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And so far, judging by how practice sessions are going, we don’t have a lot of it.
I’m playing center, replacing Tristan. I used to play right forward, but I have experience playing center from high school, so Coach thought it was the best move to put me in the position while Shane takes my old post. Liam is still our left forward, and Aaron Dawkins, another transfer specially scouted by Coach, now guards our net as goalie.
We’re working on a complicated passing drill that Coach has drawn up, that mostly revolves around Shane and I exchanging the puck a couple times with Walsh and Lars in between us, trying to disrupt us.
It’s something Liam and I would be able to pull off with our eyes closed, but Shane and I just don’t have that kind of natural rhythm together, and we keep screwing it up.
When we screw it up again—Lars easily being able to break up our passing scheme and steal the puck away—Coach blows his whistle.
“Alright, hit the showers,” Coach says, disappointment laden in his voice. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”
Frustration churns in my stomach as I strip off my pads. But I know this is an unavoidable part of playing on a college hockey team where top players graduate and get replaced. When I’m in the pros, players will be coming and going too, and I’ll have to learn to adjust.
I see Shane looking down on the other side of the locker room. As much as it sucks for me to suddenly be feeling the lack of chemistry on a team where I already feel secure and at home, it must suck even more to transfer to a new school and a new team and struggle to get on the same page as everyone else.
I wasn’t the player I am now when I first joined the Hot Shots three years ago. And if it wasn’t for the support of the veteran players who were already established here when I showed up, I never would be.
Now, I’m that veteran player. I’m one of the voices who set the tone for the entire locker room.
I clasp Shane on the shoulder. “You’ve got a hell of a slapshot,” I say. “One of the fastest I’ve ever seen.”
Maybe he struggled with some of Coach’s more intricate passing drills, but when it came to the shooting drills, he knocked them out of the park.
His eyes brighten a bit. “Thanks,” he says.
Shane’s a junior, and this is his first time playing on the starting line of a top team. Coach scouted him from a school in North Carolina, one with a hockey program significantly lower-ranked than Ridley’s.
But Coach spotted his raw talent and was convinced that he could be molded into an elite player who can fit into the first line on the Hot Shots.
I can see the raw talent, too. I can also see the molding it’s going to take to get him to where he should be.
One thing I don’t want to do at the end of this year, my senior year, is to leave the team that’s given me so much worse off than I found it when I joined.
Helping these younger players become the best they can be, and ensuring the Hot Shots have a bright future when Liam and I graduate in May, is just as important to me as finishing off the season by hoisting another Frozen Four championship trophy over my head.
Okay—almost as important.
“Ready for our first classes next week?” Shane asks, his confidence resetting.
Our first sessions teaching kids how to skate at the community hockey rink start soon.
“Yeah,” I answer, stripping the last of my clothes and walking with Shane to the showers. “Should be fun.”
“I sure as shit wouldn’t mind seeing that chick again,” Shane says underneath the stream of water in his shower stall.
Over the summer, the locker room was renovated, and they installed individual shower stalls to replace the old communal shower.
Which is a good thing right now, because all it takes is knowing that Shane’s talking about Phoebe for me to remember how her ass looked while she was skating in those skin-tight black yoga pants, and I’ve already got a fucking stiffy.
Shane talking about looking forward to seeing her again is also all it takes for a strange surge of emotion to rip through me, making my chest feel a little tighter and my neck muscles tense despite the steaming-hot water that should be relaxing them.
I’d call the emotion jealousy if I didn’t know any better.
Good thing I do know better. Me, jealous of someone being into Phoebe? Why? It’s ridiculous. We’re not even friends. Far from it.
“You two go way back, huh?” Shane follows up when I don’t respond.
“Yeah,” I answer.
