Chapter 1 #2
My lips pull tight into something that resembles a smile, and I tap it twice with the thumb side of my right fist. Alternate captain.
It’s my first season wearing it, and it came as a surprise when I saw it on my practice jersey on the first day of training camp in the fall.
It’s rare for the team enforcer to wear the badge.
Give it to someone less violent, the naysayers say.
Give it to someone who the kids can look up to.
As if every rink rat in training isn’t already practicing how to throw off their mitts and grab their opponent’s jersey when the time comes to remind their competitors what they’re there for. To win.
Regardless of what people say, or more likely, despite it, I’m proud of that A.
Maybe more than I am of my title, king of penalty minutes.
Don’t get me wrong, I like protecting my teammates.
I like making sure they’re safe to do their job.
I like enforcing the unofficial rules of the ice and reminding the other thirty-one teams in the league that the Blizzards are the last team you want to fuck with.
Plus, if I fight hard enough, if I show my might and toughness out there, then if the secret that I’m gay gets out, maybe people will be too afraid to fuck with me about it.
Hockey is all I have. I can’t lose it over something as trivial and inconsequential as who I like to go to bed with.
Connor
“It was a tough loss, but we fought hard,” I say to the reporters gathered around me after the game in the locker room. “Buffalo is always a challenge.”
“The team, or the stadium?” the reporter asks for clarification.
“Both.” I laugh. “You were in there. This is one of the loudest stadiums in the league with the most… dedicated fans.” That was a nice way to say it, right?
Maybe not. My father, who is also the general manager of my team, is staring at me from behind the crowd of reporters and my teammates with his arms crossed.
I gulp. “But we’ll be ready for our revenge next month when we play them again in our barn.”
“What about the Olympic team announcement happening tonight? Are you prepared to see a member of the Blizzards on that roster?”
I make quick eye contact with my dad. He’s been spending all the spare time he has trying to influence that list of players.
As a former Olympic gold medal winner and NHL player as well, his input is always considered.
Despite the fact that everyone clamoring for one of the coveted spots considers his influence to be a bit corrupt.
I don’t blame them. He should have retired as the Chicago Broad Wings general manager the moment I became eligible for the draft.
Having your father say your name into the mic when you’re picked first overall is not the heartwarming moment people think it is.
It’s pressure with a dash of nepotism for flavoring.
I swallow, then turn my attention back to the reporter. “Regardless of whether I’m chosen for the team, I will be proud and happy for every player that makes the list, no matter who they play for.”
“Even Gavin Marshal?”
I swear internally. Did the reporter really have to go there?
More microphones are jabbed towards me, and the space goes completely silent.
I’m supposed to hate Gavin. That’s the narrative my father and therefore the press have been pushing since the night before the draft seven years ago.
I smile at the camera, getting ready to give them what they want even though it makes my stomach uneasy.
“I thought we were talking about hockey, not mixed martial arts fighting.” I get an approving nod from my father, which allows me to turn away from the reporters. “Now excuse me. I have to get changed.”
Once in the showers, I lean against the tiled wall and let out a breath as I let the hot water spray down on me.
“We’ll get them next time,” James says to me with a thump of his fist to my shoulder.
“Yeah!” Lars agrees as he steps out from under the water and wraps a towel around his waist.
“Damn right we will,” I say back because it’s what I’m supposed to say. Honestly, though, it’s not the game that has me feeling dour. Losses happen in hockey. It’s a long season and you’ll never win all of your games.
“Gavin Marshal is a real prick,” Johnson says as he walks through.
“You can say that again,” James says and daps Johnson in agreement.
I say nothing. Because it’s not Gavin that has me feeling this way, either.
Sure, he’s a menace out there, and easily the most frustrating forward slash enforcer to play against in the league, but he’s only doing his job.
And he’s doing a damn good job of it. He plays his heart out on the ice.
It just looks different coming from him than it does most other players.
After my shower I walk to the stall with my name above it. No, wait. With my father’s name above it. Sometimes I wonder if they just use his old placard. Sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t for sharing his name I’d even be here at all.
No. Don’t go there. I may have gotten my place as a Broad Wing under special circumstances, but I definitely earned my place in the NHL.
There isn’t a team in this league who wouldn’t jump at the chance to grab me in a trade—not that my father would ever in a million seasons consider trading me.
But damn it, do I sometimes desperately wish he would.
If only so I wouldn’t have to see and live under his shadow every second of my career.
Which is the main reason why I want a place on the Olympic team.
Sure, he’ll travel to Milan to watch the games, but he won’t be able to travel with us.
He won’t have access to the dorms in the Olympic Village.
He won’t even be allowed to observe practice.
He’ll have to watch from the stands like a regular fan and I could, for the first time in my life, play some games in peace without being confronted by him the moment I step off the ice.
“Alright, everyone!” my father’s voice bellows as he strides across the locker room.
“Listen up!” He walks right up to Coach Chris and requests he turn up the volume on the televisions showing clips from our game on ESPN while the commentators break down our loss, play-by-play.
He looks right at me and grins. “They’re announcing the team. ”
Gavin
“Connor Kennedy,” the announcer on the television says while a headshot of Connor and his all-American golden boy smile lights up the screen.
“As if that’s a surprise,” Tavish says, making everyone in the locker room laugh.
“You better snake that puck away from him every chance you get,” Ander Bouchard, our starting goalie, says.
“You can count on it!” Tavish yells out and winks at the exact moment Bouchard’s name is announced on the TV.
“Yeah!” The locker room erupts into cheers and half the team tackles Bouchard to the ground. Thankfully, he’s still wearing most of his goalie gear.
When he gets out from under the scrum, he points his finger at Tavish. “See you on the ice!”
“You better not take it easy on me!” Tavish says back, grinning like a kid at Christmas.
I wish I could join him in that smile. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them.
I really am. But despite my trash talk with the reporters, I do want a spot on the team.
I don’t know why. Maybe to prove something to myself.
Or to the league. Or the fans who hate me for leveling their beloved stars.
Or the coaches and GMs who are always trying to tweak the rules to have me suspended.
Honestly, though, I’d like to do it for my father.
I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for everything he sacrificed, raising me on his own.
It wasn’t easy, and I want him to know it was worth it.
Unfortunately now, it’s looking less likely to happen.
It’s extremely rare for more than two players from the same team to be selected.
Even with one being picked for Canada and the other for the USA, my chances of going to Milan just got much slimmer.
It’s not all bad, I suppose. Lord only knows how a team with both Connor Kennedy and me would work.
We hate each other. Or, at least, he hates me.
I hate the idea of him. I hate what he represents.
The elitist nature of being the son of a legacy player who’s had his path laid out for him on a red carpet since birth.
But I can’t say I actually hate him. I barely know him.
In fact, we were almost friends once: a long time ago when we first met at a junior hockey camp.
But that was shut down faster than a puck flying across freshly zambonied ice.
Connor’s father, a player I grew up admiring from the moment he won our country Olympic gold, turned out to be an absolute prick.
The minute he discovered my ticket to camp came from a crowd funder organized by my local rink in Alaska to send me to the lower forty-eight for a shot at playing in the biggest junior league in the country.
Connor Kennedy Sr instantly read me for exactly what I was. Still am. A dirty white boy from some Podunk fishing village who has no business playing with his golden boy son.
He hand picks the players for the Broad Wings. I’d be stupid to think he doesn’t have his hands in deciding who gets to play for the United States at the Olympics.
Or maybe he doesn’t. For it’s exactly at this moment, I hear my name coming out of the announcer’s mouth on the screen.
“Holy shit,” I say, and fall back onto the bench in front of my stall while my team goes absolutely insane.