The Stanley Cupcakes!

With the exception of an embarrassing one-season stint of basketball during 6^th grade, I grew up with little conception of what it was like to be part of a team. As an only child, I learned how to play games by myself by creatively improvising the roles of the other characters. The only major activity I participated in was ballet, which is primarily an individual sport. And as I’ve grown into my career as a writer, working alone has not only become an occupational necessity but the way I actually prefer to do things.  So yes, the notion of being on a team, particularly in a competitive setting, had always been completely foreign to me.

A few weeks ago, however, I experienced for the first time the immense pride and sense of comradery that can only come from being on a real team. I had both the privilege and challenge of playing in my very first hockey tournament. 

Even after four seasons of playing hockey, I had never thought much about elevating my game to the next level. But when I was approached by a few other guys I regularly played with about playing in the Wyatt Winfield 3 on 3 Memorial Hockey Tournament, it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I loved the idea of playing on a real team with matching jerseys and battling competitively for the chance at a trophy.

It didn’t take long to build our seven person team and the best part was that all of us started out playing together in the novice league. We were friends just as much as teammates. And all of us signed on for the love of the game, not because we boasted any extraordinary talents on the ice. True to my usual unconventional form, I was the only girl on the team. But it I didn’t feel out of place in the least. I was grateful to be included and excited to be playing alongside friends while also helping to further stake a claim for women in the sport.

The first chore in preparation for the tournament was crafting a unique and memorable team name. Brilliant ideas were initially thrown around like the “No Regretzkies,” “Toe Dragons,” “Scared Shotless” and “Ice Holes.” But we eventually settled on the best name I could ever possibly imagine…the Stanley Cupcakes! I absolutely love anything having to do with cupcakes and was both stunned and highly amused that it was a guy who came up with the name. It was perfect!

Just moments after the team name was decided, our logo began taking shape. It was sinister with just a twinge of cutesy innocence. And of course, it being a cupcake was the icing on the top. Tournament aside, our jerseys were going to be wickedly awesome and I couldn’t wait put mine on. We even ordered enough jerseys to have complementary embroidered beanie hats thrown in with them. We were going to be the most legit looking team on the ice.   

After weeks of designing the jerseys, complete with names and team numbers, and taking advantage of our weekly games to buff up my stick handling and skating skills, the tournament finally arrived. With my Bauer gear bag slung over my shoulder and donning my Stanley Cupcakes’ beanie, I headed for the rink.

 

I arrived fairly early since I wanted time to stretch out beforehand. As I leaned up against the boards to stretch out my calve muscles, the nerves began to set it. The feeling brought me right back to my very first game of hockey four years ago. My legs were heavy and unsteady that first night as I awkwardly clutched my freshly wrapped stick in gloved hands. My heart drummed in my chest as frozen clouds of breath spurted out from my lips in the chill of the rink. I stood right in the very same place against the boards wondering how the hell I had gotten into the situation.  But eventually, I took those first steps onto the ice and gave it my all every minute afterwards.

This time around, I had a little more confidence and knew what I was doing but that didn’t dismiss the jittered nerves of playing in my first tournament. But then something happened that obliterated the nerves and made me smile inside. The other members of my team started rolling in one by one and nearly every one of them was likewise wearing their Cupcakes beanie. It was such a small thing, but it made me realize that no matter how the tournament went, we were going to start it and finish it together as a team. 

The tournament games were comprised of two 15-minute periods and were played cross-ice with three games being played simultaneously. I figured the structure and time frame would make the games a breeze compared to our normal hour long games. I was horribly wrong.

By the end of the 5^th minute, the sweat was already coursing down my face inside my helmet. My breath was labored and I longed for a bench to sit on to rest my legs. Even though we signed up as a novice team, we were severely miss-matched with our first opposing team. We could tell they had all played together for a long time. Every cross-over of their skate blades and pass across the ice was so exquisitely timed and coordinated with the other players that it was mesmerizing to watch….almost like a dance. Most of the time it felt like we were just large black cones on the ice that the other players practiced skating around. 

Goal after goal was flung into our net, seemingly without effort. Sometimes it felt like our only beneficial move was to stand guard in front of our goalie to protect him. I watched as the energy and motivation drained from my team members. That’s when the image of each of us wearing our Cupcake beanies returned to me and filled me with adrenaline. Every second I stood on the sidelines waiting for my next shift, I screamed out words of encouragement to the other players. I wanted them to keep fighting and not give up no matter how tough the situation was. I’m not sure if it helped at all but, in that moment, those other guys were my team and family, and I wanted them to know I had their back. 

 When the final buzzer sounded, I don’t think any of us wanted to look at the score board to see how bad the damage was. We lost 15-3. Before that game, I had never seen double digit scores in a hockey game. We were poorly matched but knowing that still didn’t take away the sting of the blow of losing. 

Things didn’t get a whole lot better in the next three games, but we continued to rally and do the best we could to pressure the other teams. The one bright spot was that we did get to play against some other Helena players later that weekend that we knew and had played against before. We didn’t win any of those games either but we kept the scores a lot closer and even had a few laughs or two on the ice.

As our Captain, Jimmy, later put it, “Well, we didn’t win a single game all weekend, but we looked darn good losing!” And we did….we truly did. All of us decked out in our black jerseys emblazoned with our cupcake logo made us not just look coordinated—but unified. We looked like a team and had battled together as a team through four brutal games of hockey. We were exhausted and defeated feeling by the end but I think we all knew we had skated our hardest and tried to have a little fun along the way. And that’s really all that mattered.