Page 3 of My Pucking Perfect Goalie

“Fine,” I say after a very long moment of silence over the line. I don’t miss the exhalation of relief on the other side from Aldine. “But there had better be a Hilton in that fucking town, Aldine. If I show up and I’m in a log cabin, I’m turning right back around and getting on the first plane home. This willnotbe the Lifetime movie of the hardcore city girl turned into sweet Vermont maple syrup.”

“You’re thinking of Hallmark,” he says, a laugh in his voice.

I don’t watch TV, so I’d have no way of knowing for sure. What I do know is that if I show up there and a single person makes ajoke about me being a “city slicker,” I’m getting on the next flight straight back to L.A..

“I’m thinking ‘no way in hell,’” I retort. “I just want to make sure we’re clear on that. If I leave California for you, it had better be worth my time. I’ll have Penelope send over a proposal with my rate. And I’m telling you, Aldine, that figure is going to take your breath away.”

“A man can only hope,” he jokes, and then, “I have to go—I have to talk to someone about hastily building a luxury hotel.”

Sammy

“Good mornin’, Sammy!” Isaac calls the moment I skate out onto the ice.

“Hey man,” I say, clearing my throat and holding my stick loosely in my hands. I’ve been playing hockey for more than twenty years at this point—an insanely long time to do anything—and yet, I always get a shiver of nervous anticipation down my back when I get on the ice. “What do you have for me today?”

It’s barely five in the morning, and, as per usual, I’m the first one in the rink. Even Coach Aldine isn’t here yet, but that has a lot to do with the fact that Ellie just had their third baby, and according to Devon, Grey is on diaper duty.

I swallow, tapping my stick on the ice a few times to keep the worry at bay when I think of Devon. News about his retirement was leaked before he could come out and tell the team himself, and he was pissed about that. Brett, our team captain, didn’t seem too worried. After the season he had last year, he thinks our path to the Stanley Cup is going to be cake.

But I know better than that. The other teams in the league—especially Toronto—are getting seriously tired of our winning streak. Some forums online even speculate about wild conspiracy theories—that we’re cheating, juicing everyone on the team. That Coach Aldine sold his soul to the devil. That the Stratton Syrup Stadium is built on some sort of ultra-powerful natural site.

“We’ll start with tracking,” Isaac says, pulling me from my thoughts and bringing me back to the ice. “Go into glove saves, then slide drills. Anything you want to work on?”

“Probably breakaways,” I say, a nervous lump forming in my throat at the thought of it. As a professional athlete, I shouldn’t be anxious about being out here doing my job, but there’s something about breakaways that makes me on-edge.

Maybe it’s the knowledge that everyone’s eyes are on me, one or two opponents rocketing down in my direction. That unlike the typical chaos by the net, in which it feels obvious that sometimes you might not block a shot, missing a breakaway feels like searing embarrassment. Like a running back fumbling with nobody around. Like a point guard stealing the ball and taking it down the court, only to miss a wide-open lay-up.

Of course, goalies lose during breakaways all the time. But, according to Issac and Coach Aldine, I have a particularly low success rate compared to other goalies in the league. I’ve watched hours and hours of film, analyzing how the other guys predict the path of the puck, how they get in its way so well, and I still don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.

“Of course,” Isaac laughs, rolling his eyes and skating away from the net as I get closer. “It’s always breakaways with you, man.”

“It’s my biggest weakness. Isn’t that what I should work on most?”

“Something like that.” Isaac’s a big guy, and played goalie in college, but didn’t want to take the beating that comes with NHL hockey. So he became a goalie coach. Devon and he played together in college, and when the Viper’s goalie coach position opened up, Isaac fit right in. “I’m just worried that you’re going too hard on yourself with this, man. It’s good to work on things, obviously, but also, it’s five in the morning.”

“We always train at this time,” I say, pressing my lips together. Isaac doesn’t lookmad, exactly, but it occurs to me for the first time that maybe he doesn’t enjoy meeting this early during the off-season.

We won the Stanley Cup—our third championship in a row—less than a month ago. And I’ve already been dragging Isaac out to practice before the sun comes up.

“Right,” Isaac says, “you know I’m here for you, man, and I love working with you…but you have to learn how to relax. Rest your body.”

“I know,” I sigh, wincing when I think about how late I stayed up the night before, watching and re-watching one of the points I allowed during the most recent championship game. “I am.”

“Alright.” Isaac’s shoulder-length blonde hair jostling as he nods his hair. “Let’s get right into tracking, then.”

I start to relax when we get into the drills. Lining up, I train my eyes on Isaac as he skates in a figure-eight pattern, the puck balancing on his stick. My eyes never leave that puck, a sort of intense tunnel vision washing over me, my entire body floating away.

Isaac increases his speed, and I quicken my reactions, then, after a few minutes, he turns and fires the puck at me. I block it.

“Good,” he says, grabbing a bucket of pucks from the sidelines. “Glove saves.”

Standing about fifteen feet from me and the net, Isaac drops the pucks and starts to fire them at me. I move, breathing hard as I snatch them out of the air, each time creating a hollowthwackof the puck meeting leather, which echoes throughout the rink.

We continue on like this, cycling through drills, working on my reflexes and strategy. I’ve just caught another puck when a door slams on the other side of the rink and Isaac and I turn to watchHarper James strut in, her soft blonde hair curled over her shoulders, that trademark buoyant energy all around her.

Harper is the kind of girl who’s always giggling, always happy. Light on her feet. Today, she’s wearing a light pink blouse with darker pink trousers. Little pink pompoms hang from her ears. When she sees Isaac and I out on the ice, she grins and comes to the rail, her voice carrying over to us.

“Goodmorning!” she calls, waving like she’s on a boat and we’re watching her leave from the dock. As if we’re both not already captivated by her.

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