“I need to know what your safety protocols are,” the mom is telling me.
“Ma’am, I think you might be in the wrong location. This is the Rhode Islanders team practice, not hockey camp. That’s over at the community center and starts after school lets out…”
The pimple-faced boy next to her pulls down his scarf.
“Ah, our backup goalie is here. Welcome!”
“Braxton is a child,” his mother snips.
“He’s nineteen, Mrs. Beavers.”
“A child!” she rails. “I need assurances that he’s going to be looked after… never mind,” she says, grabbing her son. “I can see that this team is mismanaged. I will not allow my baby to participate in this tomfoolery.”
“Mrs. Beavers.” I plaster on my best customer service face. “We need Braxton to play. He has to play. We need a second goalie.”
“Of course he’s playing,” she harrumphs. “I’m going into the locker room with him to make sure he isn’t kidnapped. Obviously, I’m going to have to be at every practice. I clearly can’t trust you with my only son. He’s so young.”
The kid is six foot six and looks like he weighs a hundred pounds.
He’s the backup—just the backup goalie, I internally chant.My real goalie will be here soon.I hope.
“Ma’am, you cannot go into the locker rooms with the players.” I race after her.
“Then he won’t play.”
“Mom,” the kid whines.
“I am your mother!” she thunders to Braxton.
I will be losing this battle.
“Fine, just put a sign up or something when you’re in there.” I sigh.
“How come she gets to go all Peeping Tom on the players,” Granny Murray complains to me, “and I don’t?”
“Gran, why are you still here?”
“I’m your equipment manager.” She slaps her chest.
“No, you’re not. I mean, just let me handle it.” My eye is twitching again.
On the ice, the men have stopped doing the drill and are trying to stuff pucks down each other’s pants.
“Saint Nick, give me strength.”
Separate out the troublemakers.This would be easier if the captain wasn’t hungover. “Jovi,” I call to him. “Come here, please.” I grab a bucket of pucks. “The rest of you—two-touch drills.”
Jovi follows me like a puppy to the other side of the rink and watches excitedly as I scatter pucks around all over the ice.
“I’m timing you,” I tell him. “All these pucks need to be in the net. Ready, set, go!”
I call Dana as I skate back over to the rest of the group.
“I thought there were no phones on the ice?” Fletcher is snarky.
“Go help the rookies with their backhand passes.”
Dana is annoyed when she answers. “What?”
