Page 2 of The Import Slot
Ronnie:Keep up the excellent work on the socials.
Jenna
Idon’tknowwhyI check the lunch menu only to order the same thing as usual. I press a few buttons on the app and wait for Danny to do the same before I get down to business.
“You must know who it is,” I say, borderline desperate for anything he can give me. I’m trying to find out who the new signing is for the hockey team Danny is on.
“I don’t know! Honest! I don’t,” he says.
“Why not?” I ask.
“There’s a strict policy—it’s ‘need to know’, and Management won’t tell me because I don’t need to know,” Danny says, taking a sip of coffee.
“No, but I need to know!” I firmly believe if he wanted to know, he would find out. “But they are getting someone to replace Fuzzy?”
“Well, yeah, it’d be fucking dumb not to use all our import slots,” Danny says. He’s right. The rest of the teams utilise all their import slots.
“Johnny knows, I bet,” I say. I don’t know what’s got into me, but I find it frustrating to be in the dark.
“Course he fucking does,” Danny scoffs. “Johnny knows everything.”
“I just hope he’s better than Fuzzy because last year was embarrassing,” I say. We can’t blame Fuzzy for an overall decline in effort toward the end of the season. Still, I know he was a contributing factor.
“Look, all I know is he may live with Johnny or me; not sure yet, but you’ll find out more about him soon enough. Why do you care so much anyway?” he asks, throwing me a suspicious glance.
“Because I pay good money for my season ticket! I want to see you guys do well,” I say.
Danny’s a winger and he’s worked hard to get where he is, and his team deserves to win some silverware. They’ve won hardly any in the ten-plus years I’ve followed them.
“Middle of the table isn’t too bad,” Danny says sheepishly. “Anyway, here’s something I do know. I hear the Elite League is on about increasing the import slots by one the season after next.”
“Really? That’ll be crap for guys like you,” I say.
“Exactly. What club will choose a homegrown over an import unless they’re shit hot, but no one can get shit hot bench warming,” Danny says.
He’s not wrong. Our food arrives, and Danny wastes no time tucking in while discussing his teammates.
“There’s already me, Bettsy, Hutch, Jonesy and Simon Pearce,” Danny says, using his fingers to list the names of the homegrown guys on the team. “When they increase the number by one, that’s one of us Brits potentially replaced.” He frowns, “Simon gets fuck-all ice time as it is, and he’s trying to start his own business. God knows what he’s going to be doing, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this were his last season, anyway.”
The rest of the roster comprises of; Canadians, Americans, Finns and a few other nationalities, taking up the fifteen import slots.
Danny swallows a gulp of his coffee, before speaking. “I need to work on my cardio this season; put more effort in.”
“Come and have some runs with me if you don’t mind helping me with my pacing. An incentive to up your efforts.” We’d spoken about it before, but it didn’t happen.
“Yeah, that sounds all right. Let’s do that.”
I’m trying to train for a 10km race, so hopefully, this will make a difference. “Six-thirty on Friday, yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah, we’ll do our best to keep a good pace for a bit, maybe three runs, then build up from that. How long is your 5km taking?”
I think for a moment. “Around thirty-four minutes.” Considering I couldn’t run for a minute when I started, I’m pleased with my time.
He nods.
“Cool. How is work, anyway?” Danny asks, shifting in his seat. I know he doesn’t care, but it’s sweet of him to pretend.
“There are whisperings of changes. Maybe redundancies. Not sure yet,” I shrug, not wanting to think about it too much.
