AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sometimes, doing the right thing sucks.
I turn the volume up on my ear buds, but I still can’t drown out the cacophony of noise that pulses inside the walls of The Stand. The crowd is about a hundred people thick and every one of them is wearing a baby blue jersey with the familiar wolf’s head logo. I’m going to leave here tonight with a raging headache—that’s a given—and if I can avoid being puked on by a drunk fan—that’s a thing that happens at games, right?—then that will be a bonus.
I don’t want to be here. It’s noisy, it’s crowded, the rink smells a little mildewy and wet. Even the air feels damp against my skin. And people—like my dad—shell out beaucoup dollars to be here.
The crowd presses toward the metal detectors and I pull my ticket up on my phone. I tilt the screen toward the security guard and hear the faintbeepas the barcode registers. He makes a weird gesture, twisting his hands in a circular motion, and I look down at my light blue jersey. Correction, my dad’s. Is it the most fashionable outfit I’ve ever put on? No. It isn’t particularly flattering either. The gray sweatshirt underneath helps pad my already wide belly and hips, but that’s okay. I’m not here to impress anyone. I’m just here for… how long is a hockey game? Three twenty-minute periods plus two fifteen-minute intermissions? I should be here for about an hour and a half. That’s not too long in the grand scheme of things, but long enough to want the sweatshirt. I’ve seen some men in shorts, but I know how cold ice needs to be.
The man circles his fingers again, like he’s tracing the outline of the wolf. I have no idea what he wants from me, so I shrug as I pump one of my hands into the air. “Go Arctic.”
“I need to see your bag, Ma’am.”
Right. That makes a lot more sense. I should have realized that’s what he was after, except the level of noise in this place is making my teeth ache and my brain skitter away from logical thought.
I shrug the tiny backpack off my shoulders to unzip it, and the security guard uses the end of a pen to flip through the contents. There isn’t much. My wallet, a pack of hand wipes, a knit hat, and a pair of black gloves. The man pokes at the small rectangular device at the bottom of my bag.
“What’s this?”
“My e-reader?”
He pauses, staring down into the bag, and then frowns back up at me.
“You’re going to read during the game?” He sounds shocked, but I’m not sure why he should care. I paid for my ticket—okay, it’s my dad’s ticket—fair and square. It shouldn’t matter what I intend to do during the game. I could burp the national anthem or do some basket weaving. As long as my clothes stay on and my language stays appropriate, who cares? And let’s be real, I’ve also seen shirtless guys painted in their team colors and they almost always end up televised. Not thrown out.
I zip up my pack, looping it back over my shoulders.
“Only if it gets boring,” I say, and the security worker blinks at me as if I’m speaking in a foreign language. “Like if no one scores and there’s a shut-out thing.” I clarify.
Immediate groans from the people all around us.
“You fucking jinxed it!” The words come from a man a few feet behind me. He has his arm around a tiny blonde who rolls her eyes. And right. “Shutout” at a hockey game is like “Macbeth” in the theatre. Bad luck.
“Why even come here if you don’t understand the game?” Blondie presses a manicured hand to her partner’s chest.
Because I can. I want to say, but there’s no point in antagonizing the locals, so I just shrug and turn away from her.
“You can go.” The ticket worker gestures through the metal detector and even he looks pissy. I guess it makes sense that people working at a hockey arena during a professional hockey game are hockey fans. Whoops.
The thing is, I don’t hate hockey. I don’t. There might be a little resentment over the fact that my dad has never missed a game in over thirty years. With over eighty games crammed between the months of October and April, that’s a lot of evenings that I spent being watched by Jess, the high schooler who lived down the block. That eighty does not include preseason games, or the all-stars break, or playoffs. Or the Olympics when Dad filmed and watched every match. I just don’t see the point of men strapping knives to their feet and ramming into each other over and over. It’s pretty violent, not to mention chilly, and there are too many rules to pretend to understand.
To be fair, I’m not a fan of most organized sports. Never have been. I played volleyball in high school, but even then my only real asset to the team had been my height. Even at sixteen, I was already six feet tall. I never had the innate athleticism or passion that my teammates had. I needed gym credit, and the volleyball team was always looking for new players, so I was in no danger of getting cut.
But Dad… Dad is a huge hockey fan. An Arctic fan. He’s a season ticket holder. One who’s never missed a home game. Ever. Not in the thirty-five years he’s followed the team. Honestly, it’s a good thing I wasn’t born during hockey season, or he might have missed my birth. Considering he’s the one who picked my name, I wonder if I still would have been Quinn Cooper. Maybe my mother would have picked something different. Maybe I’d have been someone different. I don’t know my mom well enough to know what she would have chosen. Probably whatever was most popular twenty-seven years ago.
I used to join my dad for some of the televised away games, but I never paid attention. A few of the players were fun to look at, but usually I sat on the end of the couch and read. At least it was a way to share the time together. Pride kept me from asking for explanations of the plays, and Dad was too engrossed in the action to notice that I wasn’t. I’d never considered inviting myself to an actual game.
But here I am.
This is the first game my dad has ever had to skip.
When he asked me to go for him, I couldn’t say “no.” That would be shitty daughter behavior. My dad, despite his obsession with this sport, is the best anyone could ever ask for. He held down the single parent fort my whole life. He never forgot birthdays, he encouraged my passion for art, he paid for college. So no, I hadn’t been about to turn down his request; but I still packed my e-book just the same.
I let the crowd pull me down the aisles lined with concession stands. It’s hard to make sense of the seating. The Stand labels each section with blue and white signs, but the numbers don’t always go in order and I don’t know if I’m headed in the right direction. It’s a good thing the place is an oval. It might take a few laps, but I’ll figure it out. Maybe I should grab a snack? Will the crowd die down once the game starts? Is there anything for sale here that won’t bankrupt me? That pretzel was almost ten dollars. Is that normal? Imagine if I wanted alcohol?
100, 101, 102, 103, 104.
There.
I exit the mass of moving people and head down the right hallway. It’s like walking through a train tunnel, the sound muted, before I’m blinking out into the bright lights of the arena. The ice comes into view and I shiver. It gleams with a slick, wet sheen, stark blue and red lines cutting it into neat sections.The team logo sits right in the center, a white wolf with its head tipped back as it howls at a non-existent moon. For a moment, it feels like I’m at the edge of a cliff. Something monumental. I don’t have to be a hockey fan to feel the excitement pulsing all around me.
