If you were to tell me that over a year after Carter Hart fell into my lap that I would be cheering him on in the biggest game of his life as his girlfriend, I wouldn’t have believed you, but here I am at the Bell Centre . I met Carter at high school in Everett, he was in grade 12 and I was in grade 11. I took a grade 12 English course a year before to help clear out my schedule for grade 12. Being a grade 11, I knew nobody and you could tell that the other grade 12s were somewhat annoyed that I took it a year early. I sat at the back of the class in the corner and was pleasantly joined by Carter 3 days into the course. I could tell he was struggling as he had to juggle hockey and school. I knew who Carter was as you knew who all the Everett boys were at school, they were always wearing clothes with hockey on it and only showed up two days a week. In english, I probably had the highest mark and I was a grade 11 so one day after class Carter quickly asked me to help him as the bell rang. I told him I could and he gave me his number before quickly rushing out of the classroom. He was always shy around me in the beginning, but I was too. But more on that later.

I moved to Everett, Washington from Vancouver Island, Canada when I was 7 years old when my parents got a divorce and I went with my mom to her hometown where she grew up. My mom is American, I was born in Vancouver and along with my two siblings we were all Canadian. My dad has moved to Vancouver from the Island and in now involved with the Canucks Hockey organization. My mom is a reporter for the Seattle news program and she commutes to Seattle every day which is about a 30 minute drive. I have two siblings; one older and one younger. My older sister is named Abbie and she lives in Victoria, British Columbia is her second year of University taking nursing. My younger brother is Alex and is in his first year in the WHL, he plays for Kelowna Rockets and lives with a host family. I get to see him when he plays Everett and on holidays.

Carter has been my boyfriend for almost 11 months at the end of January. We met in english class and as I began to help (tutor) I developed a crush on the quiet goalie and he grew on me and eventually kissed me when I was reading over one of his essays. He stole my hart and has had it ever since. We compliment each other great as we are both pretty quiet and shy that we bring out the loudness in each other. Carter is technically considered a grade 13 at my school but he hasn’t finished all of his grade 12 courses because hockey players get less classes as they travel so much. So Carter and I still go to school together and its nice to have him along with my only best friend, Julia at school. I was always quiet and probably will always be so I am not social with my other classmates and just hangout with Julia and Carter.

“Do you think they can do it, Ali?” Olivia, Carter’s sister asks me using my nickname. My full name is Aaliyah but I go by Ali.

“Yeah, I think so. They need to play like they did against Sweden though.” I reply. I am seated beside her and Carter’s mom and dad are on the other side of Olivia as we watch warmups before the Gold Medal Game at the World Junior Championships. I flew out to Toronto on Christmas Eve to spend the holidays with Carter and his family. My sister and brother were home on the 24th which is when we did presents with my mom. We usually went to see my dad over the holidays to spend a couple days around boxing day with him but I didn’t go with them this year and flew to Toronto to cheer on my boyfriend. My present from my dad was paying for my share for the hotel that I was sharing with the Hart’s. I paid for my flight with my job as I work at a Pita place at one of the malls in Everett.

“Carter was very nervous.” Carter’s mom, Christine comments.

“Did you talk to him much?” Carter’s dad, Sean asks me.

“I just said good luck, he was quiet. I could tell he was nervous, he didn’t say much.” I tell him which he nods.

“I didn’t get much out of him either.”

“He was saying that its been a blur the past 24 hours from getting put in and getting the start tonight.” I reply to dad.

We quiet down when the puck drops and instantly it is nerving watching Carter. I have found it is worse cheering for a goalie rather than player because it some cases they are always in the light. The past few games where Carter has played before the Sweden games, there was some criticism with his game as he let in some weak goals against the Russians. It was stress free until Carter had to come in against Sweden with the score 2-0. He saved every shot he faced and it was awesome seeing him win Player of the Game. He played unreal last night and was one of the reasons they beat Sweden.

USA would be a different challenge, they had lost to the US in the round robin game but it wasn’t Carter in net, it was Connor. Connor was great with Carter, they both supported each other. There was a lot of talk saying Carter would be the number 1 goaltender and that wasn't the case in the quarter final game and in the lead up to the Sweden game. USA knew that they could be Canada and Canada just needed to believe in themselves to beat the Americans. I believed in them, I believed in Carter.

Now here I am not even watching the game because it is 4-4 in Overtime and Canada had so many chances to win it and never capitalized. Good thing Carter was basically a wall in net and kept the Americans from winning.

20 minutes of overtime solved nothing. It was going to a shootout, a hockey team’s worst nightmare. Carter stopped the first shot, Dylan Strome missed Canada’s first shot. Carter stopped the next two with Canada not scoring either. Troy Terry was up next for the US, he scored 3 yesterday in the semi finals. He scored, five hole for the fourth time in two days against Carter. I sucked in a breath. Canada had two more chances tie it back up or win. Cirelli was stopped. Carter stopped the next shot, thank god. It was up to Roy to score, the puck rolled on him and he couldn’t get a shot away, the US had won the World Juniors and my Carter and Canada had lost. I hug Olivia beside me sadly.

“He’s going to be crushed.” I whisper to Olivia.

“I don’t know what I am going to say to him.” She says back to me. I see Christine and Sean hugging sadly and Olivia and I move over to them in a group hug. Carter’s family are a second family to me and have welcomed me to their family with open arms.

“Should we go see him?” Sean offers sadly. We all nod and grab our stuff and with the other player’s families we head to the family waiting room. I have gotten to know Tyson Jost and Dante Fabbro’s sisters and Olivia and I quickly hug them.

I know its going to be awhile before Carter comes out from the dressing room so we stand nervously waiting his arrival. Soon players start to file out of the dressing room hanging their heads and walking to their families, disappointment written on their faces.

I keep an eye out for my boyfriend and finally I see him leave with Connor beside him. He looks crushed. I let Christine, Sean, and Olivia console Carter before me. I hear Sean say you should be proud.

I am at the back of the group letting Carter’s family see him first. Carter looks up to me. “Hey.” He croaks out.

“Hey.” I say back as he walks over to me to wrap his arms around me. “I’m sorry.” I whisper to him.

“Me too.” He whispers back. I quickly kiss his cheek and I can hear his sniffles which makes me squeeze him more.

He takes a deep breath and slowly lets go of me and I quickly wipe under his eyes. Carter grabs my hand and turns to his parents. “Connor wanted to know if we wanted to get something to eat with his family.”

“Sure honey, if you want to.” His mom replies.

Carter nods. “I have to be back for curfew but I think we should.” Carter looks to me. “Are you okay with doing that?”

“Yep. Whatever you want to do.” I smile at him.

“Okay, lets do it.”

Notes

just a quick little chapter about my new favourite person, Carter Hart. It really sucks about the ending of the WJC (from a Canadian's view point.) I hope you fell in love with Carter as much as I did!! If you want more of this, comment, vote & subscribe!

laters xx