Page 33 of Heartbreak Hockey

“I want forty in two before you get to join the drills. Anyone else have something smart to say?” No one answers that. Leslie fumes. “Good. One of the other members of the coaching staff will help you out, Leslie, the rest, move down the ice.”

I run them through a series of intense drills as a warm-up, but also to pick up on their strengths and weaknesses. I participate. It’s good exercise and good for them to see I’m no slouch at the game of hockey even at my “old” age of thirty-six.

It doesn’t take long for Leslie to join us, not with all that rage fueling him. He probably pounded out those push-ups like a madman.

After two hours of drills, they’re beat. I’m just getting started. I blow my whistle when I see them taking a knee to rest and heading off to the boards for too many water breaks. “I’m gonna put a few lines together for the scrimmage. Nolan, Boulder, you’re with me. Leslie, you get to slot between the Alderchucks as center.”

“With you, Coach?” Nolan asks.

“I’ll be participating in the scrimmage.” I’m not in full gear, just a helmet and a jockstrap, but I want to get a true sense of them. See what it feels like to get a pass from everyone. Be in the trenches with them. I won’t get the opportunity to do this as much when the season progresses because I’ll need to study them from the outside.

Their cocky expressions tell me they’re excited to beat the shit out of me. Maybe Leslie most of all. “You sure you wanna do this, Coach? We’d hate to lose you before the season starts,” Nolan says.

“Maybe you should worry about your feet, Nolan. Your edges need work.”

“I’m personally looking forward to this,” Leslie says. Guess he thinks he’s going to make a fool out of me. If he’s going to do that, he’d better give me his best shot. Truth is, I’m happy for him to beat the shit outta me if it keeps him from losing his Jack spark.

It takes the team all of two minutes to realize it’s not my first day on the ice. I take great satisfaction in slamming each of them into the boards while they process who the fuck just took them out and their resulting impressed awe.

Especially Leslie.

“Better be careful,” he says when I’ve got him pinned against the boards. “I might think you like this, Coach.”

“Never said I didn’t.”

He smiles his way into a smirk, knowing just which way I meant that. I won’t bother pretending not to be attracted to him. That would be a ridiculous lie. I can be attracted to him and not wind up with my dick in his ass or my tongue down his throat. Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. And look where that got me? I won’t be making that mistake again.

At the end of ten minutes, I switch up teams and the lines. Leslie’s good with the Alderchucks, but what would he be like with Nolan and Boulder? It’s obvious that the Alderchucks have a twin vibe between them. I’m gonna utilize the hell out of that.

I’m racing down the ice with the puck, until I’m not, suddenly slammed into the boards by one of my defensemen. Leslie intercepts the puck and takes off, scooping it onto his blade and dumping it into the top shelf of the net.

He mimes jerking his cock—in other words,suck it, Coach—in celebration of his trick shot as his current teammates collide with him to knock helmets and congratulate him. It was a pretty sweet goal. I blow my whistle.

“Okay, enough. Face off. You’re on my line this time, Leslie.”

“Just wanna be close to me, eh, Coach?”

“I think somebody likes to do push-ups.” He shrugs, laughing and I can’t be mad when he’s full of that much joy, but I’m not letting him slack off. “I wanna see two more goals outta you.”

“What kinda bullshit is that?”

“You either want to be on my starting line up or you don’t.”

He skates off muttering something about mother fucking asshole coaches who think hockey players are scoring machines, but I know he’s concocting more ways to show off.

Stop making it easy for me, Leslie.

Leslie wins the faceoff and passes back to me taking off down the ice. He’s something else as he skates a like a bolt of lightning into Alderchuck, plastering him against the boards. I pass to Nolan who passes across to Leslie who slaps it toward the goal at a speed I wouldn’t believe if I hadn’t seen it up close.

Why is this man not in the NHL, again? This whole practice has been child’s play for him, even with everyone grinding and fighting for top spots.

The shot barrels through Bers Stronghold—our goaltender—and we’re already celebrating another one of Leslie’s goals. Dayum. I’ve been watching our goaltender closely all practice. I know an outstanding goaltender when I see one. He’s one of the best in the league in stats and it’s not easy to get a puck by him. Leslie’s just that good.

After that, he becomes a showboat doing all kinds of ridiculous shit, including skating backward and flicking the puck upward so that it bounces up and over Stronghold. Not everything goes in. In fact, most of them don’t, but he’s still the top scorer and he entertains the fuck out of everyone. They start setting him up with ideas.

“Backward, then deke, then spin around, Leslie,” Stronghold says.

“How am I supposed to deke you if you tell me to do it, eh, Bers?”