Page 14 of Playmaker

Closing my eyes, I exhaled. That was the balance I was still learning to strike—pushing hard because I was a professional athlete while not pushing so hard that I caused more damage. Especially damage that couldn’t be repaired.

“Your knee is only going to tolerate so much surgery,” the orthopedic surgeon in Omaha had warned. “I can keep fixing it until we’re blue in the face, but there will come a point where it won’t heal well enough.”

“Well enough to play hockey?”

He’d scowled. “There will come a point where you will always have some pain and some mobility issues. The point at which you can no longer play hockey will come much,muchsooner.”

I wasn’t at that point now. I couldn’t be.

At least training camp was over. It was always a grueling week, and I was never sad to see it end. Since then, we’d been ramping up through the preseason. Going forward, my life would be dominated by hours of intense practice, off-ice workouts, and all after a summer spent training, but none of that was as demanding as training camp. So that was all it was; my body was tired from that hellish week. I was still getting back into the groove after rehab, and ever since my injury, my knee had always taken a little longer to get with the program.

I’ll be fine.I nudged one of the icepacks against an especially achy spot right along my meniscus.Just need to do some more stretching and baby it a little more. I’ll be fine.

As the ice did its thing along with the anti-inflammatories I’d taken earlier, I tried to focus on anything but the annoyinglypersistent aches and pains. The best distraction? My phone, of course.

I checked my various socials and responded to some emails and DMs. A lot of my hockey friends were in preseason right now too, same as me, so there weren’t as many messages or posts from them. As energized as we all were about the new season—especially those of us on newly-minted expansion teams—everyone was tired, too. Or spending time with their families, since there would be a lot of long hours and traveling over the next several months.

After I’d gone through socials and messages, I flipped over to some sports news sites. I was curious if anything had come of the allegations against one of the head coaches in the men’s league; he’d been accused of bribing and even blackmailing officials last season. Two officials had already been barred from the League, banned from any games or events, and fined within an inch of their lives, so they’d sung like canaries about who they’d been taking bribes from. A GM and two owners had already confessed. The head coach was the last holdout, insisting he was innocent and would never do such a thing.

According to the first article that popped up, though, he’d not only been busted, he’d been stupid enough to commit his bribery via emails and texts. Yeah. He wasdone. What a dumbass.

I was about to close the app when another headline caught my eye.

In an instant, my stomach curdled with irritation. I should’ve continued closing the app, but I couldn’t stop myself, and I tapped the link.

Daughter of Hockey Legend Balks at Questions About Nepotism

Bearcats’ center reluctant to acknowledge role of legendary father in pro hockey comeback

PITTSBURGH – The daughter of Buffalo superstar Doran McAvoy appeared to shy away from questions regarding her father’s influence on her own hockey career.

With the sport all but baked into her DNA, questions about the McAvoy legacy are certainly inevitable. Her elder brother, St. Louis winger Mark McAvoy, is regularly effusive about his father’s support, expressing gratitude for access to the best coaches, trainers, players, and equipment from the time he was small.

Sabrina McAvoy, captain and star center of the WHPL expansion team in Pittsburgh, is far less willing to gush about the influence of Doran McAvoy.

I stopped reading there. I wasn’t at all surprised she didn’t want to talk about it. Who wanted to admit out loud that they’d had an escalator while the rest of us had to crawl up the stairs? Yeah, Sabrina was good, but she wouldn’t behalfthe player she was without all the advantages her father and her name had bestowed upon her. She knew it, her teammates knew it, thefansknew it, but God forbid she admit it out loud.

Maybe she just didn’t understand how much other people had to struggle. I couldn’t imagine being that oblivious, though. Even the most privileged players had to at least notice some of their teammates wearing gear held together by duct tape and prayers. Or all the fundraisers for those of us whose families couldn’t afford gear or fees. Or how many of us squeezed in part-time jobs because no matter how much our parents tried, there was only so much money to dog-ear for hockey. The rich and middle class kids may not have fully grasped how hard that was. They may not have understood just how much some of us had struggled to hold on to hockey, or realized that some incrediblytalented players had been forced to quit hockey for reasons that had nothing to do with injuries or talent.

But they had to at least havenoticedthat some of us weren’t playing on Easy mode. Right?

Or maybe they just thought riding Daddy’s money and influence to the top was their birthright, and that they’d earned their spot by being lucky enough to be born into that kind of family. While the rest of us were so grateful for our parents’ sacrifices we could cry, maybe the genetic elite were satisfied that theydeservedto be where they were. Who knew?

Well, whatever the case… Must be nice.

I shook myself and refocused on my phone, and that was when I realized there was a video embedded in the article, and from the thumbnail, I recognized Sabrina. She was still in her gear, dark hair swept up into a messy ponytail, and I refused to dwell on how unreasonably attractive she was like that.

I was curious about the interplay with the reporter, though, so I tapped Play.

“Sabrina,” the reporter said, “walk us through how your family helped you get to where you are now.”

Ooh, yes,I thought.Do tell.

It was hard to miss the moment Sabrina went on the defensive. The faint twitch of her lips, the subtle tightness in her jaw, the slight narrowing of her eyes—they weren’t super obvious, but they were there, as was the note of irritation in her voice.

I didn’t keep watching, though. I just rolled my eyes, shut off the video, dropped my phone on the end table, and sighed as I adjusted the icepacks on my knee.

Cry me a fucking river, Princess. How dare anyone call you out for riding Daddy’s name to the top.

---