Nicole drove over to Shan's house excitedly. After last night's date, it would be kind of nice to get back with the girls in a low-key setting. What's more, the hockey game they were going to see was important.
It was the first game for the Seattle Kraken in nearly a week, and Colorado was tied in the standings. With the playoffs coming into view and teams fighting for position, this rivalry game had earned a national telecast. Nicole was actually surprised Sam was even able to get tickets.
She was amazed yet again at how little time it took to get ready — a hockey jersey was effortless. Shan has no idea how lucky she is, she thought to herself. And she was right. She probably was one of the few girls who knew how easy they had it, at least compared to where they could have been. But of course, only Nicole and a select few others remembered anything as being that different.
After half an hour on the freeway and another 15 minutes finding a place to park, the gang of Nicole, Sam, Shan, and two of Shan's football teammates, Chel Caldwell and Kam Yardley, arrived at the downtown arena, tickets in hand. There was a good crowd on hand already, half an hour before the scheduled puck drop, for the highly anticipated matchup.
After entering the venue, the group stopped at a concession stand to grab some snacks. Nicole decided on some fried chicken, while Sam ordered a hot dog and Shan opted for a hamburger. After grabbing drinks and paying for their meals, the group made their way to the seats, six or seven rows up from the boards. About 15 or 20 minutes were left before the start of the game. The ice sheet was empty and receiving some last-minute maintenance and attention, and the Zamboni was cruising across.
"Gentlemen and ladies," the PA system echoed with a woman's voice, "we'd like to advise you that if you are keeping score, Kath Tremblay, fourth-line center for Colorado, will be out tonight with an unspecified injury."
"An unspecified last-minute injury? Don't see many of those. I wonder what happened," Shan said, an eyebrow raised.
It was when Dave went to make his way to the restroom that he first realized something was horribly wrong. He had to rub his eyes and do a double take at the sign outside the entrance. Sure, it said Men's, but...why was the icon next to it the one with the skirt? Had someone made a mistake and not realized it when they made the signage?
He looked down the concourse and saw the women's restroom. It had the icon for the men's restroom. What was going on here? "Is this some sort of practical joke?" he said out loud. He figured that the mistake was probably the labels, not the icons, so he headed for the women's room. At least that had to be the right one, right?
He headed inside and immediately realized that he was still wrong. There were no urinals to be seen anywhere. He was pondering this confusion when a woman—unlike any woman he'd ever seen—emerged from one of the stalls. She flashed a rather hungry smile at the confused fan.
"Looks like you've got the wrong room, babe."
Babe!? This arena experience was only getting weirder by the second. At that moment, he happened to look down and watched with horror and shock as his chest expanded, straining his T-shirt. The T-shirt itself warped into a tight-fitting top with a logo on it. He stumbled over to the mirror.
"You all right?" the woman asked, suddenly all serious, concerned with the expression on his face.
Speaking of his face, he could see it shifting as well, his slight stubble vanishing and his hair starting to flow around his shoulders. "What's happening to me?" he exclaimed, looking over at her, and starting to have to look up...was he shrinking?
He turned back to the mirror again at what he was wearing. It was some sort of uniform. He was an Ice Girl...or more accurately, Ice Boy.
Flush with embarrassment, he dashed out of the restroom.
"Perhaps she caught the flu overnight? I know there had been a team-wide issue.. Or maybe she was injured in practice," Chel suggested. "Who knows."
"I'll check Twitter," Nicole told the group. She followed some of the NHL beat reporters. Someone had to know what was going on. She scrolled through her feed and saw a tweet from Chris Landry, who covered the Avalanche for the local newspaper in Denver.
There seems to be some sort of medical issue with Tremblay, who they just called up from the Eagles. Nobody's quite sure what is going on..
"Must be something that got nasty just hours before the game was to drop." Nicole said to her friends.
She looked around at the fans around her. She looked at her friends, none of whom had been present for the initial wish. Nothing seemed wrong, at least for this world.
Nicole turned her gaze back to her phone. She returned to the tweet and then went down to read some of the replies from random users; there had to be quite a few, given the tweet already had hundreds of retweets. One in particular, from a rabid Seattle fan, caught Nicole's attention.
What a bunch of boys those Colorado players are.
While whoever sent that tweet had intended it to be an insult, almost certainly, a realization slowly dawned on her and froze her in place. She was in attendance. A player was grappling with an unspecified "medical issue". He'd just been called up, so he obviously hadn't been here long.
What if they changed into women...this world's women...when they came into town?
It was followed by another.
How are they going to explain this to the crowd? Or all the people watching on TV in Denver?
It then occurred to her.
This is all happening because of me.
In that moment, she really regretted letting Jonatha have that stone back.
"I can't explain this one." A nervous executive in a suit leaned against the block wall outside the visiting locker room, sighing and talking on her cell phone.
"Well, neither can I," the voice of her boss came over the phone. "Did she contract a bout of insanity? When has a boy played hockey in this league? And how can you change genders overnight, like he claims? The league office is going to be just as confused."
"I mean, I don't think a man could play in a preseason game in this league, let alone a regular season game against a playoff-bound team."
"How did we even get in this predicament?" the nervous league official asked, trying to follow the sequence of events.
"I'm not sure. She claims it happened at the airport, when she bumped into a couple from Valley Lake that was on the flight."
"So? Valley Lake has always been a touch different to people from elsewhere, but it's not like they are contagious or anything."
"Well, she told me that the people here seem more than a little strange and that she's not sure why her body changed."
"Good grief, she's downright delusional. I swear, this is one of the weirdest things I've heard of happening before a game, and this team's been here since the mid-90s."
"Remember when we had that improbable run to the Cup? How the tagline was 'Believe in Magic'?"
"Yeah?"
"Sometimes, when all else fails, all you can do is believe in magic."
