Passion... on ice
As my first love flew 3,000 miles away, my heart broke Sheryl McMichael, 53, Blackpool
I was convinced I’d never know love like it again
Watching the hockey players zooming across the ice, I was totally transfixed.
‘Look how fast they are!’ I gasped, nudging my friend.
It was 1984, and I was watching the Blackpool Seagulls play at the Pleasure Beach Ice Rink.
At the end of the match, we headed to the bar.
And, there, I got chatting to one of the players.
David McMichael, then 21, had travelled from Toronto to play for Blackpool for the season.
He’d been decked out in protective gear on the rink, so I hadn’t seen him properly.
But now, standing in front of me, with his blue eyes and handsome smile, I could see how attractive David was.
‘I’m only here for six months,’ he said.
That night, a group of us went out in Blackpool.
I spent hours chatting to David, and at the end of the night we arranged to meet up again.
The following evening, David and I went for dinner.
He was kind, funny and respectful.
Just 19 years old and still living with my parents,
I wasn’t looking for love.
But I had a feeling that it had found me nonetheless.
I knew David was going back to Toronto once his contract ended. But that didn’t stop me falling for him. Big time!
I even brought him home to
meet my mum Joyce, 53, and dad Mervyn, 63. For six months, David and I were inseparable...I was infatuated by him. But then David’s contract came to an end.
‘We’ll stay in touch,’ he promised, his blue eyes full of sadness as he packed his bags, ready to fly back to Canada.
But, deep down, with more than 3,000 miles between us, I knew it’d be impossible.
On David’s last day, I went to his house to say goodbye.
Then, as the car turned off the street and out of sight, my heart shattered into a million pieces.
Back home, I sobbed. Convinced I’d never know love like it again.
I called David’s house phone once, but he wasn’t in. And I never heard from him again. As the months passed by, I slowly started to heal. But I never forgot about David. Eventually, in summer 1994, I met someone new.
We never married or had kids, but we were happy, until our relationship ended after more than 20 years. Then, scrolling through Facebook one night at the end of 2016, I thought of David. More than 30 years had gone by since we’d first met. Yet, deep down, I had never forgotten him. Typing his name into the search bar, I didn’t imagine I’d find him. But as I looked through the list of David McMichaels, there he was. Same kind eyes, same gorgeous smile. Heart pounding, I wrote him a message.
Are you the same David McMichael who used to play for Blackpool Seagulls? I typed.
I stared at the message, waiting for David to reply, and memories from all those years ago flashed through my mind.
I still had an old Polaroid of us together, arm in arm at the Pleasure Beach, David in his ice-hockey gear and me in jeans and a T-shirt.
I longed to hear back from David. But days turned to weeks, then months, and no reply came.
Life carried on and I grew used to being single.
It didn’t stop me looking at that old snap, though, remembering the fizzing excitement of being in love for the first time.
He’s obviously forgotten all about me, I thought.
Or he’d seen my message and wasn’t interested.
Was I stupid to still be thinking about him after all these years?