12. Overtime #2
Caleb had told them two weeks earlier after practice, standing in the parking lot with his bag over his shoulder.
Frank Desjardins had invited him to try out with the Northeasterners, and Caleb was taking the shot.
He thanked them for everything the team had given him.
Kowalski answered with an obscenity and clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to send him forward half a step.
Their response had surprised him. No one treated the tryout as a reason to pull away. Practices got harder. Advice arrived whether Caleb asked for it or not. He had joined the Prospectors late in the season, but the team had taken an interest in what happened to him after he left.
Kowalski told him which gas station outside Thunder Bay still served decent coffee after midnight. Pete left a roll of tape beside Caleb’s bag without explaining why. Marc texted him three articles about the Northeasterners’ roster, then corrected Caleb’s pronunciation of three French surnames.
Caleb was lacing his skates when Bryce came in.
Bryce entered halfway through a story about the hardware store, loud enough to carry over every other conversation. He dropped onto the bench, still talking, and the room laughed at the right places. Then he turned his grin on Caleb.
“Last game of the schedule. Shame. I was just starting to figure out what kind of player the little lady is.”
The laughter faded. At the other end of the bench, Pete tore another strip of tape from the roll.
Kowalski spoke first, his voice quiet. “That’s enough of that.”
Bryce turned toward him. Pete pressed the tape around the blade of his stick. Marc retied a skate that was already secure. At the far end of the bench, Connor had stopped fastening his elbow pad.
“It was just a—” Bryce began.
“I know what it was,” Kowalski said. “That’s enough.”
Bryce’s grin slipped. He tried to answer, but the silence offered him nowhere to take the joke. Caleb didn’t think Bryce had intended to hurt him. That didn’t make the joke harmless.
Bryce shrugged and returned to the hardware-store story, though some of the force had gone out of it. After a moment, Marc asked what happened next. Pete resumed taping his stick. There was still a game to play.
Caleb tightened the final knot in his laces. Connor still waited with the elbow pad loose in his hands. Caleb reached for his shoulder pads. Without looking over, Connor cinched the strap down.
Once the puck dropped, the final game became pure hockey.
Caleb played well. He wasn’t always polished, but he was looser than he had ever been.
Connor’s teaching had begun to settle into his movements, allowing him to react before he could second-guess himself.
In the second period, he broke free with the puck and went in alone.
The goalie stopped his shot. When Caleb returned to the bench, Kowalski pushed the water bottle into his hand.
“Next year you score that.”
Caleb believed him.
Connor touched every part of the game. He closed passing lanes, disrupted breakouts, and moved into open ice before anyone else recognized it.
He and Caleb moved in their secret language of ice and angles.
Twice, Caleb sent the puck ahead without calling for Connor, trusting him to be there.
Both times, Connor was. The second play drew a shout from the Prospectors’ bench.
They won 4–2.
Afterward, the locker room was loud and warm and right. A case of beer waited beneath Pete’s stall. He said nothing about the presumption of bringing it and began passing bottles around with the easy confidence that this outcome had always been inevitable.
No one tried to make the night solemn. Kowalski eventually stood and raised his beer.
“To the season,” he said. “We survived the roads, Copper Falls, Tremblay’s back, and Bryce’s terrible jokes. Caleb, aka Church, improved enough to become irritating. The mine is funding the arena’s spring and summer program, so take a few weeks. Then back at it.”
He pointed the bottle at Caleb.
“Especially you.”
Bottles knocked together. Someone struck Caleb between the shoulders. Pete opened another beer, and Tremblay objected to being included among the season’s hazards.
Bryce stood near the shower doors. After a moment, he lifted his bottle toward Caleb. Caleb returned the gesture and left it there.
Connor waited until most of the room had emptied before coming over. Only Pete remained, pulling on his boots.
“Good game,” Connor said.
“Thanks.”
Pete finished with his boots, picked up his bag, and left with them. The door swung shut behind them.
The ice on the lake held for another nine days.
Every morning before work, Connor drilled one core near the bank and another farther out. On the tenth day, he left the auger beside the cabin door and told Caleb they were done.
“It’s still thick enough,” Caleb said.
“In places.” Connor carried an armful of split birch toward the cabin. Behind the cabin, the snow had collapsed into grey ridges, exposing patches of gravel. Meltwater ticked from the eaves. “That’s the problem with spring ice. It can be thick and rotten at the same time.”
Caleb looked across the bay. The surface remained white, crossed by months of skate marks and the darker seam where he had gone through in January. Puddles had begun to gather near the shore, but farther out the ice appeared as solid as ever.
Going inside, Connor set the wood beside the fireplace. When he came back out, he was carrying a folder. Caleb gave him a look as Connor held it out to him, but Connor just nodded at it, so he took it.
It was blue, the same faded royal blue as the Prospectors’ jerseys.
Inside were six pages covered in Connor’s compact writing: three days of conditioning, two days of strength work, arena sessions whenever they could get the ice, faceoff drills, and film notes.
A column headed RECOVERY ran down the side of each week.
“You made me homework.”
“Frank did say you needed a summer of real training.”
“This is what you do for fun?”
“No. For fun, I watch you try to catch me on the ice, only to be humbled.” Caleb punched him playfully.
Connor pointed to the second page and tapped a line.
“You need strength through your hips. Your first three steps are good. After that, you lose power because you’re trying to make speed out of effort instead of mechanics. ”
Caleb leaned against the cabin. “That sounds like coaching.”
“It is coaching.”
“I thought the season was over.”
Connor turned toward the lake. “This season is over. September isn’t.”
“Frank wants to see you in Thunder Bay at the end of May,” Caleb said. “Development skate. A few guys who might come to camp, a few regulars who need the ice.”
“Oh?”
“He called this morning.”
Connor almost smiled. “You want to go?”
Caleb tightened his grip on the folder. September had felt far enough away to want without testing himself against it. The end of May was close. He pictured the rink, Frank watching from the boards, and players who had years of organized hockey behind them.
“Yeah,” he said. His pulse jumped with the answer. “I want to go.”
“Okay,” Connor said, nodding, “but in the meantime…”
He took Caleb by the hand, pulling him toward the cabin. Caleb didn’t need to be convinced.