“Mm.”
“I am going to put on a shin guard.” He goes into the room. I keep skating.
Percy comes through the tunnel already in his pads. He has the mask up on top of his head and he is mouthing something — I can read it from here,un, deux, trois,he counts in French during his stretch — and he goes to the same spot in the corner he goes to every Wednesday and starts the same routine. Hip flexor, hip flexor, hamstring. The rotation of his head. Once you’ve been on a team with Percy for a while, you stop noticing it. The freshmen are noticing it. They’re all staring.
Blue is on the ice within sixty seconds of coming through the tunnel. He never stretches in the room. He stretches on the ice.
Drew Faulkner, Mickey Tate, and Walker Owens walk out together, joking about something. Owens catches my eye and nods. I nod back. Theo Marsh, Sam Reichel, Casey Brogan, and Trent Mackey follow behind. The last few trickle out.
Rowan is last. Calm, as always. He skates a slow lap, taps his stick against the boards as he passes me, and falls in.
Coach Fuller comes out of the tunnel at six-fourteen and blows the whistle. Practice starts. We do edges first. Then a passing drill. Then, the Camdenkout drill we’ve been running since I was a sophomore.
Stanley, Blue and I get put on a line for the rush drill. We have been on a line together since November of my sophomore year. Stanley on the right, Blue on the left, me in the middle. There is a way Stanley plays that I have learned to understand. Blue does what is in front of him, and you can set your watch by it. I sit between them, read both of them, and pass.
We run the rush three times. Third time through, Stanley takes a stretch pass from me at the offensive blue line, drops it back to Blue without looking, Blue puts it cross-ice to the back post where I’m already coming down, and I one-time it past Hayes-the-freshman, who’s playing token defenseman in this drill and never had a chance.
Coach yells, “That’s it. Reeve’s line — that’s the rep, watch that on tape.”
Stanley does a lap with his arms over his head like he scored at the Garden.
“I didn’t even pass it to you,” I say to him at the bench.
“My presence created the lane.”
“Your presence created the rebound.”
Blue takes a sip of water. “He didn’t pass to you.”
“Get out of here, Golding.”
I cackle, and then we run it three more times.
We scrimmage for the last twenty minutes. The team is sharper than Monday’s practice. Coach has us in mixed groups, so the lines aren’t set, which means I’m playing with two freshmen and against my actual linemates, which is a thing Coach does to me in week one every year and pretends he isn’t doing on purpose.
Percy is in the net for the other group. He doesn’t dive or pad-stack. He’s always in the right spot before anyone even thinks of the shot. Stanley tries to roof one short side, and Blue cuts to the slot. The pucks just hit him.
“This is annoying,” Stanley says to me at center ice.
“Yeah,” I agree. I’ve been watching Percy and don’t get it.
Stanley kicks his foot. “He didn’t even move.”
“He moved,” I say.
Stanley blows out hot air, putting his pointer finger up. “He moved one inch.”
“That’s all he needed.”
Stanley skates off, shaking his head.
Halfway through the scrimmage, there’s a scrum in the corner. Walsh and a freshman defenseman named Patel are both digging for a puck and Walsh, who is six-five and a senior and is having a Wednesday, gives Patel a forearm that’s bigger than the situation calls for. Patel comes back with a shove. Walsh shoves harder. Patel’s stick comes up.
I’m closer than the linesmen would be in a real game. I get there first. I don’t yell. I don’t pull anyone. I get my body between them and look at Walsh.
“Hey.” I stare at him.
He stops.
