Page 28 of My Pucking Perfect Goalie

“Hey, man!” Bennett says, extending a glove to me when I make it over to them. “You doing alright? You split pretty fast, there.”

Bennett is a huge guy, with a massive gray beard and a thicket of dark gray hair on his head. When I bump my glove against his, I swear it reverberates through the past and to myself as a kid…where I promptly shit myself.

But Adult Sammy is composed. Put together. Taking advantage of this amazing opportunity.

“Yeah, you know how it is,” I laugh, rolling my eyes, a picture of the casual man who wasn’t just having a melt down five minutes ago. “Had to go. But I’m here now—are you—?”

“Matthew is here to coach you!” Finn says jovially from her place off the ice. “You always said you wanted to emulate his style, so I thought we could bring him on and see if he can guide you in the right direction.”

From the tone in her voice, and the sparkle in her eye, I can tell that’s not actually what she’s thinking, but I don’t have time to wheedle it out of her. Matthew Bennett is standing here, and there’s no time to waste.

“And Isaac is here to help you drill,” Isaac says, eyebrows raised.

I snap my gaze from Finn to him, then back to Bennett, clearing my throat to shake away those pervasive thoughts of Finn Asher.

“Alright,” I say, pulling on my helmet and hitting my pads together. “Let’s get to work.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Bennett says, and for the next hour, we drill. And drill. And drill.

He coaches me on everything—how I watch the puck, how I stand, the slightest changes in posture and mindset. And through it all, it feels like he thinks I’ll make good use of the knowledge. Like I’ll take his advice and increase its value.

And then we start on breakaways. Isaac comes at me again and again, and each time I feel that familiar itch at the bottom of my throat. The anxiety that refuses to leave.

“Hey, let’s take five,” Bennett says, and when Isaac and I start to skate away, he reaches out and catches my arm, saying quietly, “Hang back a sec.”

When he takes a knee, I take one too, grateful for the chance to rest a moment.

“You know what my save percentage was on breakaways my first three seasons?”

“Something incredible, probably.”

He laughs. “Thirty-eight percent.”

I stare at him. I thought I knew everything about Bennett that there was to know. Surely, I wouldn’t have missed a piss-poor stat so early in his career.

When I say nothing, he laughs and goes on. “Yep. Couldn't stop them to save my life. Used to get so worked up about them that I'd psych myself out before the player even crossed the blue line.”

“But...you're Matthew Bennett.”

“Wasn't always.” He taps his stick against the ice thoughtfully. “Look, everyone remembers the records, the shutouts, the wins. Nobody remembers the struggles. But they were there. Had to be—that's how you get better.”

I think about all the hours I've spent watching footage of him, studying his technique. Watching him grinning, hoisting the trophy above his head, confetti falling around him and his teammates. I’ve had that—won the Stanley Cup with my team. But I want more. I want people to remember me the way they remember him.

“So what changed?” I ask.

“One day, I just decided not to care. Stopped thinking about it so much.”

“What?” The word snaps out of me before I can stop it. “You…decided not to care?”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “I stopped thinking so much. On breakaways, you've got maybe two seconds to make a decision. That's not enough time to analyze everything. You've got to trust your instincts.”

I chew on my lip and stare at the ice, thinking about what it felt like to face my fear on the top of that mountain. About what it felt like to have Finn against my side, my arm around her shoulders.

“You know what I see when I watch you play?” Bennett asks, voice low.

I shake my head.

“I see a goalie who knows exactly what to do, but second-guesses himself at the last moment. You've got the skill—your positioning is solid, your reflexes are there. But you're in your head too much.”

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