Page 23 of Home Ice Advantage

“I think he has a point, tateleh. It’s a little different, don’t you think? The boys seem to like it. It’s not the same old things they usually hear.”

“It’s just a bunch of stupid nonsense,” Eric grumbled, as he got his coffee together. It was more small-area drills at practice today, and he was specifically working with the power play with an exercise designed to cut the amount of time they spent passing around looking for the best shot and starting to just takeashot. “He’s charming, so everyone just ignores the fact that he isn’t actually sayinganything.”

His mother made a noise of assent that was not a noise of agreement. He’d become very used to all of her nonverbal cues over the years, especially when they spoke on the phone, because like many Jewish mothers, she could express an entire book’s worth of information in onehmm. “Well, he listens to you?”

“I mean...yes, sort of.”

“He values your opinion? Petey’s opinion?”

“Yes...”

“Then listen, Éric, I know you feel you should have gotten the job, and honestly, I agree that you are qualified and have put in the time. But you didn’t. I think maybe you should give this Sullivan more of a chance before you start—and no, I know how you can get when you are upset about something. You are so stubborn, my darling.”

Eric thought about protesting, but that would prove her point. Instead, he ran his hand through his hair and frowned at his coffee thermos. “It’s just...he’s got all of these stupid high-minded ideals and we just do not have therosterfor it, ’Man. We’ve got a few kids that maybe that kind of approach will really help, but we’ve got a roster of fu—of veterans. They’re struggling. They’rereallystruggling.”

“Maybe you just need to give them some more time. It’s not like you’re making the playoffs this year.”

“Wow,ow, brutal.”

“It’s just the truth. But come, Éric, you were never one to shy from a challenge. It doesn’t sound like a bad situation. Look at that lawsuit in Long Island, that poor boy there. Things could be so much worse. It’s all in how you look at it.”

“I’mlookingat it like Sullivan is a pain in my ass.”

“Tateleh.”

“I know, ’Man. I know.”

They were playing at home at the Spectrum that night, and it was the kind of game that Eric hated to lose. It was a Saturday night game. Against the Colorado Black Bears, one of the top teams in the league. In front of a home crowd, the kind of loud, drunk Boston crowd that he had always despised during his childhood and then during his playing days, even though Calgary and Boston had no particular skin in the game against each other. It was just that old growing-up-in-Montreal feeling, the old rivalry impossible to shake even when he’d been working in Boston for years. But now they were his assholes, and he hated when the team put on a bad show in front of them.

Beforehand, he was aware that it would be a difficult game. Colorado had a dangerous array of assets on both defense and forward, so if you cheated to cover one you were leaving the other to activate. The forecheck could morph immediately from a pretty typical 1-2-1 to an aggressive 2-1-2, and he wasn’t entirely sure that some of the defensemen, particularly the rookies, would adjust well to cover it. The defensemen were Petey’s problem, of course, but Petey had other shit to worry about, like the fact that the east-west rush Colorado loved so dearly was going to wreak hell on his bottom-six.

Eric had gone over the game plan with Sullivan and Petey beforehand, but standing behind the bench during the national anthem, he didn’t feel particularly confident. He could already tell he was fidgeting. Catching himself pushing his glasses farther up his nose, running a hand through his hair. All of the stupid tells that meant that even while he was focusing his brain on the task at hand, the subconscious parts of it were fuckingworrying.

Petey glanced sideways at him.

“It’s a losing season,” Eric said, “so tell me why I give a shit?”

“Because you’re a competitive bastard and you hate to lose.”

“A rhetorical question, Petey.”

“Don’t ask a question you don’t want an answer to,” Petey said serenely.

Eric scowled at him, then looked sideways. Sullivan was already standing on the bench, watching the third line standing at attention under the shifting lights that accompanied the anthem. He practically bounced in place, all nervous energy, and Eric immediately felt annoyed that they were both doing these things. He thought about grabbing Sullivan by his broad shoulders and gripping hard,forcinghim to stay still. If he could force Sullivan into stillness, he could will himself into line.

He forced himself to calm. Exhaled. Took stock of everyone on the bench: the third line was taking the first shift, so at his left, Cook and Williams and Sinclair sat ready to jump onto the ice when the call to change lines came.

The game started out disastrous. Davey let in two quick goals fairly early in the first, and the team was getting caved in on several levels, both possession and shot-share. The team’s internal metrics on the iPad were pretty grim. “I think we should have the forwards spread out a little more to counter the rush,” he snapped, after Colorado jumped on yet another turnover and took it back into the Beacons’ zone.

“That’s just asking for trouble,” Sullivan said, shaking his head. “The way Colorado attacks, we’ve got to focus on the main—”

“What are youtalkingabout, Sullivan?”

“Listen to me,” Sullivan said curtly. He was almost at eye level, standing on the bench. His light brown eyes were alight with anger, for once, not focused on the play on the ice. Below them, the players were studiously trying to ignore the argument, shuffling down the bench as they had to come on and off the bench. “You don’t need to agree with me, but on the ice, you need to fucking respect me, and if I say we are deploying the forwards in a particular way, then we are deploying the forwards that way. Do youunderstand?”

The righteous fury flared in his stomach. Respect? Seriously? When had heeverbeen disrespectful, especially to someone who talked a big game about collaboration but didn’t seem to be willing to listen when he felt he was right.

There were a number of things he could think of that he wanted to say in response. There were a number of things he would have liked to do in response, namely, pushing Sullivan off of the bench and seeing what would happen if he fell on his ass on the floor and its thick coating of spit and blood and mucous and melted snow.

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