Chapter Six #2
“Yeah, well, they lucked into three generational players.” Ketchup sat up, gesturing to emphasize the importance of the word “generational.”
Damir rolled his eyes. Hockey, like any other professional sport, was obsessed with legacy.
Every other day, released a new top ten list—top ten fastest players to a hundred assists during home games, top ten pairs who assisted on one another’s goals the most since the last lockout, top ten goalies ranked by who earned the most shutouts when Mercury was in retrograde, and so on.
In Damir’s opinion, very few records truly mattered, and those that did were the hardest to set.
True skill was a combination of hard work, luck, and in some cases, talent.
All NHL players worked their bodies hard enough to have joint overuse most people didn’t see until in their seventies.
Many were lucky enough to have wealthy backgrounds and, in quite a few cases, families already involved with the league in some way.
A very few had a natural insight at reading passing lanes and body language in a split second, allowing them to be generational.
Watching the same two dozen or so players, past and present, top every single “best of” list no matter how bizarre the criteria only supported this hypothesis. True talent was rare.
“You are overusing the term ‘generational,’” Damir said. “Crowler and Grant are very good but have yet to win anything beyond personal awards, and we have not seen enough of Mazetti to judge yet. Anyway, I think you do Calabrese a disservice if you don’t count him among the best of the Sea Lions.”
Ketchup wrinkled his nose. “Calabrese? Really? He seems mid at best to me.”
Damir made a disgusted sound. “He’s a classic defenseman; he does what he’s supposed to. Stops pucks getting in the goal.”
“Nah, man, the game’s moved on from there.”
“And that’s exactly why talking about generational players is such bullshit!
” Damir burst out. “The game changes completely every few years! Mazetti’s style is modern, but twenty years ago, no one would have called him generational.
They’d have called him a shitty D-man because he plays more offense than defense. ”
“Mazetti’s the hottest D-man in the league right now!”
Ketchup’s assessment rang true in more ways than one.
Damir doubted he registered the double entendre though.
“I know he’s fantastic, but you need more than offensive defensemen on your roster.
You need someone like Calabrese to balance him out and provide him with defensive backing so he can make showy plays. ”
“Okay, fine.” Ketchup sank into the couch cushions, waving his hand dismissively.
“Still, their roster is stupidly stacked. By comparison, Howie’s been pretty hit or miss.
And they should get a better goalie in stat.
Their backup is godawful, and with Dmitriyev out, it could cost them the playoffs. ”
The Sea Lions had long since lost. The TV now replayed highlights, too many of which featured Nilsson—the Sea Lions’ backup goalie—being scored on.
Damir wrinkled his nose, trying not to feel too guilty that he’d taken their starting tendy out of commission.
He didn’t much care for Dmitriyev on a personal level, given his penchant for rude comments about how unlikely Damir was to ever play for the Russian national team whenever Damir got within scoring distance.
He wasn’t wrong. Among Russian hockey players, Damir was an outlier as an ethnic and religious minority, and so far, he’d never been invited to any international tournament.
But Damir didn’t especially want to hear it.
Nonetheless, he also didn’t want to damage Dmitriyev’s livelihood.
“See?” Ketchup prodded, pointing at the third replay of the goal on Nilsson. The commentator blamed Howard’s sloppy pass seconds before.
Damir grunted, neither confirming nor denying.
Maybe it was childish, but he didn’t relish hearing Howard talked about so critically.
His sophomore season not living up to expectations must be hard enough on him already without everyone talking about it.
Damir doubted the slump would last. Ever since their first matchup last year (and subsequent hookup), Damir had thought of him as a worthy opponent in more ways than one.
Sure, he got under people’s skin verbally.
But his skills as a rat would be useless if he wasn’t also a deft stickhandler and good at getting into tight spaces and pickpocketing the opposition.
Howard had a nice, clean wrist shot and a decent eye for passing lanes.
The real question was his skating. The highest praise Damir could bestow on that would be “functional,” with occasional bursts of grace and speed but no consistency.
He could speed up remarkably when he had to.
He’d proved as much during their last game when he chased Damir right into the goal crease to stop him scoring.
He didn’t, usually. But then, everyone had areas in need of improvement.
Damir thought of his own backcheck. Howard had him beat there, although as a center, he needed to defend more often than Damir did.
And Howard had so much time to become consistent.
The turn he’d executed right before fucking up in the game they just watched was fucking gorgeous, tight and elegant and exactly the kind of move Damir struggled with.
Ketchup studied him. “You don’t agree.”
“We could do worse than Howard on our team.”
“Of course we could, but our team sucks.”
Damir couldn’t help but laugh, and the tension eased. “Baked potatoes and salmon for dinner all right?” he asked.
“Sure.” Ketchup checked the time on his smartwatch. “I’m gonna check in with my haunted boarding school.”
Damir frowned. “I thought it was a castle.”
“That was part one. We’re in part four now.” Ketchup hopped off the couch and headed for his room, his step a touch faster than it had been on their way to the rink this morning. He needed to reconsider his priorities.
Later, when the potatoes were in the oven, Damir checked his phone again and found a response waiting.
howza68: u get to be mean to me in bed not about my hockey
ddenisov88: who said I was being mean? I think your skating is good. game was shit, but you don’t need me to tell you.
howza68: I think I chose the wrong job.
Damir paused. He had an orange in one hand, about to cut it in half and squeeze the juice over the two massive salmon fillets he’d prepared for himself and Ketchup. The wrong job?
He set the orange down on the counter.
Before he could think twice about it, he pressed the FaceTime button.
“You’re a great hockey player,” he said the second the call connected.
Howard snorted. The camera showed an odd angle, looking down at him and highlighting every wrinkle on the bridge of his nose. It took Damir a moment to figure out he must be lying on his back in a hotel bed, his curls haloed around him. “Come on.”
“You’re twenty years old,” Damir told him. “You have all the time in the world to work on your skating.”
Howard groaned. He’d never sounded younger or more petulant. “Everyone’s always telling me how young I am. I’m an adult.”
“I know you are. Do people stop being able to learn things when they become adults?”
Howard’s jaw jutted out as if he were clenching his teeth. “I guess not,” he muttered.
“You can work on your skating if it bothers you. You’re in a slump; everyone gets them now and again. It will pass.”
“My skating will never get better.”
Damir leaned his phone against the backsplash and got to work with the orange. “Not with that attitude.”
“I’ve tried!” Howard looked so outraged Damir probably shouldn’t be thinking about how cute he was all flushed and bright-eyed. “I tried for years. My dad did every training program he could find with me. It didn’t stick.”
“Howard…”
Howard wrinkled his nose. “That sounds weird. You’ve seen me naked.”
“I’ve seen my entire team naked, and I don’t call them by their first names.”
“Not making it less weird.”
“Fine. Kilian.” The name rolled off Damir’s tongue, and he found he loved the sound. “Did you ever try a training program with a skating coach who wasn’t your father?”
The silence on the other end stretched suspiciously long.
Damir began mincing garlic and a chili pepper to complement the orange juice.
“Your first name is Damir, right?”
“Yes. You’re avoiding the question.”
“Can I call you Damir?”
“Yes.”
“Or would you prefer ‘sir?’”
“Absolutely not.”
Kilian laughed. “Noted.” He paused, a sly look stealing across his face. “So if I called you ‘sir’ anyway, would you punish me?”
Damir’s mouth went dry. “Would you want me to?”
Kilian wriggled in the sheets and reemerged propped up on one elbow, looking into his phone camera with what he probably meant to be a sultry expression. It made him look like a boy attempting his first seduction, not a good look on a man who took cock as well as he did. “I think I’d like it.”
“You’d look good with your ass all red from my hand.” Damir allowed himself to enjoy the mental image: Kilian, spread out on crisp, clean sheets the same way he was now, totally bare, while Damir slapped his ass until he begged for something else. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?”
“A little.”
“I don’t want to talk about hockey or my team or how much I sucked today,” Kilian said baldly. “I want to get off thinking about your dick in my ass.”
Damir licked his lips. “Do you have anything with you?”
“Anything like what?”
“A toy?”
“It’s a four-day roadie. Even if I had a toy, I wouldn’t have packed it.”
“You don’t have any?”
Kilian shrugged fluidly. “Whenever I get the urge, I go out and find a guy.”
“Spoiled brat.” Damir clucked his tongue. Not only spoiled, reckless too. He’d need to invest in a plug or two, something wide and heavy to keep Kilian out of trouble.
Wait, no.