor.

"But Drew's right, what's going on Angie?" Dad asks.

"Nothing," I lie not wanting to talk about what happened tonight, “I’m just ready for bed.” 

"Alright goodnight Sweetie." Dad says. Before long I drift off to sleep.

At 7:00 I wake up, everyone else is still asleep. So, I go and take a quick shower. 10 minutes later I walk out of the bathroom and hear a knock on the door. I go look through the peephole and quickly open the door.

"Grant what are you doing?" I ask drying my hair with my towel.

"We need to talk." he says. I put the bar in the door and step into the hall.

"Alright what's up?" I ask.

"I found out why you really wanted to leave last night." Grant says, "Look I shouldn't have said what I did, I'm sorry."

"Why? It's not your fault I'm not cut out to play." I tell him crossing my arms.

"Angie seriously? You train harder than some of my teammates!" he says.

"Grant make up your mind, one moment I'm a great player the next I'm a joke!" 

"Angie you never have and never will be a joke. You are an amazing player! I'm just not sure how being teammates will work." Grant says.

"Don't worry I won't play and we won't have to see." I tell him.

"No that's not fair to you.” Grant says.

"And if we can't work together it's not fair to the team." I point out.

"Let's just agree to drop our differences on the ice." he says.

"I'll go for that," I agree.

"So, apology accepted?" Grant asks.

"As always," I say with a smile.

"Okay cool, well I got to go join my teammates cuz we're leaving in 5 minutes." he says. 

"Bye Grant, good luck!" I say going back into the room. I find Drew walking into the bathroom. "Hey if you hurry I'll wait to go down to breakfast until you’re done."

"Whatever," he says shutting the door. 

Drew's not really a morning person. He always is really grumpy right after he gets up. I walk further into the room and find Mom is also up rummaging through her suitcase.

"Good Morning!" I say going in and laying on my bed.

"Good Morning Sweetie, how was floor hockey?" she asks.

"Chaotic," I say smiling. She laughs,

"Did you hang out with Jon?" she asks.

"Are you concerned about my new boyfriend?" I ask jokingly.

"No, I trust Jon. It's just you've never had a boyfriend and he's a year older."

"Mom relax, we're going to take it slow and I made sure he was clear on that." She smiles,

"Music to a Mother's ears." Drew walks out of the bathroom,

"Ready Angie?" he asks.

"If you're awake and not grumpy," I mumble resulting in me getting glared at. I get up, "Let's go!" Drew gives me a small smile and we quickly leave. 

Downstairs they had a wonderful complimentary breakfast. Drew and I go through the line and sit down. We sit quietly and eat. Just as we finish Mom and Dad come down.

"Hey, go and grab anything you need for today. When we finish we're going to head to the Rink." Mom says handing us a key.

"Okay," I say grabbing the key. We run to the elevator and head to our room. I go and grab my numbered apparel hoodie and throw it on. Drew looks at me,

"You don't have the right number," he says, “Jon is 19 and that says 3." I laugh,

"Yeah that's because Grant's number 3 and he's been my brother longer so I'm sticking with 3."

"I bet Jon will try to get you to wear his number." He's probably right, all of the boy’s girlfriends wear their numbers, but I'm planning on staying with 3. I grab my money and phone and put them in my jeans pocket.

"Let's go Drew!" I say heading towards the door.

"Hold up!” Drew says putting his coat on then grabbing his gear.

"Hurry up!" I say walking out the door. Drew rolls his eyes, following.

As we walk down the skinny hallway we’re careful not to hit our bags or sticks on the wall. We then squeeze into the elevator quickly going down to the lobby. We go back over where Mom and Dad are eating, and Dad throws me the keys,

"Go put your stuff in the trunk. We'll be right out." 

I turn quickly and go out the doors leaving Drew to follow. I pop the trunk and throw my stuff in as Drew does the same thing. I go and climb in the back seat. Mom and Dad quickly come out of the hotel and get in the car.

"What time does the game start?" I ask.

"9:00," Dad answers, "Where's the keys?" I hand him the keys and he turns on the car. I look at the clock, 8:50, that explains the rush. The nice thing is all the games are played at the same rink.

"Who are we playing?" Drew asks.

"Villanova," Mom answers.

"Haven't we played them before?" I ask.

"Yeah and we lost in a shootout." Dad says, "Hopefully the boys are well rested and have their heads on straight and maybe we can win." We pull into the parking lot. We get out of the car and walk into the rink. Drew and I go check the schedule.

"We're on Rink 1," I say.

Drew nods and we all head towards Rink 1. When we get in there the boys are just taking the ice. We go and sit behind our bench. The boys start doing their warm ups. After about 15 minutes the announcer starts talking,

"Hello! Welcome to our game today between Southview and Villanova. Now for the starting line-ups! For Southview at goalie number 1 Brad Reynolds! At center number 3 Grant Miller!"

We all cheer, and way louder than we do for anyone else as soon as Grant is called.

"At right wing number 7 Blake Downard! On left wing we have number 21 Max Stone! Back on defense we have number 18 Jake Kurki and number 19 Jonathan Smith!"

I cheer for Jon, Drew looks at me and smiles, but I just ignore him. They announce Villanova's starting lineup then have us stand for the Canadian and our national anthem. Finally, it's time for the face off. 

The first period is exciting. We make tons of good plays! We draw a lot of penalties but take only a couple. Before we know it the zamboni's clearing the ice.

"I'm going to go walk around." I say getting up.

"Whatever," Drew says. I playfully push him and leave. 

I take a lap around the rink. As I am walking I see a hockey puck laying right outside of the boards in an isolated area. Not that this is uncommon, I find pucks like this all the time at home and it’s always okay to take them, but for some reason I get excited this time as I grab the puck and put it in my hoodie pocket. I hear cheers in the stands, must be time for the second period already.

I run up the stands to our seats. Our team takes the ice, I notice that Jon’s line is out. The play starts, Villanova wins the faceoff and goes into our zone. Jon steals it and skates it up the boards. One of Villanova's players come onto him though and drill him. Jon falls to the ice, it was a perfectly clean hit, but Jon isn't getting up. 

The ref stops the play and I start to freak out a little. Matt our trainer goes out onto the ice. He checks Jon but he's just lying there. After a while Jon gets up and goes off the ice with Matt's help. He's definitely favoring one leg. I look at my parents,

"I'm going to check on him." I say getting up.

"Angie, I know you want to make sure he's okay, but you need to let Matt check him out." Dad says stopping me.

"That's fine but I'm going to be there waiting outside the locker room for when he's done." I say.

"Danny just let her go." Mom says intervening. 

Dad sighs and nods his head. I run down the steps towards our locker room. I stand right outside the door. After a while I start to pace. Finally, they come out,

"Jon what happened?" I ask rushing over. He has his arm around Matt using one leg.

"Well this guy came up and did this thing called a check." he says jokingly.

"Jon seriously!"

"My ankle got slammed up against the boards.” Jon says meekly.

"Since his parents aren't here we called an ambulance. It's definitely sprained if not broken." Matt says, "Angie get on his other side and help me get him out to the lobby.” I immediately go to his side and he puts his arm around me. He looks down at me,

"So, this is how I get to make my move to put my arm around you!" he says sarcastically. I can't help but smiling a little bit. We get him out to the lobby and situated into a chair. Matt goes to look for the ambulance.

"So how much pain are you in?" I ask him.

"A lot," Jon says. I feel a little scared and it must show because he takes my hand. "Hey, don't worry I'll be fine." he says smiling weakly.

"I know," The ambulance pulls up and Matt and the EMT run in.

"I'll call you as soon as I know something okay?" Jon tells me.

"Okay," I say as the EMTs come over with a stretcher. 

They carefully pick him up and our hands separate. They put him on the stretcher and take him out, Matt follows quickly behind. I go back into the rink. The zamboni's back out, the second must already be over. I look at the scoreboard, 2-1 Villanova. I go up to Mom, Dad, and Drew.

"How is he?" Mom asks.

"The ambulance just came and got him. Matt's pretty sure he broke his ankle." I tell them.

"Jon is strong he'll be okay." Dad says encouragingly.

"Yeah," I say sitting down by Drew. 

I mess with the puck in my pocket. Finally, the third period starts, and it flies by. Everyone is scoring. Eventually we're up 8-5. There's 5 seconds left in the period. The puck's in Villanova's end. We've pretty much already won. Villanova wins the faceoff and passes it up. Just before the buzzer sounds they snipe it. Brad makes a beautiful glove save. Just like that we won the game and the teams shake hands,

"Well we don't have our next game until 9:00 tonight." Dad says, "What should we do for the next 10 hours?" I honestly want to go to the hospital to make sure Jon is okay but that sounds way too clingy.

"How about we go to The Hockey Hall of Fame?" Drew suggests.

"Sounds good to me," Mom says, "What do you think Angie?"

"Let's do it!" I say trying to sound enthusiastic.

"Let's talk to Grant first." Dad says.

"Cool," I say heading down the steps. Grant is actually the first one out of the locker room. He grabs me and pulls me away from the group,

"Hey what happened to Jon?" he asks.

"He's at the hospital they're pretty sure he broke his ankle."

"No signs of a concussion though?" he asks.

"Not that they see." Grant looks relieved,

"Cool,"

"No, it's not he broke his ankle!" I say a little bit frustrated.

"Looks like somebody's girlfriend is worried." he says laughing, "He'll be fine Angie! They'll cast it and he'll be as good as new." I know all this but for some reason I'm still uneasy. 

"I know," I tell him, and we head back to Mom and Dad.

"Good game Grant!" Dad says as we walk up.

"Thanks," Grant says.

"We're heading to The Hockey Hall of Fame." Mom says. Grant smiles,

"Us too."

"Great," I mutter as my older brother gives me a look.

“Well I need to get back to the team,” Grant says going to leave 

"Bye," We call as he goes back into the locker room. We head out to the van.

"Angie why so tense?" Drew asks as we get in the van.

"Stop it, you know exactly why I'm tense." I tell him.

"Drew stop messing with her." Dad says. I smile at Drew and he rolls his eyes.

It's a quiet drive to The Hockey Hall of Fame. 20 minutes later we're finally there. As soon as we get there my phone rings. I don't recognize the number, but I answer it anyways.

"Hello?"

"Hey Angie, it's Jon." Relief floods through my body,

"Hey! What's going on?" I ask.

"Well I completely shattered my ankle. They’re about to do surgery on it, then I'll be in a cast for about 8 weeks." he says.

"Whoa," Is all I manage to say.

"Yeah so there went playing Spring."

"And the rest of the season." I point out.

"Oh well what can you do?" he says so calmly it amazes me. "So, will I see you at the game tonight?" he asks.

"That should be the least of your concerns at the moment." I tell him.

"What can I say? I just want to see my girl." Jon says causing me to blush instantly, "So will I see you there?" he asks again.

"I’ll be there, you need to get better though so I don’t know if you will" I say laughing. Jon chuckles, 

“Oh, don’t you worry I’ll be there, I have to go now though, I just wanted to call you so you wouldn’t worry.”

“Like you calling is going to change me not worrying about your surgery” I say, “But go, I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Bye Angel” he says hanging up the phone.