Nicole had never felt more like death.
It must've taken her fifteen minutes to get the energy to even roll over this morning, never mind actually get out of bed.
She'd known that no matter how good of shape she was in, she'd be sore after the first day of preseason. But, wow, was she not expecting this. Every single muscle felt like it was on fire, and she was sore in places on her body she didn't even knew could be sore.
She ran her hands over her face and groaned as she noticed the darkness outside her window. No matter how long she'd been playing hockey, she never could quite get herself used to the early morning practices. She'd never complain though, she loved it too much. Most days she couldn't believe she was still playing at her age, and the fact that it was now her job.
She remembers draft night a couple months ago, the absolute anxiety as the night went on without hearing her name called. Round after round finished off and the doubt kept creeping in with each pick that wasn't her. She'd known she wasn't one of the top options, and she never tricked herself into believing she'd be picked in the first or second round, but by the time round six rolled around, she was starting to accept that her career was over and she'd have to find a real life job. She'd allowed the words of others to hold truth, that she wasn't good enough or that the league was a silly pipe dream. The last pick of round seven, the final round, was being mulled over when Nicole had officially resigned herself to her fate of being a NARP when her phone rang.
She hadn't travelled to Ottawa for the official draft, she knew that she wasn't going to go in the first couple of rounds, and instead stayed in her off-campus apartment in Edmonton with CJ and watched the telecast from her couch anxiously. No parents, no teammates or friends from campus were there to watch with her. Her parents had been in and out of her life up until she went off to college and cut them out completely. Her teammates weren't exactly what you'd call teammates and didn't really ever care about each other outside of the locker room and she'd always been too preoccupied with class and hockey to make any real friends on campus. So, Nicole was stuck on draft night, alone with CJ, Calamity Jane, her favorite ginger cat.
When her phone had rung, CJ jumped ten feet in the air, Nicole recalls with a smile. It took her a moment to answer it, not wanting to get her hopes up, thinking it was most likely a telemarketer. But, the Purgatory Blue Devils had the last pick and the caller ID on her phone was an unknown number from Purgatory, AB, so she took a deep breath and answered it.
"Nicole Haught?" The gruff voice on the other end asked.
"Yes, this is she." (She still cringes at the phrase).
"My name is Randy Nedley, I'm the head coach of the Purgatory Blue Devils," the words had spiked her heart rate up exponentially, "How would you like to come play for us?"
Her eyes were filled with tears of pride, she had done it. She had made it (this far, at least), when others said she had no chance.
"It'd be an honor sir." Was all she could manage to say without sounding like she was fighting tears, but she was certain he could hear the smile she was wearing.
"Alright, well we're gonna go ahead and use this and make you our official pick then. Welcome to the team Nicole." Nedley said, and he sounded prideful as well.
"Thank you sir, thank you." She'd answered and the call had ended.
Turning back to the telecast, she watched the league commissioner walk up to the stage, and make an official announcement.
"With the final pick of this year's draft, the Purgatory Blue Devils select Nicole Haught, Center, University of Alberta."
She'd spent the rest of June, July, August and the first week of September in Edmonton working on her game before finally getting to Purgatory a few days ago, signing a lease on the small apartment she was currently residing in. (She was grateful that at the very least, her landlord allowed her to keep CJ in the apartment with her).
Groaning as she moved around the apartment in the light of the table lamp, she filled her water bottle and grabbed a protein bar from the cupboard and packed her bag for practice. She knew she should probably leave her skates and sticks in the locker room, but she was still being hazed as the newbie (and the last pick overall) and didn't want the team getting up to any funny business with them. It was bad enough they'd stolen her clothes while she showered after practice, even though they were nice enough to leave her a towel for her walk of shame back to the main locker room for her garments.
This morning, she dressed in sweats and a team t-shirt, running a brush through her wild mane. She'd get more properly dressed for practice in the locker room anyway.
Checking her phone, she saw it was 5:32.
Perfect, she thought. Practice was at 7 am and she was not even ten minutes from the rink. She'd have plenty of time to get in, roll out, stretch, and get ready for practice. She's always been the type to show up early for things, paranoid about ever being late.
Nicole hobbled out of the bathroom, muscles slightly (but not much) less sore now that she'd been up and about, made sure that Calamity Jane had food and water, triple checked she had everything she needed, and then headed for the door to grab her hood—right, the hoodie.
Running into Waverly had been on her mind much of last night. Her awkward clumsiness was endearing, and there was something about the girl that was mesmerizing. When Nicole saw that the girl was shivering because of the spill, how could she not lend a hand? And it gave her an excuse to speak to the girl beyond that one encounter.
It was a real win-win.
Smiling at the memory of yesterday, Nicole grabbed a different hoodie and headed through the door.
Walking down the apartment stairs was considerably less fun and much harder than it should've been, but after more duck-walking, she safely made it to her car, and started off toward the arena. Pulling into the lot of the building, she headed straight for the locker room, waving to the office attendant who looked less than thrilled to be there.
As expected, she was the first one there. There was something peaceful about being the first one in the locker room. The calm before the storm.
She had to admit that her new teammates were nothing short of rowdy. Before practice yesterday, Carlson and Harris spent a half-hour before practice bumping Nicki Minaj and screaming at the top of their lungs. The others were hyping each other up and throwing wax and tape across the room at each other like they were playing dodgeball. But it was a team. Something she was clearly missing from her experience at UofA. She shuddered at the memories of girls rolling in fifteen minutes before practice, hungover from the night before a Tuesday morning practice.
Nicole sat down on the bench in her locker, taking in the quiet just a moment while she ate her protein bar. She'd have a more proper breakfast after practice, she just needed to get something in her stomach so she didn't pass out on the ice.
After eating, she pulled the foam roller out of her locker and started to roll out her tight muscles. Hamstrings first, since they'd been the tightest, then moving to calves and then to the less sore muscles around her hip flexors.
Muscles activated, she used the time to stretch properly, grimacing slightly every once in a while at the soreness that wouldn't completely go away. Stretching completed, she started to unpack her bag and dress for the upcoming practice. Spandex shorts, her dri-fit undershirt and her skate socks went on first before she heard the speaker coming down the hall and she knew that others were arriving.
When the door swung open, the two noisemakers were revealed to be none other than Carlson and Harris, who upon seeing the room wasn't empty, yelled, "REDDDDD!" as their greeting to which Nicole smiled and greeted them all the same.
Others filed in after getting their morning training room routine in and started to dress, most of them completely comfortable with being well past half-naked around each other.
When she was younger, Nicole had spent most of her early days playing hockey on the boys club teams, and was always in a separate locker room to get dressed for practices and games, so the first time she was on a girls' team at fifteen years old, she found her self more than a little uncomfortable and awkward changing in front of and being around other girls changing. (She'd come to realize why that was at seventeen, when a team captain had shoved her tongue down her throat, and Nicole finally saw the rainbows).
These days, at 22, the locker room atmosphere hadn't fazed her one bit, and she was glad for that.
She'd always been particular in how her equipment went on, left shin guard, then the right one; left sock, right sock; pants, left skate, right skate, sticking the tongues out and tucking the shinnies into the skate before taping everything in place with clear tape. Before she'd put on her tops, she'd head to the bathroom to do her hair, today (like yesterday) opting for a simple braid. She gave herself one lookover in the mirror, and took a deep breath looking at the reflection still unbelieving that she'd been brought onto a professional team, in this gorgeous brand-new looking locker room.
She returned to the somehow even noisier part of the room where it seemed that all of her teammates were now present.
Pressman, team captain, stood in the center of the room and demanded silence, that was almost instantaneously granted.
"Alright, team colors today," she started, ready to assign the team their specific practice jersey colors for the day. "Carlson, Harris, Johnson, Williams, Gardner, you'll be in Navy with me. White team: Saunders, Smith, Thomas, Hansen, MacKinnon, Paulsen, Adams. And in the baby blues we've got Wilson, Powers, Boardman, Meunier, Greene, Finning, and Haught. Tendies, divide amongst yourselves, Sheriff didn't give me any orders for ya'll."
Nicole reached up into her locker for her baby blue jersey, hanging amongst the other two colors. Putting on her shoulder pads, left elbow pad and then the right, she pulled on the sweater with the blue devil on the front and the number 15 stitched across the back.
"Let's have ourselves a good one squad, eh?" Pressman said as the team stood to roll out onto the ice, walking down the tunnel to the freshly Zamboni'd sheet.
Shae, being captain and all, led the team through the door and dumped the pucks onto the ice, each of them falling to the surface with a satisfying echo through the empty rink. The rest of the team followed, with a jogging start to get onto the ice with some speed. Nicole followed suit, being last in line as the rookie.
She hadn't even taken her first stride when she felt her leg go out from under her and she felt herself falling. Sliding across the ice on her side, she felt her face burn in embarrassment and heard the others laughing.
"First day with the new legs Haught?" One of them had called, though Nicole couldn't distinguish through the shock.
She could've sworn she'd taken her skate guards off in the locker room. No, she'd bet her life she did. And looking down at her feet, she'd found she was right. There was no guard on her blades.
She used her stick to get herself to a knee and pushed herself to stand, only to find herself slipping again. More laughter erupted from the team and—oh, right.
She was the newbie, and still very much being hazed. The clear tape on her skate blades was the latest prank. She'd been careful to not leave her skates in the locker room overnight for this exact reason, though perhaps she hadn't taken into account the time she'd left them unattended while she showered yesterday.
"You ladies think that's funny?" The unmistakable voice of the Sheriff came from the other side of the bench area. The laughter came to an abrupt halt. Nedley pushed onto the ice and skated to the group that had congregated around Nicole, who was determined to get to her feet. The coach helped her stand before addressing the team. "I love tradition as much as the next guy, but just know, this is a team and when one falls," he looked pointedly at Nicole, "we all fall. Now get on the line."
Everyone's least favorite words: get on the line.
If there were groans, the team was good at concealing them and keeping them quiet.
Nedley helped Nicole to the bench where she started to peel the tape off of her skates. Once she had finished, he nodded for her to join the others on the line. The skate from the bench to the line was maybe one of the longest in her life as she'd never in her life been the reason the team had to get on the line. She hoped she was imagining the glares from the other girls.
"Now, as a team since we wanna fuck around before practice, we'll just have to get ourselves serious real quick." Nedley barked. "To the blue line and back, red line back, so on and so forth, on my whistles, don't half-ass. Let's go!"
They all knew what this meant. The dreaded bag skate. Repetition until they threw up or until Sheriff decided it was enough.
When Nedley blew the first whistle, they took off. The first round wasn't all that bad, skating up and down was a good wake up for a morning practice. The second was less so as sore muscles and tired lungs started to make their appearance.
"Again." Nedley called after what they hoped would be a third and final round.
It wasn't.
"Again."
Blue line and back, red line and back, opposite blue line and back, goal line and back. Nicole really hoped that the others were as winded as she was. Hearing the two girls on the side of her gasping for air made her feel better.
"Again."
Another set of whistles. More heavy breathing.
"Again."
Back at it again.
"Well, I'll say you all are mighty lucky that I was no Wayne Gretzky, or you'd have done damn near a hundred sets. I reckon ten should be enough for you all to have each other's backs out here," Nedley barked as the girls in front of him were doubled over and gasping from sprinting equivalent to 20 lengths of the rink non-stop. Nicole thanked the stars Randy Nedley was famous in Alberta for playing in the number 10 sweater and not the Great One's 99. "Get some water, and set up 3v2's."
The rest of the 3-hour practice went by smoothly, especially considering that nothing was worse than conditioning right off the bat first thing in the morning. If the other girls were upset about the bag skate punishment, they kept it hidden from Nicole, though there were times in drills she felt like they were leaving her out. She'd tried, really, to not let it affect her game, but she knew everyone could see it, she was deflated and sluggish, no matter how hard she tried to energize herself.
She wondered why it was her they singled out so blatantly, considering there had been three other rookies on the team who were just as new as she was, though she had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with a certain team captain who ruled the roost.
"Alright, that's practice." One of the assistants, Lonnie, had called, and the girls all skated to the bench to get water and tidy up.
"Haught." She froze when she heard her name. It was Nedley calling her, probably to call her out on her poor performance.
Timidly, she skated over to the man.
"Uh, yeah coach?"
"Just wanted to check in on you. You seemed off today."
Well that was certainly not what she was expecting.
"Must've been the morning coach. Sorry, I won't let it happen again."
He ran his hand over his goatee and made an indistinguishable sound.
"No, I don't think that's quite it, Nicole." He said, uncharacteristically using her first name. "Do you know why you were picked for this team?"
She shook her head; she'd spent a lot of time in disbelief wondering that exact thing.
"Dolls wanted to trade the pick for a second-line winger from the Pirates. Had the deal all but wrapped up." He explained, and she wondered why he was telling her this now. "But, I'd been in the draft room all night, and I had my eye on this scrappy little firecracker of a center from a less than great UofA squad. God, the fight I put up between him and old Bunny Loblaw to get them to use that pick on you."
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Someone had fought to get her. She'd been wanted.
"I've seen you play kid, it's all there. You just let what others do or say get to you. You're stronger than that, I know it. I expect you to show it Haught."
Nicole nodded, unable to form a verbal response.
"Good." He smiled a bit. "And between you and me, we were gonna bag skate no matter what, so don't let them make you think it was your fault."
"Yes sir."
"Go on then, enjoy the rest of your day." He dismissed her and she skated off to the locker room.
Nedley was right, she needed to believe only in her own abilities and not what people had tried to make her believe. If she did that, she'd have nothing holding her back.
By the time she'd made it back to the locker room, it was mostly empty, as she could've expected from the growing noise coming from the direction of the training room.
She took a deep breath as she sat in her locker, removing her phone from the lockbox on the top cubby.
There were no new messages or anything of the like, not that she'd expected them. All that looked back at her was a photo of her and Calamity Jane that she had taken a while back, and the clock telling her it was 10:25 am.
She'd have the whole rest of the day to herself, an uncharacteristic amount of free time. Yesterday had been packed, with an early morning team run and lift before off-ice fitness testing and a two-and-a-half-hour practice.
She slowly undressed, throwing her practice jersey in the bin and her underclothes in her laundry bag before tossing that in the other laundry bin. The staff would take care of that for the team. Perks of being a pro, she supposed.
Nicole decided today was a good a day as any to trust her equipment to the locker room and leave her skates and sticks in her cubby. She had a pretty good feeling that nobody would try anything with them after the bag skate this morning.
She stretched as she stood, the fatigue of the last few days thick and heavy on her muscles. Gathering a towel and her street clothes, she brought herself to the showers and turned the heat all the way up. She worked the soap and shampoo through her hair, pulling out the tangles that were caused by the braid and her helmet.
Once showered and re-dressed, Nicole grabbed her duffel bag of stuff that was significantly more empty than this morning, deciding that tomorrow she'd settle on the team backpack she'd received and save the duffel bag for her equipment on away games.
Last one out, she turned off the light in the locker room and made her way for the exit. Her eyes flitted to the office, hoping to run into Waverly Earp again. Unfortunately, Nicole couldn't seem to spot her, though she saw the same staff member sitting at the desk playing on her phone as she did when she arrived early this morning.
She debated stopping in and asking for Waverly, but the disinterest and scowl on the office girl's face changed her mind, and she headed for the parking lot instead. She'd get her hoodie and say hi to the pretty girl she'd leant it to another time.
Nicole exited the rink and threw her bag into the backseat of her car, driving away eagerly toward her one-bedroom apartment. The rumbling in her stomach alerted her that she hadn't had much more than a measly protein bar, and she couldn't wait to get some real sustenance.
Calamity Jane nipped at her heels as she threw her keys on the counter and she did her best to nudge her away, only focused on the meal she had to prepare. She'd never consider herself a great cook by any means, but Nicole had at least a little sense in the kitchen. Removing the shaved steak she'd bought at the market yesterday from the refrigerator, she also grabbed an egg and some white cheddar cheese. Throwing the steak and cheese on her one frying pan, she waited for the steak to cook and the cheese to melt before adding the egg and scrambling it all together. The ciabatta bread she'd bought from the small bakery on the corner yesterday was toasting in her toaster oven, and the combination of smells was making Nicole even hungrier than she had been.
Once her meal had been completed, she plated the food and filled a glass with iced tea, retiring to the sofa in the living room and turning on the TV so as not to sit in the empty apartment in complete silence.
Following her late breakfast, she opted for a quick cat nap seeing as she could hardly keep her eyes open. (Laying on the couch after a good meal coupled with her exhausted body was a wonderful combination). When she awoke, it was barely 1:30, and she was lost for things to do. She didn't know anyone else around town really, and the other girls on her team were out minding their own business or tending to their families and friends. All Nicole had was her cat and the entirety of Golden Girls on Hulu to watch for the billionth time.
She thought of the rink, and how it always seemed that the same four or five people were working there no matter the day or time. She didn't see it fair that she could sit around all day while they worked and picked up after her and her team on top of other responsibilities.
As the next episode clicked over, Nicole decided that tomorrow, she'd stop in and say hi and volunteer to help out there when she had the free time. It was only the right thing to do, they worked so hard. That was the only reason…obviously it couldn't have anything to do with a certain clumsy little brunette angel who she'd leant her hoodie to.