CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE KAI
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
KAI
May
The rink is dark and empty, exactly the way I like it. Rest day means the boys are at home icing whatever hurts, so the practice facility is left to the cleaning crew, a few equipment guys, and me.
Holmer called this morning and asked, “Can you come in?”
So here I am, in a building I’m not supposed to be in, on a day I’m supposed to be resting, to spend the afternoon watching tape of my boyfriend.
Across the river, in a room that smells exactly like the one I’ll be in, I’d put money on Oskar doing the same thing. Sitting in the dark, watching tape of me, finding the soft spots in my game so the Fury can put a puck through one of them three days from now.
I drop into a chair in the video room and set my phone face-down on the table. Ozzy sent a link while I was getting off the subway, something from his Instagram feed. The message said, “Look.” I’ll get to it after we’re done here. When I get into tape, I get into tape; the world can wait.
“Morning,” Holmer says, coming in with Patterson, the goalie coach. “Ready to take Olofsson apart?”
“Let’s see what the kid’s got,” Patterson says, claiming the seat beside me.
Holmer slides the tablet across the table. “You’re on playback.”
I tap start, and the wall screen lights up with the Fury’s last game against Boston. After showing a faceoff, the video cuts to Ozzy in the crease. I let it run, then pause and rewind. “Here, watch this sequence. Olofsson overcommits east-west when Boston moves it across the slot.”
Except that isn’t the whole story. His defensemen forgot how to play hockey and left him alone with three guys and a rebound.
“Good eye,” Patterson says, then to Holmer: “We can use that.”
“Mm-hmm.” Holmer makes a note. “I’ll tell the forwards. Thanks, Kai.”
After letting the clip go for a bit, I pause it again. “Notice how he loses the puck because of a late screen. He can’t see for a second.”
Because someone’s stick is in his face. That’s not a weakness. It’s interference.
But I don’t say that, because he was operating blind for an instant, and an instant is the job. I’ve handed worse to scouts about goalies, and so has Ozzy. This isn’t about him and me. It’s just the game.
I cue up a recent match between the Fury and Buffalo, and we watch Ozzy steal one. Sliding all the way across the crease, glove up, puck caught.
Jesus. That’s a ridiculous save.
“Kid got lucky,” Patterson says.
“One in a thousand,” Holmer agrees.
“Mm.”
I pull up another clip. “There’s a tell, if you want one. Watch the top of his stick before a shot he thinks he’s got. Little wiggle, right there. That’s him deciding he’s about to rob somebody.”
Holmer leans in. “Huh. Nice.”
Patterson watches me instead of the screen, wearing a crooked grin. “You’re awfully generous with the man’s highlight reel today.”
I told everyone about Ozzy and me weeks ago, so Holmer and Patterson know about us.
“He’s one of the best goalies in the league, and I’m the one you asked. Want me to pretend he’s bad at his job?”
We work through butterfly idiosyncrasies, rebound tendencies, and little habits only another goalie would see.
Holmer points at the screen. “Look at that.”
The Barracudas’ Nick Johnson buries one, and even Oskar looks impressed.
“Nick’s still got one hell of a shot,” Holmer says. “Play it again but skip the faceoff.”
A few minutes later, after we finish a clip, Patterson holds up a hand. “What about Olofsson’s temper? He gets sloppy after he’s been scored on. Overplays the next couple of chances.”
I go still. He’s found the one place where Ozzy isn’t the man the rest of the league sees. The calm and patience are missing while he tries to claw the goal back by himself.
I want to keep that to myself, but that isn’t how this works. Keeping it would be its own kind of lie.
“It’s not sloppiness,” I say. “He’s furious at himself.
Watch.” I rewind and let it play again. “Next three plays, he overcommits, then tries to steal one back. It’s emotional.
And…” I freeze the frame. “His own D-man was screening him on the goal. He’s angry at a teammate he can’t say a word to, and at himself for not being able to see through a body that shouldn’t have been there. ”
Patterson’s eyebrows go up. “You’re sure about all that?”
“Positive.”
Holmer nods, thinking three days ahead. “We bait him, then? Get one early and go right back at him while he’s hot?”
I want to talk him out of it and shield Ozzy from a strategy that could hurt him.
He’s too disciplined, I could say. It won’t work. Leave it.
I could sell that.
But I stay quiet. The reflex to get between him and the world is no good.
Patterson arrives there on his own. “Nah. He’s good enough not to chase bait. Better for us to know it’s coming and be ready when he hands us something.”
“Agreed,” Holmer says, capping his pen.
They talk for another twenty minutes. Possible lines, who I’d send over the boards against Ozzy and when, what might beat me if I had the same weaknesses.
At last, they’ve got what they came for. Holmer claps my shoulder on his way out. “Good work. If anything else jumps out, call me.”
“Will do.”
When they’re gone, I stare at the shot of Ozzy on the screen. I should pack up, but I pull a random clip instead. A one-timer from the point, a sequence with a dozen things in it worth breaking down. Angle, rebound, the chaos we could make in front of him.
But I don’t analyze any of it. I watch Ozzy. He sees the shot coming before it’s a shot, shifts his weight a little early, and catches the puck as if he’s picking it off a shelf. No rebound, nothing to clean up. It’s just finished.
Nobody else would get there in time for that. I wouldn’t. I might even trip over my own skates trying.
For a while, I keep loading clips I have no professional reason to watch. I always knew Ozzy was good, but I need to reevaluate that word. There’s being good, and there’s whatever he is. I don’t have a word for it. That’s annoying because I always have words for things.
On the way out, I open the link Ozzy sent earlier. It’s a clip of me from a game last month, robbing Fox Painter blind on a two-on-one, leaving Montreal’s best player talking to himself. Ozzy had sent another message a few minutes after the first: This was on my feed. Look at you, superstar.
When I get outside, I send a reply.
KAI: You’re the other best goalie in the league. I’m going to beat you anyway.
My phone buzzes before I reach the corner.
OZZY: Adorable.
OZZY: No.
KAI:
OZZY: Dinner’s at seven. Don’t be late, hotshot.
I pocket the phone. Three days until the series starts. Best-of-seven, our barn first, the entire city already losing its mind about it.
Game on.