Carrie S. Allen > Quotes

“Brie's grinning, but I doubt she's daydreaming about playoffs. Ten bucks says she's mentally creating the playlist for our first locker room dance party of the season.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“Because we're a small-town team of sixteen girls who win some and lose some, and unless you grew up here, you don't stay in the Upper Peninsula forever. Coach did not grow up here.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“I'm starting a skate club at my church if you want to join," Jeannie says to me. For some reason, her Yooper accent gets even thicker when she talks about church. She really puts the "eh" in "amen.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“I have never known them to be into clubs especially Jeannie, who is the stereotypical pastor's kid. The sweater sets and cross necklace stereotype, not the Footloose stereotype.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“Daniel's dirt-brown hair could use a cut, his stubbly chin could use a shave and his T-shirt could use an iron. I'll give Brie this: Daniel Maclane looked a lot sharper when he lived by her standards.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“Yeah, OK, I shouldn't have lunged, but Daniel does not get to use that word. Not with me, not with any woman, regardless of her sexuality. Having been on a team full of hockey-playing girls, I am fully aware of the appropriate way to address a non-heterosexual woman and that term is not it. If you're going to use that word, you damn well better own your lesbianism. Daniel does not.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“I realize the rest of the team, including the other rookies, are all in matching team T-shirts. I'm the only one wearing an Owl River High School Girls' hockey hoodie complete with pink cursive lettering, which probably isn't winning me any points right now. In fact, a lot of the guys are also sporting stiff new ball caps with Owl River Hockey on the front. I'm kind of disappointed that I got left out of the new swag.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“Coach Henson has been here three years and he's still trying to whip those boys into shape. My guess is he's getting nervous watching his game clock tick down. He can't afford to take a chance on us.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“The first hit hurts. The second hurts more. By the third I'm numb. And so it goes. Welcome to the team.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“There's something in Coach's tone that freezes me in place before her sparsely decorated desk. Beside her laptop, she always keeps a current team picture and a framed, signed Julie Chu puck. And they aren't there now. In fact, the desk calendar has been torn off to a blank sheet and the whiteboard on the wall, usually crowded with lines and drills has been scrubbed clean.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“Kendall's shoulders droop. "My parents said I need to concentrate on grades anyway. So I guess I'm done. Retired at the ripe old age of seventeen."
"But don't you want to skate?" I ask the whole table, but I'm looking at Kendall especially. She and I have been on every team together since we were nine. I don't know what a hockey bench would smell like without her rotating seasonal perfume collection.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“I let it all spew forward: the humiliation of Coach's "this is a girl" speech, the anger at Assmont for taking my real team away, the cold shoulders and hot egos of these apes. Smash. My hit lifts Daniel off his feet. I slam into his torso into the boards and the tall plexiglass panes rattle in their metal stays. Daniel woofs as the air leaves him and his stick clatters to the ice.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“I'm happiest when I have skates on my feet, a stick in my hands and teammates by my side.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“Brie passes me her half-used tissue. We're running low and rationing essentials at this point. She's still in the anger phase of the grief paradigm. Self-diagnosis: her mom is a psychiatrist.”
― Carrie S. Allen

“You were supposed to pressure the puck." The captain, Daniel stands over me.
I have too much adrenaline from scoring to check my mouth. "You were supposed to play defense," I answer. Yeah, maybe it was a dick move to push that far with not only a shot but a rebound, but it's not my fault the D get lazy when they're tired.”
― Carrie S. Allen