Chapter 21 Ari
Ari
Ari and her teammates knew they were doomed the second the Swedish team glided onto the ice rink.
They were a pack of tall, athletic players with perfectly shiny ponytails and impeccably strategic game.
They blocked every goal Ari’s team tried to score and knocked down every defense they’d so diligently tried to build.
They needed to rank within the top four teams to advance to the quarterfinals, but after losing to Team Sweden, they’d already lost two of the three games they’d played so far.
There was still some hope, but things seemed pretty bleak.
By the end of the game, Team GB was five goals down, and, after their loss to Japan, it felt as if their Olympic dream was about to ride out into the sunset without them.
When Ari walked into the locker room after their game, all the girls were muted.
Some were wearing headphones and listening to music to try to shake off the disappointment, and others were staring blankly into the distance, having made no attempts yet to change out of their uniforms. All wore dejected expressions.
So, Ari sat on a bench and played the game back in her mind to figure out what they could have done differently.
“We actually have to win next time; there is no other option,” said Sienna, tugging her headphones off and looking at the other girls.
Ari just nodded. The last time she’d tried to give a pep talk, she’d failed so miserably that she’d destroyed the team’s morale. So, attempting one now, when everyone was already feeling so low, would probably make things even worse.
“I knew I should have gotten a better backup degree. I had the grades to become an engineer,” said Izzy, staring out into the distance.
“We haven’t even filmed enough content to pivot to sports influencers,” sighed Yasmeen.
“And it’s so unfair because the Swedish team got more rink time than us,” said Sienna.
“So did the Japanese team,” said Izzy.
Ari’s ears pricked up; this was news to her.
“Yeah, I guess they just have a better rink schedule,” said Yasmeen as the rest of the girls nodded solemnly.
“What do you mean, a better rink schedule?” Ari asked, walking over to her teammates’ circle of dread.
She, Coach, and Gracie had gone to a post-qualification meeting with Team GB and listened to the Olympic officials pledge to direct more money into the women’s team and ensure there was equality around their coaching and equipment. So, this didn’t make any sense.
“You know how all the national teams get the same amount of practice time on the ice rinks?” asked Sienna.
Ari nodded. Each country was allocated slots and got to decide how they scheduled out their training day.
Ari and Coach had sat together in early January and plotted out how best to use the two hours a day they’d been allocated and avoid wasting even a second of time.
“Well, I was chatting to one of the British hockey guys at a dinner last night and he let slip that they get three hours a day.”
“Three?” Ari said, in shock.
“I don’t think he was supposed to tell me. He seemed a little panicked after,” Izzy added as if trying to get him out of trouble. But Ari was already lacing her trainers and getting fired up.
Ari had always known there was a disparity between how the men’s and women’s teams were treated.
She’d once spent three hours at a party talking to a woman on Team England’s football team about all the part-time jobs and side hustles she worked to compete for the national team.
Meanwhile, her male counterparts earned enough in a month to fund a small country.
But she and Gracie had fought to make sure the Olympics were different.
They’d been promised things would be different.
“We get less funding, lower-quality uniforms, and less investment all year long. This is not okay.”
“I don’t think it’s personal. I guess the coaches just think that the guys have a better chance of—” began Yasmeen.
“Bullshit,” Ari said, shaking her head as she tossed her jersey into her kit bag and collected her stuff. “Coach is supposed to advocate for us, and management is supposed to set us up for success. We’re not going to keep settling for scraps and thanking them for the bare minimum.”
Had something like this happened six months ago, she would have let it go.
She’d spent so many years hearing how lucky she was to be playing for the team that she’d bit her tongue in gratitude instead of calling things out.
But this tournament was different. She was the captain, and she would do everything she could to fight for her team.
“Right, everyone head to lunch. We have physio in the afternoon and then we need to break down our last match to figure out how to get ready for the next,” she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
“Aren’t you coming with us?” Izzy asked, a flicker of disappointment turning her lips down. Ari wanted to eat lunch with her teammates, but her duties as their captain came first.
“No, I’m going to find out who screwed us over,” she said, heading toward the door.
“Shouldn’t you just tell Coach?” Sienna asked.
“There’s no way he didn’t know,” she said, disappointed.
Ari had spent enough time studying the inner workings of the management team to know what was up.
“He either accepted it because even he thinks the men’s team deserves more time, or tried to fight for us and lost. Either way, we have less time than we need.
So, I’m going to fix this.” She stalked down the corridor, out of the hockey building, and straight into the snow.
Izzy and the others stayed in the social world of winter sports all throughout the year.
It helped them get intel on the politics of each team, predict which athletes were about to take a break, and gather information they could use to their advantage when it came to getting ahead on the rink.
Their friendships with the guys on the men’s ice hockey team meant that they could quickly spot inequalities and use what they knew to advocate for themselves in the offices of the big Team GB officials.
So, that’s what they’d spent the last year doing.
Izzy fought for higher-quality uniforms, Sienna lobbied for better gym facilities, and Yasmeen networked her way into having them at the forefront of Team GB’s winter marketing campaign.
But Ari’s strength was diplomacy. She was a people pleaser by nature, and all the years of managing complicated family and teammate dynamics had taught her the delicate art of getting what she wanted without damaging a relationship.
Because as avoidant as she could be in her personal life, she didn’t believe in excuses when it came to hockey.
She could lose a game or miss a goal, but she refused to let the status quo get in the way of her dreams. So, she scanned each door until she found the one with the nameplate COACH CLEMENT CLARKE—HEAD OF GB ATHLETICS.
She knocked and walked straight in as soon as she heard him say, “Come in.”
Coach Clarke was a polished man in his late fifties who’d begun his life as a professional athlete before making a career of managing sports teams, athletics organizations, and now Team GB.
But he was the kind of guy who spoke with one eye on the person in front of him while the other scanned the room for the next big thing.
“Arikoishe,” he said, glancing up from his laptop, “it’s nice to see you. How can I help?” His tone made it clear that he wanted to wrap their conversation up as soon as possible. So, she cut straight to the chase.
“Coach, I know that we’re new to this and haven’t gotten you all the medals that the men’s hockey team has.
They’re your priority, and I get that,” Ari said, predicting his reasons before he could say them out loud.
“But giving us less rink time than the men’s team is so unfair. That’s setting us up for failure.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d had a conversation like this.
Ari and Gracie had been the ones to ambush him into allocating more funding to their travel budget after finding out that one of their teammates couldn’t afford the train journey it would take to get to an important exhibition game.
But it was the same spiel each time they approached him with something new.
“Ari, I get it, but your teammates are the underdogs this year,” he said, which was a more polite way of saying that nobody believed they were going to make it. “The whole country is behind you. That should be enough to spur you on.” He shrugged, glancing down at his laptop.
“We don’t need the whole country rooting for us, we just need more rink time,” Ari sighed.
While she appreciated cute drawings from little kids, encouragement from the fans at home didn’t compare to having an extra hour to train.
Video messages from opportunistic politicians put them into the spotlight, but they didn’t increase her team’s chances of success.
They needed concrete support in the form of resources, but Coach Clarke didn’t seem to care.
“I know it’s been a tricky couple of days, but we’re all really proud of you girls for getting this far—”
“We’re not girls,” she snapped. “We’re women. Competitive athletes. Not just girls giving it a go.”
Coach Clarke raised an eyebrow, then sat back in his seat.