Page 9 of Press Your Luck

While Big Ed seemed to be doing his own thing on the ice, Naomi had whipped the rest of her team into shape and they were out-skating us.

“Why bother with all that practice if they’re not going to use it?” Bo lamented.

I cast him a glance. “Welcome to coaching.”

He looked at me. “I might have been a shit off the ice, but I always did my job on it.”

I nodded because it was true. While I never knew what trouble Bo would get into when we weren’t on the ice, I could always count on him to give one hundred and ten percent during practice or a game. “It’s only the first game. Maybe the sting of defeat will motivate them.” I imagined enough of my team were chauvinists that their loss would hurt more at the hands of a team coached by a woman.

I didn’t think that, though. I knew Naomi knew her stuff. I wasn’t lying when I talked about her knowledge and experience at the press conference. With that said, I’d been at this a whole lot longer. I’d played longer and I’d been coaching longer. I was also a man, which meant I didn’t have the added challenge of convincing my players to do what I said.

But Naomi was proving what every coach ultimately had to learn. It didn’t matter how much the coach knew. The coach wasn’t on the ice. A good portion of my players could move up to the NHL, but only if they started playing to their potential, which they definitely weren’t doing right now.

"If we don't pull it together, we're going to lose this game," Bo said.

“Yep.”

I was thankful when the buzzer sounded, ending the first period. Maybe we could regroup and the team would get their shit together. I decided to let Bo talk with the team to get them refocused and energized. He was closer to their age and months away from having been where they wanted to be, the NHL. They looked up to him, and I wanted to use that to our advantage.

Twenty minutes later, we were back in the rink, and much to my dismay, it looked like the second period would be a repeat of the first.

“What do you think that is about?” Bo asked, nodding across the ice toward Naomi’s team box.

I glanced across the ice to see Naomi and Big Ed in a heated discussion. He towered over her, and I didn't like the threatening stance he’d taken with her. My hands fisted by my sides as I imagined charging across the ice to teach him how to respect a woman.

The goal buzzer went off, pulling my attention away.

“Yeah!” Bo shouted. The stands behind us erupted with cheers.

"Finally got one," Bo said.

I’d been at this long enough to know that we still had work ahead. As it was, one goal still put us two behind.

I looked over at Naomi’s side again and realized that with Naomi distracted by big Ed, she hadn’t been paying attention to the game, which turned out to be to our advantage.

The goal interrupted her argument, but then immediately, they were back at it. I imagined Big Ed was blaming her for our score. Whatever was going on, it was heated and didn't seem to be anywhere near being resolved when Big Ed gave a menacing head jerk toward her and then sat his ass down on the bench.

The goal buzzer went off again.

“Yeah, that’s the way,” Bo shouted.

By the time the second period ended, we’d taken the lead. During the break before the third period, I led the talk with the team.

“Listen, I know we’re winning now, but you can’t let up. If Coach Withers puts Sampson back in the game, they could make a comeback. We need to stay sharp.”

When we returned to the ice for the third and final period, Big Ed was nowhere to be seen.

"Did she bench him the entire rest of the game?" I said out loud.

"Who?” Bo asked as he looked across the ice toward Naomi's team.

"Ed Samson."

"No shit." Bo scanned the ice and then the team box. "I don't see him. She wouldn’t be dumb enough to bench him, though, would she?"

I cast a glance at him. "Are you calling her dumb?" Despite the fact that pulling Big Ed from the ice would be an idiotic thing to do, I didn't like Bo calling Naomi dumb.

Bo looked at me with a quizzical expression. "Big Ed isn’t fast, but he's imposing and he's good. The only reason we’re ahead at this point is because he barely played the second period."

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