Chapter 3 Pratt
Chapter three
Pratt
Our drill ran on a forty-five-second cycle.
Two attackers came in from the left, one defender between them, and the same play repeated through different pairs until the pattern held. It was simple by design. That meant if it broke, the design wasn’t the problem.
Rook held his angle on every rep. He didn't chase the shooters.
He played defense by holding the line and letting the play come to him, arriving early and staying there so nothing pulled him out of position.
Rook was one of the best at it, and it was part of what kept him in the league into his mid-thirties.
On the next rotation, Poole took his spot.
Cross, our veteran center, drove down the middle on the attack. Kieran came down the left side, a few feet off the post, pulling into range as he lined up the pass.
Poole was good. No one thought of him as a liability. He played at a level that let his mistakes stay hidden until something structural broke.
The first nine reps ran clean. Poole stepped up early and pushed the attackers wide. Kieran delivered the pass, and I picked the shot up clean before it left Cross's stick.
On the tenth, the forwards came in a fraction faster. Poole arrived late, leaving six feet of uncovered ice between the dot and the left circle. It was a gap that shouldn’t exist in our structure.
The shot came from there, aimed at the corner. I got my blocker on it and deflected the puck wide, ending the play. The next pair set up at the blue line.
I turned to Poole and set my stick blade flat on the ice.
"Left edge. You're rotating to the post. The lane opened before you got there."
He was already nodding. "I was reading the entry —"
"Read faster."
Varga's voice drifted across the ice: "Poole. That face means he's invested in you."
"It doesn't," I said.
"He made that face at me all of October, and I scored eleven points."
The new forward pair was ready. I turned back to the crease.
On the next rep, Poole moved early and took away the pass. The play got pushed wide and ran out of space. No shot. The one after that, the same.
Filed.
The gap Poole left wasn’t random. It showed up when the forwards came in faster, which meant he had to get there on time every time until it became automatic, and I had to keep watching for it until it stopped appearing. Both were manageable.
I did a final loop of the crease, tapping both posts—left first and then right, with the heel of my stick—and skated to the bench.
The problem existed, but we had it contained.
During the film review, Coach Markel pointed it out. He stood at the front of the room with his coffee and let the room fill and settle around him. Some were missing, but it wasn't a mandatory session. By the time the last chair scraped back, he'd already picked up the remote.
He started with the Detroit footage. He ran it once and said nothing. Ten of us watched six feet of open ice appear. Detroit took advantage of it, and the shot landed in the net. Nobody spoke. Markel let it run for four seconds past the whistle before he backed up and ran it again.
"Coverage lane," he said. "Left side. Forty-three seconds into the period. A gap I could drive a Zamboni through."
He clicked forward.
"We completed a trade this afternoon." He delivered the news in a level voice. "Defenseman. Coming in from Tampa. He'll be on the ice two days from now."
Varga was already speaking up. "Holt. It's Holt, right?" Coach didn't answer. Varga took that as confirmation. "Okay. Tampa, three seasons. Mostly second unit, then they moved him up in the second half. Someone pull his entry numbers. Rook, do you have a phone on you?"
Rook, two seats over, said nothing.
"Pull them up," Varga told Lindqvist, one of the coaching assistants.
I watched Markel. He was silent for precisely six seconds, then clicked to the next clip.
"When he arrives, we'll integrate on the ice."
Cross, from the back row: "What system does he run?"
Markel looked at him. "Tampa." The room went quiet. We all understood what that meant.
Tampa ran a different defensive structure. On the surface, it was similar, but the mechanical differences would be obvious under pressure. Our new defenseman would have Tampa instincts, built somewhere other than Chicago. That likely meant temporarily exacerbating the weaknesses on the left side.
Poole's timing was correctable, but with him gone and Holt in his place, we had to fix more than timing. I'd have to wait to watch Holt in action before I could make my own adjustments.
Two days.
We returned our attention to the screen. Cross sat in the back with his arms folded. Heath asked one question about transitions. Coach ended the session, set the remote down, and walked out. We followed him into the corridor.
Kieran fell into step beside me about twenty feet from the video room door. He matched my pace and stayed there. We walked the length of the corridor without talking.
"Coverage held today," he finally said.
It was an observation from someone who had watched the drill with the same attention I had. He reached the same conclusion by a different route. I didn't respond. That meant I'd heard.
We reached a split in the tunnel. Kieran angled left without breaking stride, toward the lot where Heath's car was already idling behind the garage door glass.
I veered right.
Two days.
My condo was exactly as I'd left it. The counter was clear and the temperature where I kept it. I hung my bag on its hook, changed, and sat down with my laptop and a legal pad. I opened the Detroit clip.
The lane opened at the same point it always did. Poole was late by the same half-second. The shot came from the same location. I noted the timestamp and backed up to the beginning before running it again.
Music started to play on the other side of my living room wall.
Bass-forward, with the melody thinned by the drywall, I heard the shape of it more than the sound. It was a low pulse that settled into the room.
I listened long enough to try to sort it. The rhythm held steady under the bass, and the vocal came in a beat late against it. It was familiar, but not enough to place. I ran it through again in my head, adjusted the timing, and placed it.
More Fleetwood Mac—"The Chain."
When Sully had guests, it was usually disco. On his own, he mostly listened to Fleetwood Mac.
I ran the video clip a third time. Nothing changed. The clip had given me all the information on the first pass. The second and third were verifications. I put my legal pad aside.
The wine bottle was still on the counter.
Nine days, and it was still exactly where I'd put it the night Sully handed it to me at the door. It sat just left of center.
In my condo, everything had a place, except for the bottle. I'd set it down and abandoned it. I looked at it.
Sully called it a good wine when he handed it to me, but I hadn't opened it. I didn't manufacture occasions for quality drinks. Instead, I walked past it every day.
The music through the wall shifted. It was slower now, Jefferson Starship's "Miracles?" I was listening more closely than necessary.
An hour later, I heard two quick knocks.
I opened the door. Sully was holding a paper bag from the Thai place two blocks south, the one with the orange awning. He lifted the bag slightly and said, "Ordered too much," already moving past me toward the counter. "I almost knocked at two the other night, but this is better."
"I was in the middle of something." I stepped out of his way.
"We all have to eat, Pratt." He paused briefly to survey the space before moving to the counter and setting the bag down, less than six inches from the bottle of wine.
"I watched some of the Columbus game," he said, unwrapping containers. "From last week. I saw it at the bar. I think I understand about forty percent of what's happening now."
He set both lids aside and oriented the open faces toward me. "That save in the second period where the guy comes in from the left and you just—" He made a lateral motion with one hand, flat and decisive. "I didn't even see where the puck went."
"Glove side. It went wide."
"Yeah, that figures." He leaned against the counter. "Do you always know that fast?"
"If I'm reading the entry correctly."
"Is that what it looks like from in there? In that mask? Just—reading it."
"Yes."
He nodded once and returned his attention to the food. He pulled a plastic fork out of the bag and held it up, waiting. I opened a cabinet and a drawer, pulling out plates and two stainless forks.
Sully blushed slightly. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"
"Some wine, too?" I asked.
"Yeah. It's a good bottle."
The overhead light caught one side of his face and left the other in shadow, and I noticed for the first time that his nose was slightly off-center, a few degrees from true. The deviation only resolved in direct, uneven light. It was a healed fracture, managed well.
I handed Sully wine glasses and a corkscrew. "The music," I said. "It's mostly Fleetwood Mac."
"Good music."
"Mostly the same three albums."
"They made good ones." He popped the wine cork and filled a glass before pushing it toward me. I scooped Pad Thai onto the plates.
As Sully pulled his hand back from the glass, it landed on mine, fingers settling for a moment against the back of my hand before he said, "Extra soy sauce. I think there's soy sauce in the bag," and withdrew. There was no soy sauce.
I ate standing and didn't offer seating. It was the efficient choice for a meal that wouldn't take long. He leaned against the kitchen sink, and it was quiet while we ate.
Halfway through, Sully paused with a forkful of Pad Thai halfway to his mouth. "Do you ever—I mean—ever slam one of those guys into the wall?"
"I'm a goalie."
Sully's brow furrowed slightly. "Yeah, right."
When the food was gone, he packed up the bag and the empty boxes. "Thanks, neighbor. I'm not really a leftovers guy, and I hate to throw it away." Ten seconds later, he was gone.
There was a faint ring of condensation on the counter where the containers had been sitting. I wiped it with a dishcloth, rinsed it, and hung it back in its place.
An hour later, I prepared for the fact that tomorrow was a game day.
I pulled a blanket out of the closet. I laid it flat beside the bed and smoothed it with both hands, pressing out the folds so nothing would bunch under my shoulders.
The floor's cold came through it. That was good.
I turned off the lights and lay on my back, hands set, staring up at the dark ceiling.
I ran back through the variables from the day and assigned each one a place in my thoughts. I had the trade news and the defense coverage gap we would need to fix.
Next, I reached the part where Sully's hand had landed on mine. His touch had been warm. His fingers were slightly rough at the tips, understandable with his work at the bar. There was weight when his hand rested on mine.
I filed him in a temporary spot. It took two passes at the memory to get there.