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Idespise NHL Trade Deadline Day.
It's the nervousness, the fear of the unknown, the anticipation, the build-up, the letdown, the stress. It's the complete and utter lack of control.
NHL General Managers are sitting in the driver's seat, pacing in their offices, trying to decide if it's time to shit or get off the pot. Deadline Day is when every NHL team decides if they will make a run at the Cup, or sell off rental players and build for the future.
There are thirty-two teams and only one Stanley Cup. Essentially, this day will be a failure or success for all but one team. In war rooms across the league, scouts, coaches, GMs, and the director of player development are asking themselves if they need extra pieces to contend in the playoffs. Do they have the tools and depth to win sixteen games and reach hockey's ultimate glory?
Ever since I was eighteen, I've hated Trade Deadline Day because I never knew if my brothers were staying put in New York, or if they would be shipped further away to a team on the West Coast. Ironically, before I broke up with Ryan, I was terrified that Montreal would trade him away. Then, seven months after I left him on the bridge where he proposed, Ryan was sent packing to Los Angeles.
If my heart could have shattered anymore, it would have. Breaking up with Ryan Gunner was the hardest thing I have ever done.
I once read a story about war veterans who've lost their arms or legs in battle, and for some reason, they still feel like the limb is there. They call it phantom limb syndrome. I think I have that, but in reverse. Physically, I am not missing a damn thing. But inside, my chest feels hollow. Like my heart is missing entirely.
I will never love another man like I did Ryan. Ours was a once-in-a-lifetime love, like my friend Holly has with her fiancé, Luke. I've never even felt the tiniest spark compared to the blistering inferno Ryan and I shared. It was all-consuming. It was everything.
We knew everything about each other. We were the quintessential portrait of two kids hopelessly in love. We talked about our dreams, plans, and how our futures would intertwine. There was never any doubt we would end up together. None. Until the day I discovered the likelihood of ever having the children Ryan and I dreamed of was infinitesimally small. Almost impossible.
My mother tried to soothe the sting with talk of technology, infertility drugs, adoption, and possible procedures that could help if I did decide to have children, but it's not the same. There are no guarantees, and those options could cost tens of thousands of dollars and adopting a child isn’t the same as having a child of own. And I know we’d would have loved any child, biological or adopted, but I still would have felt like I was robbing Ryan of the opportunity to have his own kids with his DNA.
I couldn't put Ryan through that. We used to lay in bed at night—naked, sweaty and sated after multiple orgasms—and dream up different versions of our life in ten or twenty years. Ryan is an only child. His mom is all he has, so naturally, he wanted a large family. He always dreamed of having big family Christmases with at least five kids running wild. I had put the cap on three. Four tops.
We'd play-argue and laugh. It was the happiest time of my life. But Ryan deserved a girl who could give him everything he wanted. I did the right thing. I loved him, so I let him go. I want him to have his big family and more. Not a maybeifwe're extremely lucky, or worse, not at all.
And it all worked out for the best. Ryan's dating a superstar actress. Tyra Price is gorgeous, like most actresses, with a killer body and perfect everything. She's one of those amazingly exotic-looking women with warm brown skin, dark hair, and light greenish eyes.
They make a striking couple.
Holly's convinced it's not serious. She thinks their pictures look more like they have a brother-sister bond than lovers. To which I roll my eyes. How is dating for two years not serious? Holly and Luke have been dating for less than a year and they're already engaged.
I absently rub the two rings hanging on the long gold chain between my breasts. I tried to give the engagement and promise rings back to Ryan, but his mother wouldn't take them. And if I am being honest with myself, I didn't want to part with them. I love them. I couldn't just let the rings sit in a drawer collecting dust, so I put them together on a chain and I've been wearing it ever since.
Fiddling with them is a nervous habit.
I shake those thoughts out of my head. It's Deadline Day, and I have a shitload of work to do. When you co-run a PR and social media management company with your best friend, and work with one of the biggest franchises in the NHL, Trade Deadline Day is bound to be a shit show.
My eyes scan the office that Holly and I share. She’s on the phone across from me, so I can hear her entire conversation, or at least her side. Taylor Ashley, Holly's new-found half-sister and doppelgänger, is running around with her iPhone glued to her hand, sending out updates as they come in. Everyone else is in some state of panic or confusion.
That's Deadline Day in a nutshell: panic, confusion, misinformation, assumption, and rumour.
"You don't think Luke will get traded, do you?" Taylor asks, handing me coffee.
"Um, no. Hard no. He's the captain, the Northmen are making a run at the Cup this year, and he has a no-trade clause."
"Oh yeah, I forgot."
"Believe me, I've already been over this scenario a hundred times with Holly. If you haven't guessed it, your sister is a worry-wort.”
I turn to the fifty-inch flat screen in our office. We have it locked on SportsCentre, waiting for updates and more rumours. The sports channel runs a Deadline Day special every year with hockey insiders and former players as guests. I tune into what the commentators are saying. They're talking about a potential trade between New York and Calgary. Ollie and Ozzy's names have circulated several times.
Quickly, I whip out my phone and text my brothers.
Avery: Are you guys getting traded?
Ollie: No.
Avery: Are you sure? SportsCentre says you might get shipped off to Calgary.
Ozzy: Only if we go as a package deal and only if we waive our limited no-trade clause.
