The world around her rushed back in as Frankie reluctantly tore her gaze away and turned to speak to one of the other coaches, the line-up cards in their hands covering their mouths to keep their conversation discreet.
When the puck dropped for the start of the first period, the game was fast and it was furious. The physicality was on another level and Jules wasn’t sure if it was because it was the first game of the season for both teams or because the home team had something to prove against a young and hungry franchise that was just getting started.
Either way, bodies were flying into the boards with an angry crunch and the sound of the cut and glide of skate blades across the ice somehow managed to rise above the roar of the sold out crowd.
Towards the end of the first period with the puck in front him, Cam skated out of the Harbour’s zone on a breakaway attempt. He crossed through the neutral zone and into the home team’s side of the rink but a forechecking stick caught the edge of his skate and he went down, sliding across the now choppy surface.
An arm flew up into the air as a whistle blew to signal a penalty, the first of the game, and as the guilty defender ran his mouth at the ref while on his journey to the penalty box, Jules swiftly fixed her eyes on the Harbour’s bench where Frankie had already gotten to work, talking to her players with commanding authority.
The first penalty of the game meant the first power play for both the team and for Frankie who, as the power play coach, had been working towards this moment with the players for weeks.
Two minutes wasn’t a long time but when you were holding your breath and watching in nervous anticipation like Jules was, the power play felt like it lasted for hours.
There was so much more riding on it than just a goal.
People had already decided where they stood regarding Frankie as a coach and if the team didn’t produce on its first power play, she would receive the brunt of abuse from hockey fans simply because of her gender and Jules didn’t want that for her. Frankie didn’t deserve it.
Luckily, a few seconds before the power play was set to expire, a defender on the Harbour – a second round draft pick who had made a name for himself in junior hockey and in pre-season – found himself on the left side of the net with a gap in the defence. One of his teammates secured the puck at the face off dot and passed it to him.
Jules watched it happen in slow motion as the clock counted down, the waythe rookie caught the puck with his stick as the goalie pushed across the net to cover it and just as it looked like he was going to shoot it in, Cameron appeared on the other side of the net.
The rookie quickly passed it to him. It slid across the ice between the feet of the defenders standing in front of the net and with no time for anyone else to react, the puck flew into the back of the net off of Cam’s perfectly angled blade.
“Yes!" Jules shouted, jumping out of her seat and clapping her hands above her head in celebration. “LET’S GO!”
Cam pointed at the rookie who had passed him the puck as the team huddled together on the far side of the ice to celebrate and Jules grinned, allowing her eyes to shift to the Harbour bench where the team erupted in jubilation and Neil, the team’s head coach, had thrown his arms around Frankie.
Not only had her brother scored the first goal in Halifax Harbour history, but Frankie had delivered on the team’s first ever power play and whatever happened next, no one could take that away from either of them.
“Wow,” Jules said to herself as she sat back down, pure adrenaline coursing through her body now.
It was moments like this that reminded her of why she loved the sport so much and why, despite everything that had happened in her life up until this point, she could never truly step away from it.
She watched her brother and his linemates skate down the bench to fist bump the rest of their teammates and when she looked at Frankie again, she found the pair of eyes she’d come to admire so much gazing back at her, filled with a look of pure elation that said so much more than words ever could.
Chapter 15
Sydney – 10:19PM
I’m so tired but staying up to watch that game on some janky ass internet stream was SO worth it.
You killed it!
Frankie couldn’t put how she felt into words.
The entire evening had been a whirlwind, from the moment she slid her suit jacket on to the moment the buzzer sounded at the end of the hockey game.
The game her team had won with a score of two to zero. One of the goals, the first goal their team had ever scored, was a power play andshehad been the person who coordinated the entire thing.
Surreal was the only word she could use to describe any of it and as incredible as the victory was, how proud she was of the players and the other staff members, the thing that Frankie couldn’t stop thinking about the most was Jules looking at her from across the ice after the power playgoal was scored.
The smile on her face, the pride, the absolute joy in her eyes – Frankie didn’t know if anyone had ever looked at her that way before in her entire life. Sure, maybe Jules was only reacting to the fact that her brother, the captain of the team, had scored the goal because thatwasan incredible accomplishment. If Cam were Frankie’s brother, she would be ecstatic, but there was something in the way the look lingered for longer than it needed to, the way Jules radiated a warmth that even in a cold hockey arena and across a sheet of ice, Frankie could feel.
She wasn’t crazy.
Something was there between them, impossible to ignore whenever she looked at Jules, whenever they were in the same room, and she didn’t think she was the only person who felt it.
The dressing room after the game was chaotic to put it lightly. There were empty electrolyte bottles scattered across the floor, a table covered in half eaten bananas and protein bars, and the celebratory music was so loud that Frankie almost couldn't hear Neil, their head coach, speaking to her in the doorway after the initial congratulations on the win had spread throughout the room.
