The Hockey Lie

Chapter 5

TY

September 10

"Hey, can I sit here?" Seth Andrews asked me.

"Yeah, sure. Go for it," I replied with a smile. We were sitting in an empty classroom for our first hockey team meeting. Lucia hadn't shown up yet, but I guessed that pretty much everyone else was here.

When I had walked into the room, a lot of the guys had stared. No one asked me questions, but I could feel their unsureness around me.

"So, how have your classes been so far this year?" Seth asked me. He seemed to be the only one that was unfazed by my presence.

"Surprisingly, I love all of my classes. Well, except for psychology. My teacher is a moron. He's convinced that athletes have something wrong with their brains that make them egotistical jerks," I huffed.

"Wow, sounds like a real piece of work," Seth sympathized.

"Oh believe me, he is," I laughed. The room suddenly went silent as Coach Lucia finally made his presence.

"Sorry I'm late, guys. The traffic was horrible," Lucia said. "We have a lot of business to take care of, so bear with me, please, and pay attention. I don't want to have to repeat myself. First and foremost, welcome back to all of my returning players, and welcome to all the incoming freshman. I believe that we have a real chance at having a good team this year."

"National champs, baby!" someone in the back shouted.

"Hey, hey, hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Lucia said sternly. "We'll take this season one step at a time. All right, first order of business, captains. This year I have decided to name one captain, as usual, and three alternate captains. Our captain this year will be Cullen Kessler." Lucia paused as there were a round of whoops and hollers. "And our alternate captains will be Seth Andrews, Jared Lund, and Ty Brady."

A round of chatter started when the alternate captains' names were read. I'm guessing my name brought up a lot of chatter.

"Who's Ty Brady?" I heard someone ask.

"Isn't he a freshman?" someone else asked.

"I think he's the guy that practiced with us last year," someone said.

"Nice job, alternate captain," Seth congratulated me.

"I'm a freshman, though. This isn't normal, is it?" I asked.

"Nope, this isn't normal at all. The last freshman to be alternate captain on the team was Easton West," Seth informed me.

"Oh," I said. "How ironic."

"Guys, guys, settle down," Lucia shouted over all the commotion.

"Coach, who's Ty Brady?" someone asked as everyone calmed down again.

"Ty, please stand up," Lucia said, looking at me. I stood up, and everyone started staring at me.

"Wait a second, this Ty dude is a girl?" someone said as I sat down.

"Yes, everyone, this is Ty Brady. I'm sure most of you remember practicing with her last season. Now, while we're on the subject, I need to ask something of all of you. You can't tell anyone outside of the team and coaching staff that Ty is a girl. If the NCAA found out, this school might get in trouble and Ty might be banned from playing college hockey," Lucia explained.

"What if we don't want her on the team?" someone asked.

Lucia stared the guy who had asked the question down and said very seriously, "Then you can remove yourself from my team, or I will do it for you. If you have any problems, you can talk to me about them after this meeting is over. Moving on to the next order of business, we need to discuss jersey numbers." Lucia first asked the seniors what jersey numbers they wanted, then the juniors and sophomores. Finally, it was the freshmen's turn. When Lucia asked me what number I wanted, I told him 55 as I had been planning.

Coach talked about a few more miscellaneous things such as practice times and team protocol before he announced that the meeting was over. "Oh, and can I speak with the captains now, please?" he added.

"Well, that was shorter than normal," Seth commented.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"Well, normally, Coach starts some long lecture about honor and stuff, but he skipped that this year. It was kind of nice, actually," he laughed.

"Do you think the guys on the team will accept me?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure they will," Seth assured me. "They might not all like you at first, but eventually they'll come to like you. I mean, you are an alternate captain, after all."

"Yeah, how did that happen?"

"I don't know. Maybe Lucia will explain now," Seth said as we headed over to talk to Coach, along with Cullen and Jared.

"Okay, guys, you four are my captains. Kessler, you, of course, are my overall captain. That means you will be the one that keeps the team in line and guides everyone. You will also be a big encourager during practice, along with you three alternate captains," Lucia told us.

"Not to question your authority or train of thought, but why did you choose me as an alternate captain?" I asked. I figured that I may as well get the question out of the way early on.

"Ty, I chose you to be an alternate captain because from just one practice, I could see your leadership qualities. You know how to lead a team, and I believe that you have what it takes to be a captain, even as a freshman. That's why I chose you," Lucia replied.

"All right, thanks for the clarification," I said.

Lucia went on to tell us all of our duties and what he expected of us. After he was done, he dismissed us. "Cullen, I think you and your alternate captains should get to know each other better. I'm sure you will end up spending a lot of time together as the season goes on, so you may as well start now."

"All right, Coach, will do," Cullen replied. After Lucia left, Cullen turned to Seth, Jared, and me. "So, what do you guys want to do?"

"I'm up for anything," Jared said.

"Me, too," I added.

"All right, pizza it is. Follow me, I'll drive," Cullen smirked.

"He's a really bad driver," Seth whispered to me.

"What was that, Andrews?" Cullen called.

"Nothing, Captain my Captain," Seth replied overdramatically.

"You're an i***t, Andrews," Cullen said.

"Right back at cha, Captain," Seth laughed.

A few minutes and a couple heart attacks later, by some miracle we arrived at a pizza place in downtown Minneapolis safely.

"You weren't kidding when you said he was a bad driver," I said as the color started to return to my face.

"Yeah, I'm amazed we made it here in one piece," Seth said.

We got a booth in the pizza place and ordered two large pizzas, cheese and supreme, when the waiter came to talk to us.

"So, I know Seth and Jared, but I know nothing about you," Cullen said to me.

"Well, I'm Tyra Brady, but most people call me Ty. I went to high school in Blaine, and I was the captain of the state champion team last year. The boy's hockey team, I might add. I practiced with your team last year, but no one found out I was a girl except Seth and Dakota. Lucia talked to me after the practice and offered me a full ride scholarship to play men's hockey at the U. I accepted his offer and told everyone that knows I'm a girl, for the most part, not to say anything to protect the school and myself. My dream is to play in the NHL, and I can't fulfill that dream if I don't play men's hockey. That's why I'm on your team," I explained.

"Wow, that's really gutsy of you to play on a men's hockey team when you're a girl," Jared commented.

"I love the sport, and I decided that I wanted to play it, even when I considered all the possible consequences," I said. "So where are you guys originally from?"

"I'm from Lakeville. I went to Lakeville South," Cullen said.

"I'm from Ames, Iowa," Jared said.

"And I'm from Bemidji," Seth said.

"Nice. So do you think the other guys will be mad that I'm a captain since I'm only a freshman?" I asked hesitantly.

"Well, I think a few of them will be upset, but they'll get over it. The last time a freshman was a captain, he ended up going into the NHL the next year," Cullen said.

"Yeah, Easton West was a really good player," Jared commented.

"I know," I smiled. "He's my boyfriend."

"What?" the guys exclaimed in surprise.

"Yeah, I'm dating Easton West. I have been for almost a year," I said.

"Wow. I didn't see that coming," said Seth.

"I didn't see it coming either, really," I admitted. "I hated him at the beginning. He was completely arrogant and he didn't respect anyone but himself. He's changed a lot, though. I love him."

"Good for you. Well, since you're dating someone, that means Sethy over here is the only loner," teased Jared.

"I can help you with that. I'll find someone that you'll like," I told Seth.

"Guy, I'm perfectly fine with being single! Last year, they tried to set me up with a girl. It turned out that she was a kleptomaniac. She took my wallet and almost stole my car."

"Don't worry, Seth. I'll find you a girl that I know well. It might take me a while, but trust me," I assured him.

"You guys are dead to me," Seth pouted.

"Oh, you'll get over it once you have a girlfriend," Jared said.

"Shut up, Lundy," Seth humphed.

"Get over yourself, Sethy. It's gonna be a good season, I can feel it," said Lundy. Thankfully, the waiter brought our pizza over before Seth and Jared could start a fistfight.

"Good choice, Cullen," I complimented as I took a bite of pizza.

"This is one of my favorite places to eat," Cullen replied.

"Yeah, you can never really go wrong with pizza," added Seth. We continued to chat, and before we knew it, we had finished both pizzas.

"Holy crap, we ate both of those pizzas!" I exclaimed.

"We're hockey players, are you really that surprised?" asked Cullen.

"Well, when you put it like that, then I guess I'm not surprised," I laughed.

After we talked a little longer, Cullen said, "Well, I suppose we should head back to campus."

"Yeah, I've got an evening class in a half hour," said Jared.

"Same," I replied.

"Well, this was fun. We should do it again," Seth suggested.

"That's a good idea," Cullen said, and we decided to exchange phone numbers. "You guys can call me whenever. I'll answer as soon as possible.

We all climbed back into Cullen's crappy car and headed back to the U. Like Jared had said earlier, I felt that it was going to be a good season.