Chapter 3
STELLA
He’s asking me out.
I’m not sure what to make of this.
He’s cute. His boyish smile is open and friendly, and makes two dimples appear in his cheeks. The breeze ruffles his thick, brown hair, long and mussy on top, and he looks at me so attentively, his eyes a mix of brown and bronze, like sunlight on polished wood.
I’m pretty tall, five feet eight, but he’s still about a half foot taller than me, with a lean, fit build. His softly faded jeans cling to muscular thighs.
I’m tempted by his invitation, not gonna lie. It’s been a while since I’ve gone out with a man. But I don’t even know this guy. And we have our dogs with us.
“I’d better get Betty home,” I say. “Thanks, though. It was nice to meet you.” I give him a bright smile. “Bye, Frank.” I reach out to give his head a rub. He looks so much like Betty, but not quite the same.
“Yeah,” the man says, still smiling. “Nice to meet you, too. And you, Betty.”
I turn and walk toward Richards Street, past the kids’ play area and the fountain with the small stream running between benches shaded by big maple trees.
I want to turn around so bad, but I resist. When I get to the street, I do take a peek out of the side of my eye to see if they’re behind me. And they are. Not far behind me. Frank’s sniffing a tree. Are they following me?
Nah.
I turn left and stroll along the sidewalk past the apartment building, and when I get to the intersection, I have to stop for a red light at Helmcken.
I casually look around. The guy’s not behind me…
Well, he is, but he’s walking in the opposite direction, immediately recognizable by his height and athletic build.
Why the hell did I turn him down? He’s attractive and it was fun talking to him.
We could have easily gone for a coffee and maybe…
more. I’m not looking for a relationship.
Love is only temporary and marriage is for suckers.
I don’t need a man… except for, you know, fun.
A fun outing once in a while. A little horizontal hustle. Bedroom rodeo.
I grin at my own thoughts.
I own a successful business. I support myself. I have a fantastic new condo, the best dog, great friends, and a vibrator that has never ghosted me. Having a boyfriend is not on my wish list. What is, though? Perhaps a little bit of monkey love…
Two days later, I’m at the Seabrook Centre, the hockey arena where the Vancouver Orcas play.
This season, the league will be using our new tracking system.
Over the past year, we’ve done a ton of work to prepare for this; our work crews have been traveling to every NHL arena on the continent, first to survey the facility and determine the best locations for our infrared cameras.
Contractors then laid down new wiring and our other crews went in to install and test the hardware.
Then they had to calibrate the devices, which is intense and time-consuming, basically mapping the surface of the ice and tracking movement.
We tracked everything except the players, at first, and corroborated speeds with handheld radar guns.
Then we held scrimmages and dry runs to test the system.
Tonight, the Orcas play against Edmonton in their first pre-season game and we’ll be tracking an actual NHL game.
I’m with the league’s VP of technology, Chris Sharma, at ice level.
Troy is up on the catwalk, looking down on the ice.
Here, I’m watching equipment managers slide small electronic devices into pouches between the shoulder blades on the back of the players’ jerseys.
All the pucks used tonight have microchips embedded in their core, with light emitters top and bottom, all painted black so they’re virtually invisible.
The players file out from the dressing room and pause to have their device attached. They know what’s going on and seem eager to see the results of the new tracking system.
My gaze lands on the next player to have his device secured to his jersey. Holy shit. It’s the guy from the park the other night.
He lifts his chin at that moment and looks directly at me, his eyes sparking with recognition. His expression is cute confusion. Probably mine is, too.
I was talking to one of the Orca players. Who knew?
Instead of hitting the ice, he takes a few steps toward me. “Hey.” He smiles. “What are you doing here?”
I feel Chris glance at me.
“Hi. I’m the owner of Vantix,” I tell the hockey player, naming my company. “Well, one of the owners. I’m Stella Brooks. We developed this new technology you’re launching tonight.”
His expression still looks puzzled. “Oh. Wow. I had no idea.”
“I didn’t know you play for the Orcas.” I turn to Chris. “We both walk our dogs in the same park. We chatted the other night.” And he asked me out for coffee. And I’ve been kicking myself for turning him down ever since.
“Ah.” Chris nods. “Good luck out there. We’re all hoping for a smooth kickoff.”
“Wrong sports metaphor,” I joke to Chris and he laughs. “Yes, good luck. In the game, too.”
“Thanks.” With a nod, the player turns and I see the name across the back of his jersey: Wood. Number 94.
Jayden Wood. Defenceman.
I’m feeling a little taken aback myself.
We move on to a short media scrum. This isn’t as interesting to the local sports media as the game itself, the first pre-season game with the final roster for the upcoming season still to be determined, but there are a few reporters interested in the technology details.
“During games, the system sends out radio pings to the puck and to the player devices, which reply by emitting pulses of infrared light,” I explain how it works.
“The infrared cameras,” I point to the rafters, “can triangulate those signals, locating the players and puck in three-dimensional space and transmitting that data nearly in real-time.”
Chris is with me and he nods. “Our hope is to expand broadcasters’ capabilities during games and hopefully enhance fan engagement with a better experience listening or watching.
Paul, you can probably speak more to that.
” He gestures to Paul Milan, a producer from ASN (All Sports Network) who’s also been working with us.
Paul speaks more about how broadcasters will benefit. “Tracking player behaviour will help automate replays,” he tells the group. “For example, we’ll know when the puck comes into the zone, we’ll know the moment the goal is scored, and we can automatically clip off a segment of video.”
“Our platform, Numora, has an AI engine that can do things faster than we can,” I continue.
“We feed the data into it and it can have all kinds of metrics in seconds. Basic things like player and shot speeds, but also categorizing passes, dump ins, breakaways… even who has possession of the puck. It’s amazing!
” I get excited talking about this and receive smiles from the reporters.
“It’ll also help team analysts with new data and help coaching staff monitor in-game workloads of individual players.
And more ideas that we’ve brainstormed with teams and the league that we’re working on for the future. ”
This is our biggest project ever and I can’t believe it’s finally coming to fruition. If everything goes well tonight, we’ll be celebrating later with champagne.
“Congratulations!” Troy lifts his glass to mine and we tap them together with a satisfying ping.
“Here’s to us!” I take a sip of Veuve Clicquot. “Delicious. Tastes like… winning.”
He laughs. We’re joined by Chris and Paul, who I was with earlier, followed by two of the owners of the Orcas, Chen Zhou and Clark Montgomery. We’re at Ellington, a swanky cocktail bar near the arena, and yes, we’re celebrating.
The vibe in here is industrial chic, dark, with warm wood tones and a massive concrete bar under the glow of glass and gold mood lighting. It’s cool. Expensive. Sophisticated.
The game itself wasn’t much to celebrate.
The team they iced tonight was half veterans and half prospects and their opponent was the same, so it wasn’t a lot of high skill, but the Orcas did win, so at least there’s that.
The Orcas record the last few seasons has been so bad, it’s become a running joke in Vancouver.
Possibly the whole league. But this isn’t the time to dwell on that.
“This is a pretty exciting moment,” Clark says to us. “This is the future.”
“Yes! I agree. Soon, we’ll be analyzing how well Ovechkin and Kucherov draw defenders away from their teammates. Or the ideal spacing on a 1-3-1 power play.”
Clark gives me an amused glance. “You’re pretty smart for a woman.”
I roll my eyes, trying not to smile. “Yeah, yeah.”
We had a few tense moments early in this project when he was skeptical of my hockey knowledge. Now he knows better. Honestly, I’m the one who should be questioning his decisions, with the management and coaching staff he’s hired who have dropped the ball. Oops. Wrong sports metaphor again.
At least the team has a new coach this year, so there’s hope.
We talk hockey—what else?—but also a little politics and Paul asks us what other projects we have going on.
“We’re looking at moving into sports betting,” Troy says to him.
Ugh. I try to keep my face neutral.
“This new technology should help with that,” Paul says.
“Absolutely.”
This place specializes in charcuterie and we ordered an enormous board loaded with Spanish ham, mortadella, bresaola, along with buttery blue cheese, nutty Manchego, goat gouda and more, of course artfully presented with lavash, crackers, fruits, and nuts.
I move closer to the table and pop an almond into my mouth.
I reach for the champagne bottle to refill my glass, but Paul appears and picks it up.
“Let me,” he says, holding my champagne flute steady as he pours bubbly.
“Thank you!”
“So do you feel relieved?” He slides the drink closer to me, then fills his own glass.
“Somewhat. We were pretty confident going into tonight, though. We’ve done so much testing and so many dry runs. We did run into a couple of small problems, but they’re easy to deal with and everything should be flawless before the season opens.”
His eyes are intent on my face. “You’re an impressive woman.”
Uh oh. My spidey senses tingle. “Well, thank you.”
“It’s hard to believe someone as beautiful as you has brains, too.”
I pull in a slow breath through my nose. Here we go.
“Or should I say, someone as intelligent as you has so much beauty.”
“Either way it’s kind of clichéd,” I reply calmly, meeting his eyes.
After a beat, he says, “I guess that’s true. I apologize.”
I nod and smile.
“I was sincerely trying to compliment you,” he adds. “Very clumsily, obviously.”
I give a noncommittal shrug.
“I’m surprised you’re still single.”
Oh my God. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that, I could quit my job. Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. “It’s because I like to sleep diagonally and I am not willing to change that behaviour.”
He bursts out laughing. “Good one.” Unfortunately, he only seems more admiring of me, moving closer. “I’m staying at the Marriott. Maybe we could head back there for a quieter drink.”
Jesus. I do not want to piss off a high-up producer at ASN.
Paul’s a good-looking man, probably about forty.
I assumed he was married, but I now see there’s no ring on his left hand.
That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s single, though.
I could go back to his hotel and have a hot night.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since I turned down Jayden Wood’s coffee invitation.
But that’s probably not a good idea with a business partner.
I look him straight in the eye. “I’m not comfortable with that, but thank you.”
He purses his lips. I brace myself for his reaction because too often men get all butt hurt over a rejection. But he nods and says, “I understand.”
“Thanks. I should get back to our other guests.” I move away to rejoin Troy and the others.
That put a damper on my mood. At least he accepted my no. But it’s another reminder of how hard it is to be a woman in a male-dominated space.
I’ve been doing this for a while. I’m used to it, but I’m still depressed by it.
I’ve had to work so hard to be accepted and taken seriously.
This contract with the NHL went a long ways toward opening doors with other big clients, and I’m grateful for that.
I’m not going to fuck it up by sleeping around with the men I work with.
“I’m heading out,” I say to Troy. “It’s been a long day. Actually, it’s been a long year.”
He laughs. “True that. Okay. See you tomorrow.”
I say goodnight to the others and leave the bar.
I’m literally four blocks from home, so I set out walking along Nelson Street, then around the corner to my condo.
This is definitely one of the reasons I wanted to live in this neighbourhood.
It’s safe, close to our offices, the arena, and lots of great bars and restaurants.
I definitely splurged on my Yaletown condo now that we’re making money, but it’s worth every penny.
And I have my beloved waiting for me there. Betty.