Page 31 of On His Team

The rest of the application doesn’t bother me. Kwan is already making us redo our résumés. Novak would probably write a recommendation. Coach Fuller would too if I asked him.

Five hundred words shouldn’t be the difficult part. I click into the application anyway. There’s a blank box for the statement. I stare at it for a while. Nothing useful shows up. Eventually I close it. March first is seven weeks away. Plenty of time. I tell myself that like the deadline is the problem.

My phone buzzes beside the computer.

Benson: Leaving in 20.

Me: Yeah.

I close the graduate page and shut the laptop.

The first Friday game with students back feels nothing like the games we played over Christmas break. Those felt like practices somebody sold tickets to. You could hear individual people from the ice. Tonight, the student section is already full when we come out for warmups, the band is set up in the corner, and the drum starts before I make it through my first lap.

Stanley glides past the bench with both arms stretched out.

“This,” he yells, “is what I’m talking about.”

Blue skates past him. “Warm up.”

“I am so fucking warm right now.”

I laugh and keep moving.

Benson taps both posts before he starts. Percy stretches in the crease. Mackey and I go through the same puck-behind-the-net routine we’ve done before every game since November, except on the second rep he changes his angle.

I look once. Then again. Far side. I hit him clean.

He grins. “Better.”

“Don’t start.”

“Positive reinforcement.”

“I don’t need it.”

“You definitely do.”

I send the next puck harder than I need to.

When I circle back toward the tunnel, two men in dark jackets are standing along the glass with Camden credentials around their necks. One is talking to Coach.

I recognize his face, not his name. I’ve seen enough NHL and AHL people around here over the last few years to know what he is.

Scout.

Probably here for Benson. Maybe Stanley. Blue gets attention too.

I skate past. Fuller catches my eye for half a second before turning back to the guy.

A few days ago, after practice, he mentioned that somebody had asked what I was doing next year.

I told him I didn’t know.

He said, Figured.

That was the whole conversation. It could mean nothing.

Pro hockey works like that for guys like me. You don’t get drafted, so nobody builds a plan around you. Maybe somebody watches enough tape and likes something. Maybe there’s a development camp. Maybe an AHL club needs somebody in July. Maybe nothing happens.