KAYLA
Go America!
“Texting that hottie wife, Coach?” Hall says to me when he comes into the locker room.
“Not sure how I feel about you commenting on my wife, but yeah.”
Hall laughs it off. He elbows the kid next to him. “Coach’s wife is a D1 hottie.”
“Nah, she’s pro,” I say, putting my phone in my locker.
The guys laugh and Hall starts talking about his girlfriend, and then they’re all chiming in about girls, side pieces, situationships, and making bets about who can rack up the most Tinder dates before the end of camp.
I’m around guys this age on the Blue Collars, so it’s not like this world is completely foreign to me. Are those guys simply more respectful when I’m around? Or is this another sign of me aging out of the locker room?
The rink air tastes like freezer burn and sweat. Usually, my pads feel like armor, but today, they feel like sandbags holding back floodwaters. Meant to prevent disaster, not win a fight.
Out on the ice, we get to work fast after warmups. Dynamic stretches, edge drills, tracking exercises. I let myself go numb the second I’m in the crease—shut down my pride, turn off my thoughts.
Hold the post.
During controlled rebound drills, I’m all precision and tight angles.
When a low-slot shot requires fast hips, I manage it, but the pull in my groin tells me I’m not twenty anymore.
I can’t risk injuring my knees, so I focus on efficiency and control.
Hall, though, struggles to keep his movements tight enough. His legs are too wide, his lunges too reckless. He overcorrects.
It’s subtle—the guy’s clearly good enough to be here—but at the next level, mistakes like this are way too easy to exploit.
“A little too eager, but he’s aggressive,” Trevor says to Otto as they watch Hall.
“Hungry,” Otto adds.
They nod, like Hall’s every weakness is a virtue instead of a threat. Stepping stones to something greater.
If I make a mistake, it feels like a crack in my foundation. Whenever I stop a puck cleanly, Trevor looks at me like it’s the least I could do.
“You’re like a wall, man,” a kid—Griggs—says. It doesn’t sound like a compliment.
Walls are boring. No one walks into a house and admires the walls. They admire the fixtures, the window dressings and splashy designs.
Who cares that the wall keeps the roof up?
Hall is flashy.
“He’s the kind of goalie who gets fans on their feet,” Trevor mutters.
Those words hit like a slap.
They’d rather let in goals with an exciting goalie than win games with a boring one.
Noted.
Near the end of the day, Hall botches a pass behind the net, and it gets to him. Otto blows a whistle for our final break, and Hall skates over to the bench to get some water. He stops me at the cooler, his brows drawn, jaw flexing. The disappointment on his face is palpable.
“How do you do it, man? You just don’t make mistakes.”
