Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Griffin
The practice facility buzzed with a chaotic energy that only came from twenty kids between the ages of four and six trying to stay upright on their skates.
I laced up my skates in the quiet of the locker room and listened to the distant sounds of parents’ chatter and children’s shouts.
Community outreach wasn’t new to me—I’d done dozens of these clinics over the years—but this was my first as a Portland Stormhawk, my first chance to connect with the next generation of hockey players and fans in my new city.
The familiar ritual of preparing my gear settled my nerves. Skates tight but not restrictive, gloves that felt like extensions of my hands, stick taped exactly the way I’d been doing it since I was fifteen. Some routines never changed, no matter what jersey I wore.
“Griffin?” Wesley’s voice carried from the tunnel leading to the ice. “You ready?”
I grabbed my stick and headed toward the sound of his voice.
I found him near the bench, fiddling with his camera.
I’d never seen him in casual clothes before, and his Stormhawks hoodie and jeans revealed an athletic build I hadn’t expected from someone who spent most of his time behind a desk.
Worn-in hockey skates—good ones, not rental gear—encased his feet.
“Let’s do this.” I skated onto the fresh sheet of ice.
The kids were scattered across the rink with the clinic’s coaches—parents and local hockey enthusiasts who donated their Saturday afternoons to growing the game. Some children glided confidently while others clung to the boards, small legs wobbling as they tried to find their balance.
The clinic’s Coach Johnston skated to center ice and raised his stick. “Everyone gather around! We have a special guest today.”
The kids converged awkwardly, their black jerseys displaying the Stormhawks’ red logo—the team was the clinic’s sponsor. Parents leaned forward in the stands, phones raised to capture the moment.
“Kids, I want you to meet Griffin Lapierre, the captain of our Portland Stormhawks!”
The response was loud and immediate—short hockey sticks tapping against the ice in the traditional hockey salute while parents applauded from above.
The sound echoed through the arena, and warmth settled in my chest. This was why hockey mattered.
Not the contracts or the media attention or even the wins and losses, but this—passing the love of the game to the next generation.
“Thanks for having me,” I called out, projecting my voice to reach the stands. “Who’s ready to have some fun?”
The answering cheer rose from twenty boys and girls.
For the next hour, I moved from station to station, helping kids with basic skating, showing them how to hold their sticks properly, and attempting to explain the fundamentals of passing to children whose attention spans were measured in minutes rather than periods.
Wesley glided effortlessly around the perimeter, his camera clicking steadily as he captured candid moments.
His skating wasn’t just competent—it was smooth, controlled, the kind of efficient stride that spoke of years of hockey experience.
He moved backward while shooting, turned on a dime to get different angles, and navigated around the controlled chaos of two dozen small children without ever looking unsteady.
Interesting. Most PR managers I’d worked with treated ice with extreme caution.
“Captain Griffin!” Aiden, a six-year-old, tugged at my elbow. “Watch this!”
He attempted what might generously be called a slap shot, sending the puck careening into the curve while nearly falling over from the follow-through. The effort was so earnest and the result so wildly off-target that I couldn’t help but grin.
“That was awesome, Aiden. Want me to show you a little secret about shooting?”
His eyes went wide with the reverence usually reserved for superheroes.
I spent the next few minutes demonstrating the proper shooting form, breaking it down into simple steps, while Aiden hung on every word. Other kids gradually gathered around, creating an impromptu lesson that had Coach Johnston nodding approval at us from across the ice.
Wesley appeared at the edge of our group, camera raised, then seemed to notice something and lowered it slightly. I followed his gaze to a small girl in a bright pink helmet who stood alone near the boards, clutching her stick but not taking part in any of the drills.
“Give me a minute, guys.” I skated over to where she stood.
She couldn’t have been over five, with serious dark eyes that watched me approach with the wariness of someone much older. Her skates were new enough to still have tags on them, suggesting this might be her first time on the ice.
I crouched down to her level, balancing easily on my skates. “Hey there. I’m Griffin. What’s your name?”
“Emma,” she whispered so quietly I had to lean closer to hear her.
“Emma’s a great hockey player’s name,” I said solemnly. “You know what? I could really use an alternate captain today. Someone to help me keep an eye on all these kids and make sure everyone’s having fun. Think you might be interested in that job?”
Her entire face transformed. The fearful expression melted into a smile that could have powered the arena lights, and she straightened up with newfound purpose.
“I can be your alternate captain?”
“Absolutely. Alternate captains are very important. They help the captain notice things and make sure everyone feels included. What do you think our team needs right now?”
Emma looked around the ice with new authority, taking her role seriously. “Maybe we should help that boy over there? He keeps falling down.”
“Excellent observation, Alternate Captain Emma. Lead the way.”
For the rest of the clinic, Emma was a different child—clinging to my side, engaged, helping other kids, and beaming every time I introduced her as “Alternate Captain Emma” or asked for her input.
The transformation was remarkable, and exactly the kind of moment that made community outreach feel meaningful rather than obligatory.
I glanced toward Wesley, expecting to see him photographing Emma’s breakthrough, but his camera was lowered.
He watched with a soft expression I’d never seen on him before, his attention entirely focused on our interactions rather than documenting them.
Something about his discretion—his instinct to preserve the privacy of a genuine moment rather than exploit it for content—made my chest tight with an emotion I couldn’t quite name.
As the clinic wound down, I noticed Wesley working with a boy, camera forgotten and dangling from his neck.
The boy was probably four, and Wesley quietly showed him how to hold his stick properly.
Wesley’s instruction was clear and patient as he demonstrated the grip and explained the reasoning behind it in terms the child could understand.
“See how your hands go like this?” Wesley positioned the boy’s small, gloved fingers correctly. “Now you have more control. Try it.”
The improvement was immediate. The kid’s next attempt at shooting the puck was infinitely more controlled, and his face lit up with pride.
Wesley had clearly played serious hockey. The technical knowledge, the teaching instincts, the way he moved on ice—none of that came from casual recreational skating. I found myself curious about his background, about what had led him from hockey to public relations.
When our hour was almost over, Coach Johnston called out, “Okay, everyone! Let’s line up for a group photo!”
This was always the tricky part with young kids. Getting twenty children to stand still and look in the same direction simultaneously required either superhuman patience or divine intervention.
Wesley positioned himself with his camera while the coaches arranged kids in two rows. “Everyone say ‘hockey!’”
“Hockey!” the kids shouted in unison.
And then it happened, like dominoes falling in slow motion. One child fell into another, who stumbled into a third, who grabbed onto a fourth for balance. Within seconds, half the group was tangled on the ice in a giggling pile of black jerseys and flailing limbs.
Instead of trying to restore order, Wesley kept shooting, his camera capturing the genuine laughter and chaos. The photos would be infinitely better than any posed group shot—real joy instead of forced smiles, authentic moments instead of staged perfection.
“That’s going to make great promotional material,” I called out to him.
“The real stuff always does.” He snapped pictures as Coach and I helped the kids to their feet, still giggling.
After we’d helped the last child off the ice and the parents had begun the complicated process of removing skates and pads in the locker room, several children and adults approached me for autographs.
I signed jerseys, hockey sticks, and even a few cell phone cases, chatting with each family about their kid’s experience and their hopes for their young player’s future.
“Thank you so much for doing this,” one mother said as I signed her daughter’s helmet. “Sophie hasn’t stopped talking about becoming an alternate captain like Emma.”
“Hockey needs players like Sophie,” I replied. “She’s got great instincts.”
When the last family had departed and the coaches were loading equipment into their cars, Wesley and I found ourselves alone in the quiet locker room. The contrast to the earlier chaos was stark—just the hum of the ventilation system and the distant sound of Zamboni preparations.
“That went really well.” Wesley reviewed the images on his camera. “I got some great shots.”
“I noticed you held back with Emma.” I packed my gloves in my duffel. “That showed good judgment.”
He looked up from his camera and raised an eyebrow. “Some moments aren’t meant to be content.”
The simple statement revealed something fundamental about his character—an understanding that not everything was material for consumption, that some experiences deserved to remain private and authentic. Wesley was turning out to be far more complex than he appeared.
“Where did you learn to skate like that?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Most PR people I’ve worked with treat ice like it might reach up and smack them in the face.”
Wesley smiled, pride clear on his face. “I played in high school in Boston at a private Catholic boys’ school. Then I played D-3 hockey at SUNY Oswego.” A blush stole up his cheeks. “I was captain my senior year.”
I stared at him, and pieces clicked into place. “You were a college hockey captain,” I said, awe in my voice.
“Different level than what you’re used to,” he said with a shrug. “But yeah, I understand the game. Probably part of why I’m decent at managing hockey PR—I know what makes players tick.”
The revelation reframed everything I’d observed about Wesley’s work. His intuitive understanding of team dynamics, his ability to anticipate media questions, his natural rapport with players—it all made more sense now.
“What position?”
“First line, right wing. Playmaker, not a scorer. I was better at seeing the whole ice than putting pucks in nets.”
Of course he was. The same vision that had made him an effective playmaker now served him as a PR strategist, always thinking three moves ahead, always aware of how individual actions affected the larger team dynamic.
“That’s impressive,” I said. “D-3 captains don’t get enough credit. You’re basically player-coaches at that level.”
“It taught me a lot about leadership under pressure.” Wesley shrugged again. “Probably prepared me for crisis management better than any textbook could have.” He chuckled.
We stood in comfortable silence for a moment, the revelation adding new depth to my understanding of who Wesley was. Not just the competent PR manager I’d been impressed by, but a fellow hockey player who understood the culture and demands of the sport from the inside.
“We should head out,” Wesley said finally. “I want to get these photos edited and uploaded before the parents flood social media with their own photos.”
As we walked toward the parking lot together, I thought about the afternoon—Emma’s transformation, Wesley’s natural teaching instincts, the easy way we’d worked together to make the clinic successful.
It had felt less like a professional obligation and more like something I genuinely enjoyed, partly because Wesley’s presence had made it better.
That realization should have concerned me more than it did.
“Same time next month?” Wesley asked.
“Definitely,” I replied. “These kids deserve consistent mentorship.”
“And you’re good at it,” Wesley said simply. “They look up to you, but you don’t make it about you. That’s rare.”
The compliment hit differently coming from someone who understood hockey culture, who knew the difference between players who genuinely cared about community outreach and those who saw it as a necessary evil.
“Thanks,” I said. “That means something, coming from a fellow captain.”
Wesley’s smile was warm and genuine. “See you tomorrow night at the preseason game, Captain Lapierre.”
As I watched him walk away in the parking lot, camera bag slung over his shoulder, I realized the afternoon had revealed something important about Wesley Hutton.
He wasn’t just skilled at his job—he was someone who understood what mattered, who knew the difference between moments worth capturing and moments worth preserving.
And I was definitely in trouble, because that combination of competence and character were exactly the qualities I found impossible to resist.