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Sammy

“Good mornin’, Sammy!” Isaac calls the moment I skate out onto the ice.

“Hey man,” I say, clearing my throat and holding my stick loosely in my hands. I’ve been playing hockey for more than twenty years at this point—an insanely long time to do anything—and yet, I always get a shiver of nervous anticipation down my back when I get on the ice. “What do you have for me today?”

It’s barely five in the morning, and, as per usual, I’m the first one in the rink. Even Coach Aldine isn’t here yet, but that has a lot to do with the fact that Ellie just had their third baby, and according to Devon, Grey is on diaper duty.

I swallow, tapping my stick on the ice a few times to keep the worry at bay when I think of Devon. News about his retirement was leaked before he could come out and tell the team himself, and he was pissed about that. Brett, our team captain, didn’t seem too worried. After the season he had last year, he thinks our path to the Stanley Cup is going to be cake.

But I know better than that. The other teams in the league—especially Toronto—are getting seriously tired of our winning streak. Some forums online even speculate about wild conspiracy theories—that we’re cheating, juicing everyone on the team. That Coach Aldine sold his soul to the devil. That the Stratton Syrup Stadium is built on some sort of ultra-powerful natural site.

“We’ll start with tracking,” Isaac says, pulling me from my thoughts and bringing me back to the ice. “Go into glove saves, then slide drills. Anything you want to work on?”

“Probably breakaways,” I say, a nervous lump forming in my throat at the thought of it. As a professional athlete, I shouldn’t be anxious about being out here doing my job, but there’s something about breakaways that makes me on-edge.

Maybe it’s the knowledge that everyone’s eyes are on me, one or two opponents rocketing down in my direction. That unlike the typical chaos by the net, in which it feels obvious that sometimes you might not block a shot, missing a breakaway feels like searing embarrassment. Like a running back fumbling with nobody around. Like a point guard stealing the ball and taking it down the court, only to miss a wide-open lay-up.

Of course, goalies lose during breakaways all the time. But, according to Issac and Coach Aldine, I have a particularly low success rate compared to other goalies in the league. I’ve watched hours and hours of film, analyzing how the other guys predict the path of the puck, how they get in its way so well, and I still don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.

“Of course,” Isaac laughs, rolling his eyes and skating away from the net as I get closer. “It’s always breakaways with you, man.”

“It’s my biggest weakness. Isn’t that what I should work on most?”

“Something like that.” Isaac’s a big guy, and played goalie in college, but didn’t want to take the beating that comes with NHL hockey. So he became a goalie coach. Devon and he played together in college, and when the Viper’s goalie coach position opened up, Isaac fit right in. “I’m just worried that you’re going too hard on yourself with this, man. It’s good to work on things, obviously, but also, it’s five in the morning.”

“We always train at this time,” I say, pressing my lips together. Isaac doesn’t look mad , exactly, but it occurs to me for the first time that maybe he doesn’t enjoy meeting this early during the off-season.

We won the Stanley Cup—our third championship in a row—less than a month ago. And I’ve already been dragging Isaac out to practice before the sun comes up.

“Right,” Isaac says, “you know I’m here for you, man, and I love working with you…but you have to learn how to relax. Rest your body.”

“I know,” I sigh, wincing when I think about how late I stayed up the night before, watching and re-watching one of the points I allowed during the most recent championship game. “I am.”

“Alright.” Isaac’s shoulder-length blonde hair jostling as he nods his hair. “Let’s get right into tracking, then.”

I start to relax when we get into the drills. Lining up, I train my eyes on Isaac as he skates in a figure-eight pattern, the puck balancing on his stick. My eyes never leave that puck, a sort of intense tunnel vision washing over me, my entire body floating away.

Isaac increases his speed, and I quicken my reactions, then, after a few minutes, he turns and fires the puck at me. I block it.

“Good,” he says, grabbing a bucket of pucks from the sidelines. “Glove saves.”

Standing about fifteen feet from me and the net, Isaac drops the pucks and starts to fire them at me. I move, breathing hard as I snatch them out of the air, each time creating a hollow thwack of the puck meeting leather, which echoes throughout the rink.

We continue on like this, cycling through drills, working on my reflexes and strategy. I’ve just caught another puck when a door slams on the other side of the rink and Isaac and I turn to watch Harper James strut in, her soft blonde hair curled over her shoulders, that trademark buoyant energy all around her.

Harper is the kind of girl who’s always giggling, always happy. Light on her feet. Today, she’s wearing a light pink blouse with darker pink trousers. Little pink pompoms hang from her ears. When she sees Isaac and I out on the ice, she grins and comes to the rail, her voice carrying over to us.

“Good morning !” she calls, waving like she’s on a boat and we’re watching her leave from the dock. As if we’re both not already captivated by her.

“Good morning, Harp,” we say, nearly in unison. Isaac turns and looks at me, raising an eyebrow. We move to skate over to her but she holds her hands out.

“No!” she calls, “don’t move a muscle! Well, move all your muscles, but keep doing what you were. I just need to take a few pictures.”

I turn to look at Isaac, and he shrugs. When I glance at Harper again, she waves her hand, like Go on! and grins. Even from here, I can see the glitter in her lip gloss, the light pink blush over her cheeks.

Harper started a few months ago as our new social media manager, replacing Percy, who left when he started dating a guy on the Houston Astros.

“I’ve always liked baseball anyway,” Percy’d said, laughing loudly at his going-away party. He was fun, and most of us—with the exception of Devon—were sad to see him go.

Then Harper arrived. Organized, punctual, and less demanding. More interested in getting content of what we’re already doing than making us participate in trends. There’s still some of that—and Brett is always happy to gather a few of us up to do stupid dances—but Harper has slid right into the team’s dynamic easily.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous. And she laughs at everything.

“Stop mooning over her and focus on your game,” Isaac says, and I feel heat rushing to my face. When I glance at the sideline, Harper has her back turned, looking down at her phone.

“Dude,” I grumble, “I was not mooning over her. And besides, what if she heard you?”

“As if she doesn’t already know,” Isaac laughs, “half the fucking team wants her.”

Rolling my eyes, I try to shake my mind back into practice mode. I ignore the way my focus pulls in Harper’s direction, wanting to glance over and see if she’s still taking pictures of us. If she’s watching me. The awareness of her gaze makes my skin prickle.

Eventually, Harper wanders away and I fully slip back into the drills.

We’re working on the breakaway defense when Coach Aldine arrives, a steaming travel mug of coffee in his right hand.

“Good morning, fellas,” he says, whistling, as always.

I was traded to the team just one year before Grey met his wife Ellie, and the transformation has really been something. He went from being a chronic grump to constantly smiling and whistling. I think it’s kind of nice. Devon called it concerning. That is, until he went and got married, too.

“Morning,” Isaac calls, his voice echoing throughout the rink and bouncing off the walls. “We were just finishing up.”

“You know you don’t have to get here so early,” Coach says, taking a sip of his coffee and eyeing me. “The other guys aren’t even coming in until the end of the month. Ratcliff is still in the Bahamas with Fallon and June.”

“I know,” I say, shrugging and trying not to look too obvious. Of course I’m here, practicing when nobody else is. I’m the one most at risk of being traded. Coach would never say that to me, of course, but it’s true.

Of everyone on the team, I know I’m the most likely to be replaced. Sometimes the goalie can be overlooked in hockey, but there are many fans and experts who attribute the team’s success to the goalie’s skills. The forwards need to know they can take the puck down the ice and take risks without worrying about getting back on defense. Everyone on the team needs to trust the goalie.

Sometimes, when I’m standing in front of the net, staring down the ice at them, I feel like I literally have everyone’s backs. Like I’m the one thing keeping the team from falling apart. The foundation.

A tiny trickle of anxiety settles in my heart, and I gulp, trying to push the feeling away.

“Don’t act like you didn’t do the same shit,” Isaac says, skating around the side of the rink and looking up at Aldine. “Devon told me you’d sometimes be here in the middle of the night, shooting around.”

“Sure,” Grey chuckles, “and look where that got me!”

“Coach of one of the most successful teams in hockey,” Isaac jokes, rolling his eyes. “Oh, what a cautionary tale.”

Coach grumbles something at him, then turns and comes down the stairs.

“Get over here, Braun. Need to talk to you about something.”

Swallowing again, I nod and skate across the ice, stomach uneasy.

When I get closer to him, Coach leans down and levels his eyes at me, like he needs a moment to assess me. He has this intense look that, coupled with his commanding voice, tends to intimidate people.

“Alright,” he sighs, turning his coffee cup in his hand. “I see you in here, working hard before anyone else is even back from their vacations.”

My mouth opens, and I try to figure out where this is going. Am I going to be reprimanded? Or is he complimenting me? It feels impossible to know.

He might launch into a speech like Isaac did—explaining the importance of rest and relaxation. But I can’t help it. There’s this constant itch just under my skin that won’t let me sleep past five, and once I’m up, I want to be on the ice.

“I think you’ve got the potential, Sammy,” he continues. “I think you’ve got the potential not just to heighten your game, but to be an overall better asset to the Vipers.”

It feels like my heart is in my throat—here he is, talking about my potential, but it sounds like a preamble into an ultimatum. You have so much potential, but …

“I’ve taken the liberty of setting up a meeting between you and a friend of mine. Elite athlete coach.”

“Elite athlete coach?” I echo.

“That’s right. Whole point of the thing is to take someone with potential and make them really good. Lots of the greats you’ve heard of have worked with someone like that. Optimized their routines, eliminated distractions, that kind of thing.”

“Respectfully, Coach,” I laugh, scrubbing a hand over my head. “I don’t have any distractions.”

“Sure, but maybe that’s a distraction in and of itself.”

“I think you’re getting too philosophical for me.”

Coach laughs, and a bit of the unease in my chest unfurls. He’s not trading me—he’s getting me help. Hiring an elite athlete coach .

I feel the tips of my ears turn pink when I think about what the other guys are going to say when they find out I need someone to make me great. When Brett hears about this, he’s going to laugh. He’s one of those guys who has always been effortlessly good. The moment he joined the team, we became friends, and I saw the way he moved through life. People liked him. Flocked to him, even. Girls hung from his arms and asked for invitations to his parties.

On the ice, it’s like he was born with skates. Everything comes naturally to him, and that was never what it was like for me. I had to work hard to get any good at hockey, clawing my way forward every single day.

When I was in high school, I’d been on both the hockey and football teams. In football, things did come a little more naturally for me. I was a big guy, quick on my feet. My dad begged me to choose football.

But there was always something about hockey that pulled me in. And, eventually, he respected that I chose the thing I loved most—even if it took more hard work.

“Here,” Coach says, flicking out a business card to me. I stare down at it.

Dr. Finley Asher, Elite Athlete Coach

It’s modern and thick, the kind of business card that screams money . There aren’t any pictures, just clean lines and contact information at the bottom.

“Dr. Finley Asher,” I mutter, turning the card over, where it says, Monday, July 9th, 2 p.m.

“Yup,” Coach Aldine says, nodding. “Already got you an appointment. And don’t be late. We’re paying a lot of money to make this work out. Had to pull a lot of strings. I trust you to take this seriously.”

“Of course,” I say, eyes flicking to his. If I’m anything about hockey, it’s absolutely one hundred percent serious.