Page 25 of Holiday Crush
I suggested we start with them showing me how they played, then watched helplessly as they tangled their sticks in an effort to knock the puck free. This was hell.
“Where do I begin?”
Mary-Kate shrugged. “My dad has them skate around the cones and take shots on goal. Should we do that?”
“I guess. Do they know how to stop? That kid is flying toward the wall and—oh, crap.” I sped to the kid waving his arms like a bird with clipped wings. I stopped him, shredding ice at his feet and redirecting him to the group MK had gathered in a huddle. “Okay, let’s do this all over again. Apparently, I asked the wrong questions. Show of hands. Who knows how to skate?”
“Is that a trick question?” Jason asked, glancing at the other kids who’d all raised their hands.
“Maybe. Who can skate backward?” I showed what I meant, adding, “Who can turn? Who can stop while skating backward? I didn’t think so.”
“Can you teach us?” Stella piped in. “And do you know how to do any fancy turns?”
“That’s figure skating,” Mary-Kate reminded her.
“Ooh, let’s do that! Let’s do figure-skating hockey.”
“That’s dumb,” someone said.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“No…”
Right.
I stood impotently with my hands on my hips while Mary-Kate mediated a mini brawl. My body was on the ice, but the rest of me was tripping through time. A month ago I’d played actual hockey on a real team with adults and now I was a glorified, not to mention unqualified, babysitter.
Was this torture really worth a meeting with Vinnie’s agent? Yes. Gary McDermott had serious connections. I could be in LA or Vegas next month and maybe land a job with the Kings or the Knights when I retired for real. And Elmwood would be a distant memory.
But I still had to get through this.Fuck.
Okay, think, Henderson.
I searched my memory and came up blank. I couldn’t remember a time I didn’t know how to skate…it was something I did well that had set me apart from my brother the gifted student and my parents, who were business people and bakers. I was the athlete. I was the kid who’d loved the sting of cold air and the feel of blades gliding beneath me. I loved the fast pace and the sense of freedom I had on the ice. But how did you teach shit like that?
How could I make this fun?
I waved my hands over my head, then blew the whistle. “All right, hotheads, let’s simmer down and figure some things out. I don’t have any kids or nieces or nephews yet, so I gotta ask…what do you think is fun?”
“Twirling,” Stella insisted with her arms folded and brow furrowed.
“Okay…anyone else?”
“I like Legos.”
“Video games.”
“My dog is fun.”
“Good to know.” I sighed in defeat but pasted a smile on my face and glanced over at Mary-Kate, who looked confused. “Um…I guess we’ll go with the basics.”
MK suggested dividing the kids into two groups. She took the ones with some skating and stick handling ability and ran drills with pucks while I tried to teach the others how to skate backward.
“Hands low, knees bent. Hands low, knees bent, try again,” was my mantra. I said it so often, it would probably feature in my dreams.
So yeah, this was the opposite of fun.