Page 2 of Stick Side
He capped off his speech with a confident smile and a single nod before setting off in the direction of Coach Dodds’ office.
Onward and upward. Ben liked the sound of that—especially when Dodds’ diatribe had left him wondering whether his trade to Chicago was going to be a disaster.
Benshiveredashestepped under the shower’s cold spray. He reached for the fresh bar of soap he’d nabbed from the team’s generously stocked supply cupboard and made fast work of lathering himself up and rinsing off the suds.
The enticing aroma of cedar and sandalwood perfumed the air as he took the time to massage a glob of shampoo into his short dark hair. He savored the adrenaline rush of the chilly stream striking his warm skin before dunking his head beneath the showerhead and turning off the faucet.
He lifted his hands to brush away the water running down his face before drying himself off and securing the warm terrycloth around his hips. The audibleflip-flopof his shower shoes accompanied him down the hall.
Ben felt enlivened as he crossed the changing room toward his locker. Despite tonight’s loss and Coach Dodds’ demoralizing post-game analysis, life was good. He’d just experienced the fulfilment of his childhood dreams, and he wasn’t about to let Jimmy Dodds take that away from him.
Ben’s heart had felt fit to burst when the team captain, Kevin Phillips, had scored their lone goal of the game. As Technotronic’s 1980s chart-topper hit “Pump Up the Jam” blared over the speakers, he’d been transported back in time tothe days when he and his family used to make the two-hour drive from his hometown of Mount Carroll up to Chicago to cheer for their team.
He didn’t know when the tradition had started, but for as long as he could remember, the first goal of every game was commemorated with that song. As the music filled the arena, whichever player had scored the goal celebrated by dancing around the ice. The crowd ate it up. The bolder players might skate backward and show off some serious hip-and-booty action, but even the most subdued players were known to offer up at least a little arm dance.
The Challengers were a fun team. It was just one of many things that drew him to Chicago.
Ben had barely been old enough to skate when his dad had brought him to his first hockey game. He could still close his eyes and remember the cold smell of the air, the competing scents of hot dogs and popcorn butter. The crowd had been wild, buzzing with a camaraderie he’d yet to experience in his young life. In the space of an evening, the Challengers had stolen a piece of his heart and he’d never gotten it back.
When he’d taken the ice tonight and played his first game as a Challenger, it had felt like coming home. It was only in his wildest imaginings that he’d dared to hope his boyhood ambition of playing for his home team might one day become a reality. He’d considered pinching himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, but he’d resisted the impulse. If it was a dream, it was one he hadn’t wanted to wake up from.
Ben knew how lucky he was. He was thirty-two years old and at the top of his game. Where most players were forced out of the league in their early thirties due to injuries, declining skills, or—in the worst cases—both, he was in the best shape of his life.
Between the Washington Capitals and the Philadelphia Flyers, he’d already had the good fortune of enjoying twelve verysuccessful years in the NHL. If his luck held, he’d be able to add a few more to his tally—but this time, as a Challenger.
Unfortunately, no one’s luck was perfect. What he didn’t share with anyone was how difficult it was getting to keep up with the physical demands of his job. Every year, he had to add more cardio, stretching, and strength training to maintain his competitive edge. It was almost scary how much more time and effort he had to put in to achieve even the slightest gains. His enterprise had paid off thus far, but he knew it was only a matter of time before experience and sheer dint of will stopped being enough. As much as he hated to admit it, nothing would prevent him from aging out of this game he’d dedicated his life to. It was simple biology.
If he continued to play smart and avoid injury, Ben felt confident he had a few more good years of play left in him, but probably not much more than that. Now was the time to strive for whatever career goals he had left.
It had felt like all his hard work had paid off when the Challengers organization had reached out to him last spring. Their offer had paled in comparison to what he’d been earning with the Flyers, but playing for his home team, in his home state, had appealed to him.
His agent had called him a sentimental moron for giving up his status as a free agent and even entertaining such a significant salary reduction, but Ben didn’t care. So what if he’d agreed to a substantial pay cut? Playing for Chicago was worth more to him than money.
The lone shortfall of his contract was that the team had only agreed to a one-year no-trade stipulation. That meant Ben was only guaranteed one run at the Cup. If he didn’t perform the way the team hoped, corporate would be able to trade him at the end of the season. He might get another shot at hoisting Stanley, but it wouldn’t be for Chicago.
Ben took a steadying breath and shook away his doleful thoughts. He would do his best to make himself indispensable to his new team. If they didn’t win the Cup this year, maybe they would at least keep him on the roster and give him an additional year or two to try for it.
Knowing how good this year’s team was buoyed Ben’s confidence in the gamble he’d made by leaving Philly to play for Chicago. McGuire was right; victory wouldn’t come without great effort, but the teamdidhave what it took to bring the Cup home. He just had to buckle down and be the playmaker the Challengers needed.
Focus re-established, Ben reached into his locker to pull out his city clothes. He took his shirt and pants off their hangers and set them on the bench. He shook his head when a trickle of water started to course down his face.
“Holy hell!” Richie, as John Richards was best known, shouted when Ben accidentally sprinkled him with water. “What did you do, shower in the polar ice caps? That water isfreezing!”
Richie grabbed his own towel and proceeded to rub down the parts of himself not covered by clothing, as if he’d just emerged from glacial waters.
“It’s notthatcold,” Ben chided. “And you’re notthatwet.”
“Whatever, man,” Richie returned, shivering dramatically. “I don’t need to ask whether you still subject yourself to that torture, but I’ll say it again: I don’t care how much you enjoyed our team trip to Finland. You’renotFinnish. If you like the saunas and hot treatments, all the power to you, but for the love of God, give up the snow rolling and sub-zero dunking. The Finns likely started the cold treatments because some long-dead fanatical dimwit thought he could better survive the fire licks of hell if he froze his balls off in the here and now.”
Ben rolled his eyes at Richie’s theory. Far be it from Richie to entertain the possibility that some people might find thedramatic change in temperature invigorating, not to mention therapeutic. Ben knew he did. He might not spend a lot of time in a heat-filled wooden box these days, but racing around the ice in full padding created its own kind of sauna.
Richie had played for the Flyers during Ben’s first few years with the team. Richie knew about Ben’s penchant for cold post-game showers because he’d been with him and some of their other teammates on the off-season trip where the practice had started.
When the team had returned to Philadelphia, Ben had taken the practice, or as much of it as he could, home with him. Since clean snow wasn’t always easy to come by in Philadelphia, Ben had settled for having a sauna installed in his apartment and taking cold showers afterward.
Changing his post-game showers from warm to cold had been a natural progression. Cold showers might not be the most exciting post-game ritual, but they felt good, so Ben had stuck with them.
“If I recall correctly,” Ben shot back, “you did a little bit of your own snow rolling in Finland.”
