The Hockey Star and the Ice Princess (Complete)

Ch. 28 - Opportunity

***** Two Months Later *****

It was now two weeks before Regionals. Rachel had been working her butt off to get ready for it and her triple was really consistent now and her flexibility had really improved. She could go back really far on her layback spin now and they had been working on adding in a Beillmann where her leg would go up straight behind her over her head making a tear drop shape during the spin, but it wasn't ready yet. Coach had arranged for her to have the best skating choreographer in Minnesota put together her routines and when she asked how much it was going to cost he just said, "Don't worry about it. I've got it," with a smile. 

Right now she was sitting in the stands of the same hockey stadium in St. Paul Minnesota where the State Championships had been held, but this time she was here because the Minnesota Wild were hosting a recruiting event. They invited all prospective players to come and show what they've got to the recruiters and if they liked what they saw, they would be invited to stay for the second round, a formal tryout with the Minnesota Wild coach and team. 

There were about forty guys out on the ice right now and the recruiter split them up into teams and gave them jerseys with numbers on the back before saying, "After the scrimmage I'm going to call out names and if I call your name I want you to stay for the second round. If I don't call your name, you can try again next year. Good luck to all of you."

As soon as the puck was dropped it was a mad frenzy and everyone was playing super aggressively. They all wanted a spot on that team really bad. It wasn't long before Cain had the puck and he skated down the ice really fast, faking out a couple defenders and getting around them and then skating around the back of the net before popping the puck up. The goalie tried to block it but it went right past him and hit the net. 

Cain's cheering section went crazy, standing up and screaming, waving posterboards and wearing bright neon t-shirts that said, 'GO CAIN' on the front. Her brother's entire hockey team and their families had come up to St. Paul to watch the tryouts along with quite a few random fans, many of which were female.  

"Yes babe! Good job!" Rachel screamed, standing up and cheering for him too.

He smiled up at her in the stands and gave her a wave and then waved at all the hockey players he coached and their families. 

"The fact that hes already got a huge cheering section has gotta look good to the recruiters," Spencer said, from the seat next to her. 

"Yeah," she sighed. "I think you were right about him being good enough to make the team," she said, taking a bite of her unseasoned, unbuttered popcorn and taking a drink of water. 

The scrimmage went on for a while and Cain was definitely a stand out among everyone. He scored four times on them, the most of any of the recruits. There was one other guy that scored twice but one of his was a lucky shot when the goalie wasn't even in the net.

After an hour and a half scrimmage the recruiter took a microphone and said, "Thank you to everybody who came out. I've seen a lot of talented players on the ice today that have a lot of potential, even if it's not right for this team this year. I've actually only got two players that I'm going to ask to stay for the team practice with the coach, Cain Reed and Samuel Olesbek. Thank you to everyone else for coming out and you're dismissed." 

Cain's entire cheering section stood up and screamed like crazy and Rachel stood up and screamed for him too. She wasn't selfish enough to not be happy for him when something this amazing was happening. She wanted the best for him even if that meant sacrificing her own happiness. 

A lot of people in the stands cleared out because their players had been eliminated but all of Cain's section and the other people that were there for Samuel stayed. Samuel was the other guy that had scored two points. The Minnesota Wild players came out onto the ice and she saw some coaches skate out too carrying some clipboards with whistles around their neck. They blew the whistle and all the players gathered around them and one of the guys said, "We've got two new recruits here today that might be joining the team. I don't want you to go easy on them at all. I want to see if these guys have what it takes so give it to 'em good when we scrimmage. Warm up!" he said with a blow of the whistle.