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I’ve played hockey in a lot of places. Small rinks, big arenas, cities that buzz and towns where the rinkisthe buzz. Juniors. International. The Olympics. Every level comes with its own version of “the best.” Faster. Stronger. Smarter. Every time I stepped up, I thought,this is it. This is the top.
That was until today. Until I walked into the Dominion Ice Center, the still-new, multimillion-dollar hockey palace the Dominion opened after the inaugural season wrapped, and in time for offseason training. Two sheets of ice. One community rink packed with youth practices, public skates, and enough parents running on iced coffee to power a small city. One sleek development rink wrapped wall-to-wall in Dominion branding, where pros can and will train in the offseason. Team offices are upstairs, with floor-to-ceiling glass. It’s state-of-the-art everything.
And somehow the most terrifying thing happening in the building today isn’t the NHL players skating fifty feet away.
No.
It’s a 14U girls’ practice run by my sister. Girls. Thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls that do not come with instruction booklets nor a FAQ sheet. Both would be helpful.
“Okay, last one!” Emma calls, clapping her hands as she skates backward with the kind of ease that says she’s been doing this her whole life. “Finish strong!”
One girl rifles a shot bar down. Another steals a puck clean off her teammate like she’s been studying game tape, while someone celebrates like they’ve just won gold.
I shake my head, a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. Yeah. Best of the best.
“Miss McCade!”
Emma turns at the same time I do because, apparently, we’re both Miss McCade now.
A girl skates over, helmet slightly crooked, eyes bright, and completely unbothered by the fact that she just went full speed for the last forty-five minutes.
“My skate lace snapped,” she says, holding up her foot like evidence. “And I tried to double knot it, but then it got stuck and now I can’t feel my toes, but like—not in a bad way? I think?”
Emma presses her lips together, already fighting a smile.
“Okay,” she says, calm as anything. “We’ll fix it.”
“And also,” the girl adds, leaning in conspiratorially, “Hannah says her stick feels cursed, but I think she just needs to stop blaming the stick and pass the puck.”
“I heard that!” someone yells from across the ice.
“Good!” the girl shoots back without missing a beat.
A tiny laugh escapes before I can stop myself. Yep. Here I am. Teaching all these girls. Or at least I shall attempt to. My sister has a lot more faith in me than I thought, leaving this group in my leadership
Emma hands me a spare lace like she’s assigning me a task in a highly organized system I do not yet understand. “You’ve got this, right?”
I look down at the skate. That knot somehow looks more complicated than anything I’ve faced in a playoff game.
“You know, I’m a big deal somewhere. I’ve played in three countries,” I say.
“Congratulations,” she replies, already skating off. “Here, you’re a coach, and you’re the adult. So, now you tie the lace.”
I glance back at the girl, who’s watching me like this is the real test of my career. I crouch down, fingers working through the knot, tuning everything else out—on purpose this time. The noise fades around me; it’s not gone, it’s never gone, but it’s quieter at the edges when I concentrate really hard. Makes it more manageable.
“Okay, feels better to me,” I mutter, giving it one last tug, testing the tension.
The girl moves around, rocking forward onto the blade, then back again. Once. Twice.
“Yeah,” she decides. “That’s way better. Thanks, Coach.”
She pushes off without another word, already rejoining the flow like she was never gone.
I stay crouched for a second longer than necessary, watching the pattern re-form. This is another aspect of the game I like, because to me, this is not random. To the average eye it looks random. It even feels random, at first. But it isn’t.
There’s a rhythm to it—who loops wide, who cuts in tight, who hesitates before receiving a pass, who doesn’t. The puck moves in predictable arcs if you know where to look. Pressure builds on one side, releases to the other.
