Maybe the pink helmet gave it away a little too much. Yes, I was a girl, but was I truly that different?
I knew I had to use all the skills I’d learned for this very moment. It was prime time baby. Let the games begin.
January 6th, 2018: the first time I had seen a fist flying toward my face, other than my older brother’s. But this one was real. Why was he so mad? I was just a girl in a pink helmet: feisty and nothing short of vicious regarding hockey. But as my teammates tried to stick up for me, I knew I had to handle this one myself.
He attempted to throw a punch with his right hand as his sweaty glove started to slip off in the moment. I saw it coming, straight ahead a savage brunette boy who wanted to assert his dominance because I was a girl. Or maybe it was just because I was better than him. Someone better than him, and she’s a girl: wow this kid must have been fuming with anger.
As the fist full of 5 fingers had been getting closer to my eyes, the adrenaline rush had certainly started to kick in. But the difference between adrenaline and fear is there was no fear, I knew what I was capable of.
Dropping my stick out of my left hand and dodging that one punch, I could hear his teammates behind him and start to cheer him on. The parents and siblings roar in the crowd with shock and disbelief. “Get that girl out of there! Crush her! Show her what we’re all about!”
But would those chants have been the same if I were not wearing a pink helmet, with a ponytail?
Chasing my dreams from such a young age was complex. Never understood why I was the way I was, but I was never spending my nights at cheer practice throwing pom poms. I was at the rink with the boys. I felt different, I looked different, I acted different, and I fought differently.
Unlike the other girls her age who gravitated toward traditional “girls” sports like softball and gymnastics, I always found myself drawn to the fast-paced, hard-hitting world of the glacial ices of New Jersey.
Despite the constant adversity I had to face since the age of 12, it truly has changed my outlook on life forever.
Walking into the rink, having to ask where the girl’s locker room was, expecting a miniature storage closet, or old bathroom, there were extremely few times that I could say I felt fit in where I was.
“Let’s try cheer, softball, soccer, volleyball, any sport where you won’t get” hurt “?
That was always the excuse; “safe sport”. I knew it wasn’t a safety issue, it was a girl playing a “boys” sport issue. I was even put on a dodgeball team. Previously I had never heard of a dodgeball team, but if it’s what my mom had to do, to feel the satisfaction of possibly shifting my love for hockey into a “safer” sport, then seek that.
Although unfortunately, it didn’t work out in her favor, it happened to work out in mine. I fell more and more in love with a game that was labeled “boys” and chasing my dreams knowing my appearance was bothering my opponents.
But as I grew older, the challenges became steeper and rigid. The boys grew bigger and stronger, but so did I. I continued to compete fiercely, never asking for special treatment, and never backing down. I became a role model, not just for younger girls who wanted to crack their ice and dominate, but for anyone who dared to chase their dreams against the odds.
Ultimately, my journey was about way more than just hockey: it was about defying expectations, breaking barriers, and proving that passion knows no gender. I wasn’t just playing a “boys” sport; I was a girl chasing her dreams as a hockey player, through and through.
