Originally published in the Woodford Sun - Nov. 19, 2009For the briefest moment, the puck seems suspended in midair, as if dangling on a string between the two opposing players. Then in the blink of an eye, the fluttering eight ounces of vulcanized rubber shoots backward, propelled by a curved stick held in the gloved hands of a Lafayette High School hockey player. The red white and blue clad center leans heavily into the opposing faceoff man, tying up his stick and impeding any possible progress. A teammate streaks up the ice and picks up the loose puck as the Lafayette center quickly disengages and follows, blond ponytail fluttering around the number 20 emblazoned on her back.
As she sits in the hallway at Woodford County High School on a Tuesday afternoon, a casual observer wouldn’t recognize Adriane Downey as the hard skating center who scored a goal and an assist against Henry Clay the weekend before. She’s not a stocky girl. She’s soft spoken. Her long blond hair brushes below her shoulders and she’s quick to flash a smile.
A cheerleader? Perhaps. A basketball player? Maybe. But a hockey player? No way.
“Everybody always tells me I don’t look like a hockey player.”
But looks can deceive. Downey rolls up her pant leg and shows off an ugly purple bruise on her calf. She points at it with pride.
“Most people think I’m abused because of all the bruises,” she jokes.
Yes, Adriane Downey is most certainly a hockey player.
As a little blond headed seven-year-old girl growing up in Versailles, Downey was the most unlikely of hockey of players. She admits that she doesn’t like being cold. Nobody in her family ever played the game. And the first time she was ever on ice skates, at a cousin’s birthday party, she came home with a big knot on her head.
“She couldn’t even stand up on skates,” her mother, Karen Downey, recalls.
But from the moment she saw her first Kentucky Thoroughblades game, she knew she wanted to play.
“It just looked fun – and it was different.”
Mom wasn’t so sure. One evening, not long after that first hockey spectator experience, Adriane tried to talk her mom into taking them to a Thoroughblade game.
“Mom, you gotta go.”
“I told her, ‘I’m not getting into this,’” the elder Downey said with a chuckle.
Little did she know.
Within months, Karen Downey had become a hockey mom. Adriane started out in the house developmental league at the Lexington Ice Center and quickly worked her way up. Athletically inclined, those awkward herky-jerky movements on the ice quickly developed into a smooth skating stride. At age 10 she made it onto an elite travel team.
She was the only girl.
For the last several years, Downey has played for an all-female team based in Louisville, but throughout most of her hockey career she’s competed with the boys. This season, she jumped at the opportunity to play for Lafayette High School in Lexington. Since high school hockey is a club sport in Kentucky, and Woodford does not field a team, she is able to play for another school. She finds herself in a familiar setting, surrounded by guys. Downey said that competing against the faster, stronger boys makes her a better player.
“The girls aren’t really competitive, so I like playing with the boys better,” she said. “I think it makes me try harder. I want to prove something. I like proving to the guys I can keep up with them. I like seeing the look on their faces – seeing the shock.”
Number 20 churns up the ice. She’s not the fastest skater, but she moves with purpose. Downey turns toward the boards and picks up a loose puck. She takes a couple of strides toward the opponents net and feathers a perfect pass to Adam Stickney, who rifles the puck passed the Blue Devil keeper for a goal.
Later in the period, Downey scores one of her own. She drives toward the net and picks up a rebound, flipping the puck past the Henry Clay net minder.
“She’s such a smart hockey player,” Lafayette coach Gordon Summers said. “She’s a smart player with the puck and she’s a smart player without the puck.”
And those hockey smarts more than compensate for whatever she may give up in size and speed. She knows where to position herself on the ice when she does not have possession of the puck and creates scoring chances with her smart play. She’s not afraid to do the dirty work, going in front of the net to pick up passes and rebounds.
“If you’re in the right place at the right time, you have more opportunities,” Downey said. “On a breakaway the goalie can still stop you, but if you are wide open in front of the net you have a better chance of scoring.”
Downey plays third line center for the Generals on varsity and sees extensive playing time on the JV squad. The Lafayette coach also relies on her to take crucial faceoffs, saying she rarely loses.
Her coach describes her as, “Fearless.”
“Keep your feet moving,” Summers yells from the bench.
The Lafayette skipper expects his players to work hard for an entire shift – every second on the ice. And he doesn’t coach Downey any differently because she’s a girl.
“I don’t let that be a part of it,” he said. “I don’t want you lazy out there, and I let her know.”
As for her teammates? They treat her like one of the boys.
“She fits in so well with this group of guys,” Summers said. “She’s respected on the ice.”
Downey earns that respect with a team oriented attitude. She said that it makes her just as happy to earn an assist as to score a goal.
“Goals don’t mean everything. An assist is the same number of points on the board,” she said. “I just go out there and try to win.”
Downey drives to the net. A collision. Number 20 cartwheels through the air and lands on in a heap on the ice. Up she springs like a jack-in-the-box.
Mom admits the physicality involved when her daughter competes against boys makes her a little nervous.
“I do worry.”
She said that it was even harder when Adriane was little and the team did hitting drills in practice. Karen remembers thinking, “I don’t know if I can deal with this.”
But over the years, she’s learned to cope with the worry.
“I usually walk (during games). I hardly sit down,” Karen said. “But she knows how to take a lick. That’s part of it I guess you have to adjust to.”
Adriane said that the physical aspect of the game, even playing against guys much bigger and stronger, doesn’t intimidate her.
“I’ve gotten hit a few times,” she says with a shrug.
But she knows her limits and doesn’t go out of her way to engage in the rough stuff.
“I don’t want to get hit back, so I avoid that.”
But her mom says that she exhibits the toughness typical of hockey players. After a recent injury, Adriane was reluctant to admit she was hurting as bad as she was.
“She doesn’t want people to think she’s not tough enough – that she’s not as tough as the boys,” Karen said.
Off the ice, Adriane lives the life of a typical teenage girl. A senior at WCHS, she played golf for the Yellow Jackets and works with Walker Terhune as a student trainer. But hockey consumes the bulk of her free time.
“I’m pretty much twenty-four seven at the ice rink,” she said. “I don’t have a life other than school, work and hockey.”
And she says she is okay with that. In fact, the ice serves as a sort of a refuge.
“I don’t have like – school drama. I don’t think about that stuff. It’s like a cooling down spot for me.”
Downey said that she would like to go on to play hockey in college and eventually work as an athletic trainer.
A Yellow Jacket at heart, she finds it a little odd chanting “Generals.”
“I think it would be more fun if I played for my own school. I think it would be more meaningful.”
As she comes off the ice, she pulls off her scuffed black helmet and flashes a shy smile. The blonde ponytail flops freely around the number 20 on emblazoned on her back.
Yes, Adriane Downey is most certainly a hockey player.
