And…the usual disclaimer: Disney owns the Mighty Ducks. The name, the characters, Orion, the Varsity players, and Linda are not mine. However, I do own any characters you don't recognize…i.e. Ken's parents, Ken's grandfather, Elaine, Brian, Sky, Tony, Sonja, etc.
"Oof." Ken grunted as he dropped his bag next to a bench and slumped onto the bench. It was Monday, two days into Ken's new training schedule and he was feeling it. He had spent a couple hours on the ice over the weekend, but since there was never a great deal of ice time on the weekends, his grandfather had him work on off-ice training. He ran two miles each day and spent several hours in the weight room at the rink. And he was feeling it. He already had great stamina from playing hockey, but hadn't spent a lot of time working with weights in a while, and now, muscles Ken forgot he had were sore.
Ken looked over the boards in front of him and saw several figure skaters leaving the ice as the zamboni began to circle the ice. There were several kids that were quite a bit younger than him and a couple that looked about his age, but Ken didn't recognize any of them. He watched them for another moment, then willed himself off the bench. He jogged a couple laps around the rink and went through his pre-skate warm-up. He quickly laced up his skates, pulled on his hooded sweatshirt and gloves and stepped onto the ice. Gliding over to the rink side stereo, he popped a CD in and pressed play. Though it was only 8:30 in the morning, Ken knew all the other skaters had finished their morning workout and were at school. Most of them would be back later in the day, around one or two, but until then, Ken had the ice to himself. By the time he skated a few laps around the empty rink, his grandfather was already seated on the bench in one of the hockey boxes.
"Ready?" He asked Ken, who nodded.
"First things first." His grandfather began. "Posture. You can't bend forward the way you do in hockey. Make sure you do not carry that over."
Startled, Ken adjusted his head, shoulders and back, unaware that he had been skating any differently.
"Better. Concentrate on doing that when you skate. Now, your crossovers…"
After three hours on the ice working on the tiniest details of basic skating, Ken collapsed back onto his bench. Starving, he pulled his sack lunch out of his skate bag and devoured his sandwich in seconds. He was halfway through an apple when his grandfather sat down next to him, his own lunch in his hands, and smiled.
"You are doing very well. How are you feeling?" He asked.
Ken stared at his grandfather for a moment. "I hurt." He said bluntly. "I haven't done any serious weight training in a while; I keep thinking my legs are going to fall off."
His grandfather continued to smile. "But you feel stronger, yes?"
Ken shook his head. "I just feel like my legs are made of Jell-o."
Another smile. "But you are still able to skate well with your Jell-o legs. You may not feel it, but you already look stronger."
At that Ken smiled. "Yeah, I guess so." He agreed. He knew it would be a while before he'd be back in competitive shape, but he liked the feeling of making progress.
After his lunch, Ken spent an hour and a half in the gym. He ran for a bit and spent the rest of the time on the padded mats, stretching his tired muscles. He took his time walking back downstairs to the rink and by the time he had his skates on, there were a few other skaters already on the ice. The four skaters all looked around Ken's age and Ken knew they were all higher level skaters who had arranged their school schedules so they could leave early for training. Most of them glanced at Ken wearily as he skated on to the ice and then chose to ignore him. Ken didn't care; he had spent more than half his life in one skating rink or another, he was used to the attitudes that often came with the sport.
Ken skated around the perimeter of the rink for a bit, waiting for his grandfather. Not used to skating for more than four hours a day, Ken wasn't sure exactly how much energy he had left in him and wanted to conserve it for now.
Seeing his grandfather sit himself on a bench in one of the boxes, Ken skated over.
"You worked hard this morning on the basics." His grandfather told him. "Now, we jump."
Ken grinned.
He quickly ran through his single and double jumps, his grandfather watching, occasionally calling out comments or instructions. Swerving around another skater, Ken leapt into a double Axel, landing cleanly on his right skate. He was about to move onto another jump when he noticed his grandfather beckoning to him. He skated over to the boards, breathing hard.
"Excellent. From now on, I want you to complete at least five of each jump before you move on, double Axel and all triples." Ken nodded. For a lot of skaters, the most difficult aspect of skating was consistency, repeating difficult maneuvers on demand. He knew this exercise would help.
Ken completed four more double Axels and moved on to triple jumps. After five triple Salchows and five triple toe loops, he moved on to triple loops. Circling around the rink to set up for his jump, Ken noticed the rest of the skaters gathered in a group by the wall. Turning backwards, Ken leapt off his right foot, rotated three times in the air and landed cleanly, noticing the shocked looks on the other skaters faces. Ken tried not to smile.