Natalie Hyde - Hockey Girl

Text copyright 2012 Natalie Hyde

ebook copyright 2014 Natalie Hyde

Published in Canada in 2012 by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8

Published in the United States in 2013 by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 311 Washington Street, Brighton, Massachusetts 02135

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Hyde, Natalie, 1963

Hockey girl / Natalie Hyde.

ISBN 978-1-55455-251-1 (pbk.), 978-1-55455-858-2 (epub)

I. Title.

PS8615.Y33H63 2012 jC813.6 C2012-904074-6

Publisher Cataloging-in-Publication Data (U.S.)

Hyde, Natalie.

Hockey girl / Natalie Hyde.

[ 152 ] p. : cm.

Summary: In a hockey-crazed town that cares more about the boys hockey teams than anything else, a group of girls fight for their right to fair and equal ice time and put together a winning team.

ISBN: 978-1-55455-251-1 (pbk.), 978-1-55455-858-2 (epub)

1. Hockey Juvenile fiction. 2. Sports for girls Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

[Fic] dc23 PZ7.H934Ho 2012

Fitzhenry & Whiteside acknowledges with thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.

Cover and interior design by Daniel Choi

Cover photo courtesy of Christie Harkin & Emma Miloff

HOCKEY GIRL

Natalie Hyde

one

T ara! Watch out! Rachel yelled to me.

A red shirt whizzed by. Oh no you dont, number 24 , I thought. Youre not going to get away with that. I raced down the rink after her, breathing hard.

Nobody steals the puck from me on a turnover.

As strange as it sounds, this sort of turnover, Ive learned, has nothing to do with the golden-brown pastries from Hannahs Bakery. A turnover in hockey is when you lose the puck to the other team. Or rather, when a red shirt manages to steal it right off your stick while you keep skating, looking like a fool.

So, turnovers from Hannahs Bakery: good.

Turnovers in a Cartwright Roadrunners hockey game: bad.

And even though it was perfectly legal to steal the puck like that, it still struck me as a dirty, underhanded kind of thing to do. Hockey seemed to be full of sneaky tricks and attacks, like the elbows that would ram into my chest, face, or shoulder when the ref wasnt looking. Not at all like softball, where we had been regional champions three years out of four by not playing dirty.

My blades cut into the ice near the boards and made a shower of snow as I tried to stop the momentum of my full-speed charge. Physics, however, was not on my side and I slammed into the back of number 24.

A whistle pierced the icy air.

I cringed. Whistles in hockey were usually bad news.

Bluenumber 45! Body contact!

Perfect. I had a penalty with only three minutes left in a tie game. Somehow I didnt think that was going to improve our coachs mood. And Coach Santos was pretty miserable at the best of times.

I skated over to the penalty box and plunked myself down on the wooden bench inside. Penalty boxes, I decided, were designed to make you feel humiliated. There was no reason why you couldnt serve your sentence on the team bench. Having to sit in that box, separated from your teammates, reminded me of sitting outside the main office at school. Even if you were really only there to hand in a note, just sitting in those chairs for everyone to see made you feel like a loser.

This was every bit as bad. Actually this was worse because in the seats behind the penalty box were the three clowns that had started this whole stupid idea. And they were enjoying every minute of it.

Oooh, what I wouldnt give for her to slam into me that way, I heard one of them say, deliberately loud enough for me to hear over the game. It sounded like Braydon Hawes.

My hand tightened into a fist but I didnt turn around.

If I played hockey with girls, Id want them to wear less padding. It hides all the good parts, another one said, laughing. Oh, that was undoubtedly Tyler Moore, with his stupid, lopsided grin pasted on his face.

I wasnt going to give them the satisfaction of a reaction. Not like Rachel. She probably would have been up over the glass and pounding the snot out of them by now. But Rachels temper was legendary, and although I would never tell my best friend that it was the reason we got into so much trouble all the time, she was going to have to learn to get it under control. We couldnt be forming new sports teams every time she answered a dare.

I hadnt paid much attention to the guys last summer when they went jogging past the ball field where we had just finished our softball game. I was still smarting from the fact that the only people who had come to watch us play were Andreas kid brother and the old guy with asthma who needed to rest while walking his dog. Girls softball didnt exactly draw a crowd in Cartwright.

The guys had made a big of show of laughing really loudly so we would notice them on the field next to the diamond. I knew two of them. They had gone to my elementary school and were arrogant, the way all jocks areat least in my experience. The third guy with the dark eyes looked familiar; he was probably in grade 10 with my older brother, Will. Kip something, I think his name was. They must have expected all of us to be ogling them in their shorts and muscle shirts.

But our team wasnt interested in looking at sweaty hockey players doing off-season training. We had just won our semi-final game against the Cougars (or were they the Panthers?) and were celebrating the fact that we were off to the championships. We wouldnt have noticed Ryan Reynolds riding by shirtless on a black stallion after a game like that. (Thats a lie. We would have noticed Ryan Reynolds with or without a shirt, but none of these guys was Ryan Reynolds, thats for sure.)

So the Three Stooges had resorted to the lame tactics that guys always resort to when they want attention.

Hey, gorgeous, how about flexing those pecs again? Tyler had said.

Yeah, could you bend over and pick up the ball for me? Braydon added.

I couldnt stop myself from rolling my eyes.

Hockey players. Ugh .

Just ignore them and theyll go away, I whispered to Rachel. But the red was already creeping up the back of her neck.

You girls want some real training? You should work out with us. Tyler added some hip thrusting gestures to that statement.

Come on, Rachel. I tried to pull her away.

Is anyone ever impressed by that? Rachel asked me, loud enough for them to hear.