Chapter 3: Fanning the Flames

26 November 2012 – Devens Regional High School, Shirley, Massachusetts

Sabrina tightened the laces on her skates before hockey tryouts during the final week of November. She’d been waiting for this day since the beginning of the school year. Finally, today, Sabrina would go out there and show the coaches she deserved to be on the varsity squad as a freshman. At worst, she’d be a high school junior varsity hockey player by the end of tryouts.

Sabrina looked forward to donning the green, yellow, and white Devens Warriors hockey uniform for the first time. She drew her black hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck before putting on her helmet. Then, fastening the chin strap, she took a deep breath and walked out of the referee’s dressing room, which doubled as the girls’ changing room.

Passing a mirror on the way out to the ice, Sabrina saw herself wearing her black, gold, and white replica Thompkins Black Bears hockey jersey. The Bears were her father’s high school team in Enfield back in the Dark Ages. This was her favorite practice jersey.

Unlike her father’s replica, which bore his high school number of seventeen, hers bore the number sixty-three, worn by her favorite Bruins player. Her favorite player was quick, tough to defend, and a constant scoring threat, and Sabrina patterned her play after him. She once heard him called ‘Little Ball of Hate’ – by the President of the United States, no less. She figured fans of other teams used even less complimentary language.

Since the beginning of the school year, three months had passed with much less drama than the first week. Sabrina had successfully avoided Mrs. Haversham for the most part. Also, she had brought Ruby into her circle of friends. Friends who had gone to school with Ruby in Ayer took longer to warm up to their fellow freshman, but her addition to the group seemed to be working out well overall.

Sabrina stepped onto the ice and skated away from the boards to stretch. Shawn Hurt glided alongside most of the other freshmen and bumped gloved fists with her.

“S’up, Sabrina? You ready to show ‘em what you’ve got?” Shawn asked.

“You bet! Some of the sophomores should remember me from our peewee and bantam teams, at least the kids who didn’t move away when their parents got reassigned by the Army. I’m guessing I’ll be a bit of a surprise to the others.”

“I’ll say! For some reason, they haven’t had any girls on the team here for a few years. This should be entertaining, in any event.”

When the head coach blew his whistle, the group joined the other hopefuls at center ice. There, they greeted the other players who remembered Sabrina.

The coach went through the tryout schedule and explained that the different groups – offense and defense – would use opposite ends of the ice for their respective drills before they came back together as a team. Shawn and Sabrina bumped gloves again before they skated to opposite ends. Shawn played defense, as Sabrina’s father had.

The head coach ran the offensive drills, selecting pairs of players for each round. He also kept skipping over Sabrina until she was one of the last two players to go through. She was paired with an older boy – a junior defenseman – who smirked at her when they lined up to start their turn.

“Try and keep up, little girl,” he sneered.

Sabrina gave him an expressionless stare and turned her gaze to the obstacle course in front of her. Nothing else existed except the ice and the task ahead. Her skates bit into the ice as soon as the whistle’s blast echoed across the frozen surface. Short, choppy strides brought her quickly to the first obstacle.

Sabrina leaned hard into the first turn, trusting her skates’ edges to keep her under control. All she heard was the ice groaning in protest over and over each time she leaned into those turns and the whisper of her skates on the ice as she worked through the various skill tests.

Sabrina didn’t hear the upperclassmen cheering her opponent on, nor Shawn and the others cheering for her. Sabrina’s quads and hamstrings burned as she pumped her legs faster and faster. Spraying shaved ice onto the boards at the end of her run-through, she looked back to see her opponent still trying to complete the drill.

The other boy stumbled before crossing the finish line and slid across on his hands and knees. The coach complimented the other boy’s effort but not Sabrina’s. She and Shawn shared a look – they were going to have one of those coaches this year, one who disregarded Sabrina’s abilities even in the face of convincing evidence.

Some of the upperclassmen who didn’t know of Sabrina’s hockey abilities before today looked at her with hints of acceptance and respect. The junior she beat and his friends glared at her. Those who weren’t happy with her tried to get physical when the group drills began. Sabrina either slipped away from them and made them miss their checks or stepped into them and knocked them off their feet. An occasional tap to their cups with the end of her stick helped Sabrina get her point across, too.

The second day of tryouts focused more on team play than skill evaluations. During the drills, Sabrina settled into her accustomed position of left wing. Some of her new teammates needed a series or two to get on the same wavelength and begin functioning as a unit, but things seemed to be going well. Those who played youth hockey with her needed no time at all.

Sabrina stood ready in the low slot to the opposing goalie’s right mid-way through one full-team scrimmage. She didn’t notice a defender skating up to her on her blindside. But Sabrina noticed when her helmet struck the ice in front of the goal. Her back and neck hurt like hell as she rolled over.

Erik Lonergan, the junior she had paired with yesterday, smirked down at her. His smirk ended when one of her team’s defensemen crosschecked Lonergan into the side of his goal. The hulking defenseman dropped his gloves, followed the junior to the ice, and punched him over and over. Whistles blew loudly as the coaches tried to separate the two.

“Smolinski, you’re out of here!” the head coach bellowed at the sophomore who stood up for his teammate.

“What about your piece-of-shit son, then?” the boy bellowed back. “The play was clear across the ice, and your boy crosschecked Sabrina from behind! What am I supposed to do? Let a teammate take that kind of abuse?”

“You’re off the team!” the coach screamed. “Get out of my building!”

Anders Smolinski shrugged off the players holding him back and collected his gloves before skating to Sabrina.

“You okay, Sabrina?” he asked as he helped her up.

“Moose, I’m sorry...” she offered with a sniffle.

“Don’t be,” he replied with a smile. “He’s not a very good coach, anyway...”

“I TOLD YOU TO GET OUT!” the enraged coach roared. Moose turned and fixed him with a stare.

“I’m talking to a friend and making sure she’s okay, which is more than I’ve seen you do. I’ll leave when I’m done. Do you want me gone sooner? Drop your gloves and take your chances.” Turning back to Sabrina, he smiled again.

“There’s a new Eighteen-and-Under team in Fitchburg hoping to start their season in a week or so; they still need players. I should be able to skate for them, no problem. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Sabrina watched Moose skate away. She played with or against him every season since they started youth hockey. Like Shawn, he hadn’t cared that she was a girl or better in some things when it came to hockey; he just said that she was a good teammate and worthy opponent.

Sabrina looked around at the other players. Some also watched Moose leave, while others bumped gloves with Erik Lonergan. Sabrina’s eyes locked with Shawn Hurt, the rest of the freshmen, and the sophomores before they all skated away toward the locker rooms. A whistle started blowing wildly again behind them. Looking back, she saw a few juniors and seniors joining the group of departing players as she stepped through the boards. She walked into the tunnel and waited.

“Dingo, what gives?”

Dingo – Phil Scott, the American-born son of Australian ex-pats – pulled off his helmet and grinned.

“We’ve all decided that we’d rather take our chances catching on with outside teams rather than playing for that ass-wipe.” His parents may have classic Aussie accents, but his accent was pure Boston.

Sabrina grinned back and punched him genially on the shoulder before turning for her dressing room. When she emerged, Sabrina found the boys talking to Coach Dawson in the hall outside their locker room. Dingo gestured in the direction of the rink while emphasizing a point.

“Coach, he’s out of his damn mind if he thinks we’re going to play for him after what his jumped-up prima donna of a son just did to our friend! I don’t care if she’s a girl or not. She’s one of the best I’ve played with – and I think the guys here agree with me!”

Noah Dawson sighed and nodded at the statement. His JV hockey team and a few varsity players were about to turn their backs on high school hockey, and the season hadn’t even started. Noah couldn’t fault their loyalty to a friend and teammate. The school would be lucky to field a competitive varsity team, too, given the skill levels of the upperclassmen who joined the younger players in their walkout. Those left on the team lacked the raw talent needed to excel as a group.

“Guys, you don’t have to do this,” Sabrina said as she approached.

“Yeah, we do, Sabrina,” Shawn said. “Dingo and I might not have sisters, but Moose and many other guys do. If we don’t take a stand, he’ll do the same thing to someone else’s sister and allow someone like his son to act like Erik did. ‘If not us, who? If not now, when?’”

Sabrina smirked at her friends.

“And I’m gonna get blamed for the whole thing, too.”

“Exactly!” Phil Schechter crowed, generating a wall of laughter. “Come on, Sabrina, you know well-behaved women seldom make history!”

“Guys, if I want a barrage of historical quotes, I’ll talk to my dad.” She paused and looked all her former teammates in the eye. “You guys are sure? There’s an extremely high likelihood none of you will ever play hockey here again now that you’ve walked out.” Dingo stared back.

“And that’s a problem why?”

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦

Sabrina sat cross-legged on her bed, staring again at the picture on her far wall.

News of the walkout spread across the state and then went further. The Boston Globe heard about the teens’ protest and published the story yesterday, the day after the event. Wire services picked it up, and now it was national news.

Sabrina sighed at the memory of her father trudging through the trees and snow around their house to post no-trespassing signs around the perimeter of their property. Her parents referred all requests for interviews to John Jones, their lawyer, and Tommy’s father. They’d have to decide how to handle those requests soon.

Once again, a knock drew her from her thoughts. Her mother smiled at her and walked silently into the room.

“Sabrina?” Keiko asked as she sat.

“Not how I wanted to make the paper, Mom,” Sabrina sighed. “Now, no hockey coach is gonna want me on their team after the Globe’s story.”

“Giving up?” Keiko raised an eyebrow. “This is very unlike you, Sabrina.”

“Mom, you saw Mr. Lonergan’s comments in the paper! ‘Troublemaker’ and ‘difficult’ are not words you want used to describe you, let alone ’uncoachable!’”

“And why would you give a shit about what someone like Ethan Lonergan thinks?” Keiko spat. Sabrina blinked at her mother’s use of profanity – highly unusual – and the intensity of her question. “Eight years of youth hockey coaches telling us that you are a special player, and you want to listen to someone such as that? You have not even asked us to drive you to Fitchburg, so you may try out for that other hockey team!”

Keiko lurched off the bed and began pacing. Sabrina’s eyes followed her mother as she stalked around the room. Growing up, she’d seen her mother happy, bemused, exasperated, and surprised, but never agitated.

“Sabrina...” Keiko took a deep breath and tried again. “Sabrina, do you not understand that if you fail to at least try to make this other team, you allow people such as Ethan and Erik Lonergan to win? You will send the message to them and others like them that it is permissible to treat women how they have treated you.

“Will you give up on all of your dreams so easily? You stood up to Greg Oglethorpe last year, to Eleanor Haversham on the first day of school this year, and you stood up to Ethan Lonergan when you walked out of hockey practice. Why would you stop now?”

Sabrina sighed and stared at the opposite wall again.

“Shock, Mom? This got out of control so quickly! The guys gave up so much when they followed me off the ice! Maybe I’m better off not playing hockey anymore?”

“If that is how you feel, then I will admit to feeling something about your choice that I rarely feel about you: disappointed.”

Sabrina blinked, and her eyes filled with tears. Keiko reached out and took her hand.

“You said it yourself, Sabrina, you led your teammates off the ice – they followed your example. Anyone from your team who has tried out for the Eighteen-and-Under team has already earned a spot on it. Will you now cast your friends and supporters adrift? I am certain you would find a spot on that team as well. I am also certain you would be a leader on that team despite your age.”

Keiko used a hand under Sabrina’s chin to get her daughter to look her in the eye again.

“Use the fire within you, Sabrina. Use it to cut a swath through the Eighteen-and-Under league, the likes of which no one has ever seen. Do not allow that fire to burn inside you without a way to release it, for it will leave you a hollow, angry person. That is what happened to Ruby Sepulveda until you helped her. Now, as I once said to your father, go out there and kick some ass.”

Sabrina chuckled before wrapping her mother in a fierce hug.

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦

Head coach Martin Savard could not believe how his luck had changed over a single week. Last week, he told the management of the fledgling Fitchburg Shockers they would have to forfeit the season due to their inability to put a whole team on the ice. Now, his almost-empty roster overflowed with talent. And the headliner would be the young lady trying out for left-wing today.

Savard stood on the ice near the bench, watching the five-foot-four fourteen-year-old fly around the ice. She certainly wasn’t scoring with every chance she got – no player was that good – but her teammates already looked comfortable playing with her. She put herself in the correct position to receive scoring chances from her teammates, and they gave her plenty of those chances. Finally, he blew his whistle and motioned those on the ice back to the bench.

“Good job today,” he said in his French-Canadian accent once the players filed off the ice. “You guys are coming together very quickly, and I think we’ll do okay this year. We’re a very young team, so I don’t want to get your hopes too high, but we’ll surprise many people if we stick to the fundamentals. So, everyone except Sabrina Knox, go ahead and get cleaned up. Miss Knox, come on over here if you would.”

Sabrina bumped gloves with the other players as they left the bench for the locker room and thanked them for working out with her. Once everyone else departed, she approached the coach, who indicated she should sit on the bench.

“Miss Knox,” he smiled from the ice side of the boards, “that has to be some of the best hockey I’ve seen from a young player in some time.”

“Thanks, Coach,” she replied with a blush. “As my dad and I told you yesterday, though, I’ve been playing with most of these guys since we started in youth hockey. So, you might get a different result from the players I don’t know.”

“I doubt it, honestly. The juniors and seniors from your school told me they haven’t played with you, nor have the one or two other players on our roster before your group showed up. Still, I didn’t notice any difference in play. This team was good before. As a group, they just plain love to play. But with you here today, they stepped it up a notch. I’d very much like it if you joined this team.”

“That’d be great, Coach!” Sabrina replied with a smile.

“Good. You’ll be my second-line left winger when the season starts next week. I hope the familiarity between you and your peers will help us overcome the fact that we haven’t been a team that long. I’d rather build a good foundation as a team this year than worry about our record.” Martin Savard shrugged. “I’m not sure upper management will see things that way, but I’m not worried.”

“We’ll give you all we’ve got, Coach. I’m sure you’ve already seen that.”

Savard smiled again.

“That’s why I’m not worried. Your teammates want to be here and want to play – that’s worth more to me than a full roster of players just going through the motions. If you know anyone else looking to play, send ‘em my way. There are still spots on the roster, and I’m more than happy to work with marginal players who give one hundred percent.”

“Will do, Coach.”

The following day, Sabrina approached a pair of forlorn-looking hockey players who hadn’t joined ‘her’ walkout last week.

“You guys okay?” she asked. “The food from the cafeteria isn’t that bad!”

“Hey, Sabrina,” Vic Thurmond said. Glancing over at his tablemate, Vic introduced the two. “Pete, this is Sabrina Knox. Sabrina, Peter Knapp.”