When Psychology teacher and Dean of Inclusion Erin Davey stepped onto the Red Bull Crashed Ice Course in Fenway Park, she felt a mixture of emotions. Both terrified and elated, she looked down at the first drop: 66 feet. This was it, what she had been training for and thinking about for months.

“I’m always down to have a good time,” Davey told The Willistonian. Her idea of a good time isn’t most people’s, however. The Red Bull Crashed Ice Competition gave her “bumps and bruises” galore, but nevertheless, she left the experience completely “psyched.”

The competition, started in 2001, is international—before arriving in Boston on February 9, it was previously in Finland and Japan (and that’s just this year). Crashed Ice is an extreme winter spot which involves skating downhill in an urban environment on a track which includes steep turns and high, vertical drops, according to the official website.

Davey first found out about the event years ago.

“It fell into my lap via social media and for a long time I’ve wanted to take part in their open tryouts,” she said. “Sadly, they were always so far away, and I was always coaching in the winter.”

Things changed this year, once she gave up coaching the Girls Varsity Hockey team. To Davey, it seemed like the stars “aligned.”

Because she’s “played hockey all [her] life,” a sport that relied on skating was appealing.

“Seeing an extreme sport that included hockey skates and hockey equipment peaked my interest,” she said. “The Red Bull brand has also built itself into an extreme sport mogul and often conjures up some pretty fun events. I’m always down to have a good time!”

First, Davey went to the initial open tryouts in Boston, and was one of the top 8 females. She then drove three and a half hours from Easthampton to Loon Mountain in New Hampshire to compete in the qualifiers.

Unfortunately for Davey, Red Bull only took the number one female, however, she found out later that Team USA received five more wildcard slots and she was chosen. Davey was thrilled.

“Honestly, all I wanted was the memory and the experience,” she admitted. “I knew I wasn’t going to win anything so the moment I put an athlete badge around my neck and stepped in Fenway park, I was happy!”

Plenty of normal athletes like Davey go to Crashed Ice’s open tryouts, however there is a whole other league of professional athletes who specifically focus on the competition. The professionals, from the United States, Canada, Austria, and many other countries, spend immense time training for the Crashed Ice competition.

Davey had the chance to meet many of the professional athletes and had nothing but positive things to say about them.

“The top athletes were some of the kindest, most humble and helpful people I’ve ever met,” she recalled. “They helped make the experience as positive as it was.”

To train for the event was especially difficult. Many professionals have access to indoor skate parks or skating treadmills, but, according to Davey, there are none within a 100-mile radius. Instead, she stuck to her regular routines at CrossFit and “leaning on [her] current fitness level” to help with the agility portion.

Her wife, former Williston Psychology teacher Amber Rodgers (now with the surname Davey), helped a lot.

“[Ms. Davey] made me a small course on the Cottage Street pond with jumps and turns,” she said. “That couldn’t possibly have prepared me for Fenway, but it was awesome.”

After the long stretch of training, it was finally February 9—the day of competition.

“When we got there, the pros told us, ‘You will fall,’” she recalled. “Oh, and us rookies, we fell hard! A lot! To psychically go down the course hurt, but it was awesome and, to be honest, terrifying.”

Though she trained for hours leading up to the event, the difficulty of the course surprised her. Davey described the race as “the hardest thing [she’d] ever done athletically, and that is no exaggeration.”

She continued, “The first drop was 66 feet and the highest jump was over five feet high. Getting air was no issue but landing the jumps on ice skates was a whole new skillset I was not prepared for.”

After the race, Davey’s mood was “a mixture between beat-up and psyched.”

“Each time I fell down and hit my head, my hip, my tailbone, my knee, I felt defeated,” she said. “But then I would stop around, and I’d see the Green Monster, the tall lights, the Citco sign, the sign that reads Fenway Park high above home plate, and I would take in the actual insanity of what I was doing.”

She added, “Checking off a bucket list item is one of the best feelings in the world.”

Although Davey acknowledged the small odds of competing again, she didn’t take it off the table.

“I’m 30 and a rookie,” she said. “There’s not much time to improve without seriously hurting myself in an indoor skate park, so the chances are slim, but you never know.”

In the end, Davey says she wouldn’t change the experience for anything.

“I am so grateful for the experience, bruises and bumps and all.”