A/N: This is my first try at a fanfic. All comments are welcome. I am not a native English speaker, so if anybody wants to proofread future chapters, please let me know.


Beca stepped out of the cab and immediately turned to the trunk to collect her bags. She must look comically small carrying her big stick bag and her equipment bag. She refused every help from the cabby, not trusting her bags in anyone's hands but her own. Somewhere on the way to her dorm she got handed a rape whistle, which was now hanging from her mouth. When she finally arrived at her dorm, she let her sports bags drop with a sigh. After an unpleasant and luckily short conversation with her new roommate, Kimmy Jin, she started setting up her equipment. Just when she finished, she heard a knock on the door. A familiar voice sounded.

"Hey, this is campus police. Hide your wine coolers!".

Her father walked in, greeting Kimmy Jin, but not getting much of a response, and turned his attention to his daughter.

"Do you have all your equipment?"

Beca shrugged, knowing he wasn't talking about her DJ equipment. She had checked her hockey bags twice at home, but didn't want to give her father the satisfaction. He wasn't looking to happy with her reaction.

"I know you don't want to be here, but you know the deal. You go to college, for free may I add, and play hockey here. If you still do not like it here after a year, I will personally help you move to LA."

Beca nodded reluctantly, knowing the angle her father was playing. They used to enjoy hockey together, and he probably expected to reconnect with her over hockey. She, however, was not so sure. She had left her high school team on bad terms, and although she was slightly looking forward to playing again (okay, maybe more that slightly), she also knew that she generally did not connect to a team easily. The only reason she wasn't forced to leave her high school team earlier, was that she was their top scorer, so they needed her. Her father brought her back to reality.

"So are you ready for tryouts tonight?"

Beca nodded again. She had seen some footage of the team, and knew that she could at least match their skill. They usually performed decently in the league, but last year the team surprisingly found themselves in the championship finals. Unfortunately, the team choked after their captain missed a penalty stroke when they were 1-0 up. They lost with a disappointing score of 6-1 eventually. Beca had been training all summer, certainly not to please her father, but mostly to get out of the house. She actually enjoyed training, it helped keep her mind occupied.

"Okay, well, good luck!"

Her father looked disappointed with her lack of vocal response, but did eventually leave. Beca flopped down at her desk and started working on a mix she had thought up during the previous conversation. She had a few hours to kill before her tryouts and like training, mixing kept her mind occupied as well. She was secretely nervous for the tryouts, even though she didn't want to admit that to anyone.


Beca was early, she liked to experience the feel of the field before the tryouts. Even though she was fifteen minutes early, she wasn't the first on the field. On the opposite side she saw a tall blonde talking to a small redhead. While she walked over, she saw the two girls eyeing her, the blonde looking quite disappointed, while the redhead was smiling. Beca was aware that she did not look like a conventional hockey player. She was wearing a plain dark blue jersey, black shorts and black socks. Even more unconventional was her old green stick bag, which could only hold one stick. The bag was over forty years old, and could not hold her other equipment. She did own bigger bags, but always resorted to the old bag for occasions like this, since she believed it would bring her good luck. She got it from her grandfather, who started her passion for the game.

She tried ignoring the girls still eyeing her, put down her bags and grabbed a stick and ball. She started moving the ball, lifting it up from time to time. After a while she moved to the goal, shooting some hard balls at the backboard. She liked the way the field felt, it was a bit bouncy, but not too much, and she felt confident. She saw the tall blonde walking up to her in her peripheral. She stopped shooting and turned just in time to catch the bright yellow vest coming her way.

"Put that on and gather at the dug-out", the blonde said with in a harsh tone.

Beca now took in the field anew and saw that the group of girls had significantly expanded. About 25 girls had gathered at the dug-outs, some wearing the bright yellow vest she was also holding, others wearing the red Barden jerseys. All jerseys and vests were numbered, and Beca saw she was handed vest number 9 as she put it on. Beca recognized the two coaches walking up to the group. The man in front looked quite young, he wore his black hair combed back and had a stern look on his face. The woman following him had blond hair to her shoulder and also didn't wear an especially friendly look, but still looked more approachable than the man in front. The man positioned himself in front of the group.

"My name is Coach Smith. This is my assistant Dawson. We are running a serious team here. If you are selected, I expect a hundred percent from you. You are expected to be here every practice and bring your best. The team will be your number one priority. If you can't do that, you can leave now."

Everybody went silent but nobody walked out. Coach continued his speech.

"If you want to make the team, you need to show your best this week. We will pick the best sixteen players at the end of the week. Don't think it's going to be like your high school team, this is a step up. We will work on your running skills and core strength. We will push you to your limits. "

He then gestured to the tall blonde.

"Aubrey will be leading the warm up, let's go."

This seemed to be the cue for the blonde, apparently named Aubrey, and she commanded everybody to drop their gear and follow her. After a few rounds of easy running around the field they started doing warmup drills in their running. Then Aubrey stepped it up a notch, increasing both speed and intensity of the drills. Beca could easily keep up, but saw a few of the other girls struggling. This didn't feel like a warm up anymore, but started to turn more into running practice. After about half an hour of pushing the new girls to their limits, Aubrey allowed a short pause. Beca walked to her bag, where a rather large blond was already drinking water.

"Hey, you seem to be holding up just fine!"

Beca nodded politely and then saw that the girl was not looking good, so she decided to enquire on her well-being. The blonde smiled at her and started talking in a thick Australian accent.

"I'm fine, just not a big fan of vertical running. I'm fat Amy, by the way."

"Beca. You call yourself fat Amy?"

"Yeah, so twig bitches like you don't do it behind my back."

Beca wondered what the large girl was doing here trying out, but didn't get that much time to ponder upon the matter, because soon they were called over for core strength. This consisted of planks, push-ups, sit-ups and a variety of other drills. Beca could still keep up, since she had worked on her core strength over the summer. She saw fat Amy collapsing beside her halfway through the workout. This earned the entire group of girls twenty additional push-ups. When Aubrey finally announced a short break and called for them to gear up, the sighs were audible. An hour in, they still hadn't touched a stick, and Beca wondered how they would select the best players.

They started by passing the ball, and everyone was asked to pair up. Before Beca could ask Amy, she was already paired up with a tall brunette, so she looked around to see if there were any free girls. The redhead she saw talking to Aubrey earlier seemed to still be without a partner, so Beca walked up to her.

"Hey, do you want to pair up?"

The redhead looked at her with a fond look in her eyes, but was then called over by Aubrey, and turned to Beca with an apologetic look.

"Sorry, Aubrey is my usual passing partner."

She shot one more smile at Beca and turned away. Beca ended up passing with an Asian girl that didn't seem to talk at all. She could only make up that her name was Lilly. After passing they did a simple exercise that ended in a shot on goal to warm up the keeper, who was called Cynthia-Rose. The exercise consisted of three passes follow by the shot. Beca was content with her first shot on goal, although it was about a centimeter wide, until she heard the annoying blonde.

"Number nine, 10 push-ups!"

She turned around with a questioning look. This caused Aubrey to stop the exercise as she turned towards Beca.

"If your shot is not on target, you do ten push-ups, that's the rule."

Beca really wanted to question it, and just as she was about to do so, she saw the redhead shake her head with a warning look. She looked back at the blonde and could see that Aubrey would use any excuse to wear her out and prove she couldn't keep up. She dropped and did ten push-ups, which seemed to shut Aubrey up for the time being. She then caught the eyes of the redhead, who nodded encouragingly, to which she returned her signature smirk.

The other exercises were not really eventful and were mainly focussed on shooting on goal. Although Beca had a good shot, this was not her best feature, and she hoped that she had a chance to use her other skills. This chance came soon enough when after almost two hours of training they held a practice match. The teams were oldies versus newbies. They would play eleven on eleven and Beca was in the newbies team with Amy, Lilly and the tall brunette Amy had been passing with, as well as some girls she hadn't really paid any attention to yet. Dawson would referee the match-up.

Just as a discussion was started on who would get Cynthia-Rose as goalie, a blonde guy walked onto the field, wearing legguards and carrying a goalie bag. Dawson ran over and after a short exchange he agreed to be the newbies keeper. He came over to their huddle at the top of the D.

"Hi, my name is Jesse, I am actually trying out for the men's team, but I could use a nice warmup."

After a round of introductions their team was set up and Beca was comfortable as left half. Amy and the brunette, who had introduced herself as Stacie, had taken the lead and positioned everybody on the field. As soon as the play began Amy was shouting instructions from her defensive position.


The game started with some back and forth scrambling, but eventually the older girls were able to set up a decent attack. They had put high pressure on the newbies defense, which gave them a free hit just outside the 23. Aubrey lined up for the shot, as Beca stood between her and the D. Aubrey tried the direct hit, which Beca had expected and she was able to get away with it. She ran up the sideline and heard Stacie, who had ran up the center of the field, call for the ball. Beca made the pass allowing a one-on-one with between Stacie and Cynthia Rose. Stacie made a great fake to the left and easily shot the ball from the right into the net.

Aubrey looked pissed and showed this in the field. She shouted orders at her team, which eventually got them the penalty corner. The newbie defense lined up in the goal while Aubrey set up at the top of the D. The redhead, Beca had still not caught her name, was set to inject. The injection was perfect and Aubrey hit the ball right in the lower right corner. She wasn't celebrating, but returned to her position in defense immediately. Coach Smith called for a short huddle for each of the teams to regroup.

After the girls had gathered, Amy and Stacie talked through a few minor issues, insisting they needed better passing and hold on to the ball more. Beca eyed their opponents and saw Aubrey talk vigorously to her players. She decided that in order to take this game, they had to play a different strategy. She knew exactly what would break up their play, so she returned her attention to her own team and starting explaining her strategy.

"Guys, they are playing with extremely high press. They want to force the ball down our left, so it is easy pickings for their right defender. They will not allow us to get our head up, so you need to know what to do before you pick up the ball. In offense they can find each other blindly, the only way to counter this is to reduce press and force the runs instead of the passes. We can handle them one-on-one. Don't put any pressure on the ball until they are in our half, and play for the counter on interception."

The girls around her nodded and looked at her admiringly. Dawson blew the whistle to start them for a second half. As soon as possession was with the older girls, the newbies dropped back, and Aubrey seemed temporarily fazed by this. She started walking with the ball, but couldn't really find a pass, so she dropped the ball to her defender at the sideline. After a few times back and forth they understood that they needed to make the play. They passed in some players in midfield, but these players immediately had to drop the ball back to defense due to the lack of passing options. Eventually Aubrey tried a scoop, which was picked up nicely by Amy in defense. She then played a fast ball to her center midfielder, who found Stacie for the counter. Stacie finished the attack with a tomahawk shot over the shoulder of Cynthia-Rose.

After this goal the newbies locked up the game, not allowing any passes, and held their own. Aubrey got increasingly frustrated and started walking with the ball more and more. This resulted in a nice steal from Lilly, who was playing the left flank, and she was able to score on another counter.

Not long after Dawson blew for the end signal, and Aubrey stomped of the field. Most of the other girls came to congratulate the younger girls on their win. Beca saw the redhead giving each of the newbies a smile or pat on the back. She then turned to Beca and walked right up to her.

"Well played! You have a good strategic eye on the field. My name is Chloe by the way."

"Beca. Thanks, I used to watch a lot of games with my grandfather and he would always give me tips on how to counter certain plays."

Chloe nodded, but to Beca's dismay, was called over by Aubrey immediately after, so she shrugged apologetically and ran towards Aubrey. Beca saw Amy collapse on the bench and was just about to walk over as she felt a pat on her back.

"Good game out there, you really know your hockey. Sorry about the penalty corner, I should have stopped that."

Beca turned around to see the blonde keeper smiling broadly. She gave him a small nod and was just about to walk away as he continued talking.

"Hey, we should hang out some time, you know, both newbies wanting to get on a team. Do you like films?"

Beca was temporarily fazed by this request, but quickly recoverend and replied that she was not much of a film person.

"Well, we can do something else, what do you like?"

She wasn't going to shake him off, so she suggested the one thing she did like.

"If the field is free tomorrow, we could play a bit tomorrow, we could practice shoot-outs. I was going to do a workout anyway, so..."

Jesse seemed happy enough with this answer.

"I will check when the field is free. If you could put your number in my phone, I will let you know when to meet me here. We can be workout buddies!"

Beca reluctantly put her number in his phone and walked of to her bag. She packed up all her gear and seemed to be one of the last of the team to leave the field. On her way off she got a compliment from Dawson, which gave her a bit of confidence for the next training three days from now. This dissipated quickly when a tall blonde stepped into her path.

"We don't play half-court press, if you pull that in a league game they will walk right over you."

Beca couldn't hold in her snide remark, after showing so much restrain during practice.

"It worked well against you guys, didn't it?"

"You come out of high school thinking you're the best, but here, things are different. Getting on the team does not just depend on skills, you will also need a better attitude. Remember, I decide whether you make the team, so you better keep that attitude in check."

Beca knew she was in the danger zone, since the blonde looked like she was about to puke, so she just nodded. Aubrey luckily didn't linger and turned around to walk towards a redhead with a worried look in her eyes. When she saw that the conversation had not escalated she smiled at Beca with a grateful look, before turning her attention to Aubrey. Beca counted herself lucky that Chloe would be on the field for the next training, because otherwise she wouldn't be able to restrain herself around Aubrey.