Читать книгу I Am Nobody. Confronting the Sexually Abusive Coach Who Stole My Life онлайн

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But I’m not a kid anymore, and the game left me with other memories, too.

I enter the arena. I see people milling about, kids dragging equipment bags bigger than the bags I took with me when I went away to university. The scene is chaotic. The arena, like most others, is crowded, not designed for the crush of people. There are children and adults everywhere. And then it starts, something that always happens to me whenever I am at a rink (or in any public space, for that matter). I start scanning the room looking at every adult male trying to figure out why each one is there in the midst of the kids. That one in the corner—is he a parent? Have I seen him before? What is that guy doing over there? Are those kids by the door being watched by their parents? That coach kidding around with the kids on his team—is that normal, or is he getting a little too personal with some of them?

Ten steps later and it has passed. I’ve made it into the dressing room of the team that I coach and all is well. Just the hockey team enters, the boys and the other coaches. Here we can all have fun and the kids can revel in the pure joy of playing hockey. That world out there, the big scary one we all encounter daily, that world doesn’t exist in the energetic lead-up to going out on the ice and playing. On the ice, the kids do things with such speed and grace that you sometimes have to remind yourself just how young they are. Here, one thing and only one thing matters to them: hockey. When they are at the rink hockey becomes their entire world. There is no school, no homework, just a safe place where they can push themselves athletically and at the same time play.