Chapter 14 Novák
Six stalls were empty this morning.
Nobody said anything. That's how cuts work.
You show up and the nameplate is gone and the stall is clean and the guy who was icing his knees next to you yesterday is on a flight to somewhere else.
The coaches don't announce it. The players don't discuss it.
You just count the gaps and do the math and lace up your skates and try not to think about whether your nameplate is next.
Three of the six I didn't know well. Camp invites, older AHL guys who came for the tryout and didn't survive the first week.
Two of them I'd spoken to a few times. Talented players.
Not good enough, or not the right fit, or just on the wrong side of a numbers game that doesn't care about effort.
The sixth was a defenseman from the ECHL who'd been paired with Hájek for a drill on day three.
Hájek asked me at lunch where he went. I told him.
Hájek nodded and ate his chicken and didn't ask anything else, but we both feel it.
We are all disposable until proven otherwise.
The four of us are still here, though. I don't say this out loud because saying it feels like tempting fate. But I check every morning. Four nameplates. Four stalls. We're still here.
The team that remains is starting to look like an actual team.
Clusters formed in week one have solidified into a foundation with structure.
In the far corner, the French speakers have a permanent space.
Jensen and Murray and Fraser have the ease of men who've survived enough camps to know the rhythm.
The goalies exist in their own universe, operating on a frequency the rest of us can't access.
And then there's the cluster I've been watching since dinner the other night.
Marchetti is reading a book in his stall. Another paperback, another hockey player on the cover. Thompson is next to him, reading over his shoulder. Kowalski is across from them, on his phone scrolling.
I sit down near Kowalski and start unlacing my shoes. "Anything interesting?"
He glances up. Poker face intact. "Ongoing research."
"How's the data?"
"Interesting. The hockey remains terrible. But the narrative structure is surprisingly sophisticated." He says this without a trace of irony, which is how I know he means it.
"And the romance?"
A pause. The poker face holds, but just barely. "Also sophisticated."
I don't push. Kowalski knows I know, and I know he knows I know, and this mutual awareness is more entertaining than any direct conversation about it would be. Whatever the three of them are doing with those books, it's becoming a thing I don’t think anyone else has noticed.
I leave him to his research and head to the ice.
Morning skate is sharp. The cuts have done what cuts always do.
Everyone remaining is faster, more focused, and more aware that the ice they're skating on is not guaranteed.
Drills run clean. Compete level is up. The coaches look satisfied in the restrained way coaches look satisfied, which is to say they look slightly less displeased than usual.
Between drills, I watch the captains.
Ikonen exits every interaction early, except with Asher.
They have a rhythm. Asher skates over between reps, says something, Ikonen responds.
Two exchanges, maybe three. Asher grins or laughs.
Ikonen's face does its version of a reaction, which is minimal but present.
Then they separate and run the next drill.
Except today, Ikonen initiates. Not a conversation, nothing that obvious. But between rotations, Ikonen glides to the boards where Asher is drinking water and stands there. Doesn't say anything. Asher looks over, and whatever he sees makes him smile, and he starts talking. Ikonen stays.
After practice, I shower and change and find the rookie bench. Davis is there, quiet, watching the hallway. Mueller is icing his knee. Hájek is on his phone, texting in Czech.
"Still here," Davis says when I sit down. He doesn't specify what he means. He doesn't have to.
"Still here," I say.
Tomorrow there might be fewer of us in this hallway.
Fewer nameplates, fewer stalls, fewer guys who made it through the week.
The math doesn't stop. But today, the four of us are on this bench, and the team that's forming around us is feeling like this is worth being part of, and I'm going to sit with that for a minute before I worry about what comes next.