Page 4 of The Nanny Goal

Learning to pick my battles has been another frustrating curve as a single parent—especially when the people who parentedmeare actively watching and judging.

And getting traded at the same time as Inessa discovered her attitude was a challenge.

After spending almost ten years in the Calgary organization, from getting drafted to slowly developing in their farm teams, I honestly thought I might spend my entire career there.

The trade calls blindsided me.

“We appreciate everything you have done here in Calgary…”

“Welcome to Hamilton, son. We understand you have a young child and your parents live with you? We have people in the organization who can help them get settled. We need you to fly out today…”

The next three weeks were the longest stretch of Inessa’s life without me. She was used to seeing me on a video call on Baba’s phone, but road trips are rarely longer than a week, and the team would keep me at home if they knew I wasn’t going to play.

From the second I landed in Hamilton, I was playing, and playing a lot. Plus, I needed to find a vacant house we could buy immediately, and I had a laundry list of requirements. Walking distance to a park, a separate suite for my parents, and a space that could be customized for a gym.

I had help from the team, but by the time we found it, the season was well under way. I only had one free day to pick them up from the airport and bring them to our new home before I had to get on the team plane again for a few days.

When I finally returned, Inessa clung to me and refused to sleep in her own bed for the next three nights. My parents abandoned their plan to live in the separate suite, and moved into the spare room across from the nursery instead.

It was a long, dark winter of trying to find a new normal like the one we’d had in Calgary. My parents, too, are struggling.

Inessa stops and squats down, looking at a patch of frozen ice on the sidewalk. In ten minutes, we’ve gone about two hundred metres. I shove my hands deeper into my pockets and my thoughts about my family into the back of my mind.

We have a game at home tonight, and I’m the starting goalie.

After a rollercoaster of a season, the Hamilton Highlanders are on the cusp of making the playoffs again for the second straight year, only their second year in the league.

Last year, though, they bombed out in the first round.

Everyone in the locker room is painfully aware of the internal pressure to be better this time. To make the playoffs handily, and excel once we get there.

And our biggest acquisition at the trade deadline—veteran defenceman Luca Carter—was injured in his second game with the Highlanders. He’s now on long-term injured reserve, and we’ll be lucky if we get him back for the second round of the playoffs, if we make it that far.

“Papa, come on,” Inessa urges, as ifI’mthe slow one.

Taking off at a terrifyingly unstable run, ignoring my stern reminders to be careful, she laughs and leads me the last fifty metres to the park, then immediately climbs to the top of the slide and waves down.

Fearless little girl.

I sigh in secretly proud defeat. “Show me how you slide down. But be?—”

She flings herself into the plastic mouth of the slide and catapults down it, somehow landing on her feet.

Bouncy is in her genes, I suppose. “Careful,” I finish saying, laughing with her.

She climbs up and goes down again, and then again, until her cheeks are pink and she’s out of breath. While she recovers with the speed of a professional athlete, I do some pull ups on the climber.

“Me do it, too, Papa.”

I pick her up and she holds on to the bar, mimicking me and giggling.

When I suggest it’s time to go home, she protests and runs back to the slide.

I hear my mom’s voice in my head.You can’t ask her, Alexei. You must tell her. Or better yet, let her think it is her idea.

I scoop up a handful of wood chips from the edge of the playground and start juggling them, a habit I picked up from a coach in the minors. It’s good for my hand-to-eye coordination, and also for tricking my daughter into coming closer.

“Me juggle, Papa.”

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