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REID
This is bullshit.
All over a sucker punch to some Montreal asshole’s helmet after he kept running his mouth the whole game.
He’s lucky he had it on because the third time he tripped one of my teammates with his hockey stick and almost skated over one of their forearms, I lost it. Charles Gagnon is nothing but an ass clown who does all his petty little moves when the refs aren’t looking.
It wasn’t my proudest moment.
I’m normally the douchebag riling up the other team and roughing them up, but we’ve had a long-standing problem with this particular clown, and I snapped.
However, snapping got me suspended for fifteen games since this wasn’t my first “violent” action on the ice that night against him. When we hit the ice against the Montreal Blizzard, it’s not just a heated rivalry, but a bloodbath. It's unnecessary roughness, body-checking players as hard as possible into the sideboards and throwing gloves off.
Then the fists come out.
And mine currently has me standing in front of a rundown ice rink in Boston with half ass instructions on how to get here and a position that I didn’t want to take because I’m not a coach.
I’m a professional NHL player.
Yet, according to my manager, Dylan, I need to clean up my image or keep facing the wrath of the NHL with my bad boy-angry image. Nonetheless, I’m not sure what coaching a bunch of kids will do.
Especially when the ones I’m staring at appear like they’ve never stepped foot onto the ice before and can’t hold a hockey stick right. I’ve already watched three of them hit the smooth and unforgiving surface, and one is currently crying like a banshee.
I don’t do kids.
I’m starting to think Dylan is trying to get back at me for not leaving the New Brunswick Wolverines over increased pay and sunnier weather. I’ve been getting trade deals up the ass, but thankfully, my team won’t let me go, and I’m not looking to move to Sacramento or Vegas just so Dylan can lay out on his ass in the sun all day. We are staying in Jersey.
“It’s okay, Johnny! Come get your fruit snacks, buddy.”
My focus has been on the disaster taking place on the ice since I didn’t notice the coach or anyone else who might be watching these kids.
A woman slowly slides along the ice in white sneakers, careful not to slip and fall like the little bodies around her have been doing. Long, curly, red hair drapes around and over her shoulders as she bends over to help the fallen kids up.
I’d lie if I didn’t say I just checked out her ass.
And it’s there.
From the side of the rink, I can’t get a good look at her face, but great- a coach who doesn’t skate and gets involved in the actual movement of the sport. No wonder these kids don’t know how to move on the ice. When the staff is putting in zero effort, how do you expect anyone to get any better? Especially kids who already don't know shit about the game. They’re out there on their own like sitting ducks and, I’m assuming, attempting to play hockey in some capacity.
Inhaling, I attempt to calm my already-rising temper and get this shitshow over with. I don’t perform miracles, so I’m not sure what I’m going to be able to do to help, yet I’m here to do a job and hopefully get a few days knocked off my suspension.
It’s a long shot.
Nonetheless, it was either sitting at home and stewing over my team playing without me or this shit, five hours from New Jersey.
I’m starting to think that the first option was the better one.
I’m already moving and ready to get the introductions over with whoever is running the team. All the kids are sitting on the ice with something in their hands, munching away and living their best lives now that they aren’t falling on their asses from their feet.
“Okay, now, when you’re done with your fruit snacks,” the woman proclaims in the middle of the circle the kids made around her, “we’re gonna get the puck out and start learning how to pass.”
Wait. What were they doing this whole time?
“And then you’ll all get juice boxes!”
My eyes mindlessly close because what in God’s name did I get myself into?
This isn’t the Mighty Ducks. I’m not Gordan Bombay, who’s about to transform some kids into actual players. At least those kids played. These kids look as though they’re straight out of elementary school and haven’t been trained a day in their lives. What parents decided to get them involved in this program, where snack time is apparently the only time they’re not crying, is beyond me.
