Chapter 5
Two hours after successfully showing Josie the new house, I wasn’t quite so enthusiastic about the move.
I sat in my parked car in the player’s lot at Knight Arena, wondering what I could expect when I went inside.
From out here, the place looked top of the line.
If I knew anything about Andrew Knight, he wouldn’t have spared any expense in making his own hockey arena.
I was sure the facilities inside would be just as swanky as the glass fronted building appeared to be.
The guy had always been a smug little show-off on the ice.
The facilities weren’t what had me feeling anxious.
It was the team itself. Since the trade went through, the logistics of a cross-country move occupied most of my brain space.
Now that I’d finally gotten Josie down here and settled in the new house, I let myself think about the team and everything that had happened.
There were few people in the league—and even fewer people in the media—who believed we had much of a shot at success.
My high school coach, Levi Newton, who I still talked to regularly and considered a mentor, had called me after the trade became public to wish me luck.
He’d tried to put on a good front—his positivity was one of the things that made him my favorite coach ever—but I could tell even he was feeling bad for me getting stuck in this mess.
There was just too much baggage with the Atlanta team and the sale and move had happened so quickly it was hard to see how things were going to improve much any time soon.
It had been more than a year ago that the hockey world was rocked by the sudden arrest of Frank Manchin, the owner of the Atlanta Blades.
The feds indicted him on all kinds of charges from tax evasion to insider trading.
Most damning of all, they alleged that the hockey team was little more than a cover for his money laundering schemes.
Big names in team management—including the GM—had been indicted within weeks of Manchin’s arrest. Several players had even been caught up in it. The entire thing was a mess.
The NHL had promptly taken over the team while bankruptcy proceedings began. There were rumors floating around that they were going to put the franchise on hiatus, something that hadn’t been done in the league in almost a hundred years.
Caught up in the whole mess were the players.
Not a single free agent elected to stay with the team.
Who would blame them? Many of the guys who were trapped in long-term contracts demanded trades.
No one wanted to be a part of a sinking ship and the ongoing federal investigation in Atlanta, the NHL imposed budget freeze, losing their GM to racketeering charges, and the constant hounding of the press was enough to make anyone wish to be anywhere else but Atlanta.
Enter Andrew Knight. He made an offer on the team, even agreeing to clear out a huge chunk of the debt the league had been forced to take on.
That, I was sure, was the prime reason the board of governors allowed the sale in time for the new season.
Throw enough money around and you’re more than likely to get your own way.
I hadn’t seen Andrew in years, not since we’d been seniors in college.
We’d been competitive our entire lives, from our peewee squad in St. Paul right up through a head-to-head matchup in the Frozen Four our junior year of college.
I’d expected to face off against him in the big leagues as well—Knight had been drafted the same year as me, only three spots lower, but a wicked knee injury in senior year kept him from ever lacing up in a professional game.
After graduation I’d started my career in New York’s farm team while Andrew set off to conquer the business world.
Looking up at the gleaming building in front of me, the massive letters over the door proclaiming it Knight Arena, I couldn’t help but chuckle.
I guessed the guy had done plenty well for himself without hockey.
The clock on my dashboard told me I only had fifteen minutes to get inside.
Since I wasn’t familiar with the facility, I figured I may as well head in.
I was bent over the trunk of my car retrieving my gear bag when I heard someone call my name.
Looking up, I saw Jay making his way across the parking lot, a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes.
“You’re still hungover,” I guessed and he grimaced.
“Just woke up.”
I shook my head. “Must be nice.” As the primary caregiver to an eight-year-old, I couldn’t remember the last time I slept in.
“So.” Jay peered up at the arena. “You have a bad feeling about this, or is it just me?”
I shrugged. I was pretty sure we were going to find plenty of guys in that locker room who had zero desire to be here. Morale was most definitely not going to be high.
On the other hand, we had a brand-new owner who liked to make a splash, which could very well mean he’d spare no expense to make this team successful. As far as I could tell, it could go either way.
Jay and I started walking towards the glass doors. “To be honest, man, I think moving here is gonna be really good for Josie. So I’m all in. I’ll do whatever I can to stick around.”
“Even though our new owner hates your guts?” I had mentioned a bit of my history with Andy to Jay after Grace left last night.
“Maybe he’s over it,” I said, even though I doubted it. “I mean, he did trade for me.”
“Or maybe you were the only guy he could get.”
I laughed, shoving him. “I’ve missed having your support in my life, man.”
Jay laughed. “I’m just keeping it real.”
We reached the front door just as another guy was coming in from the other side of the lot. “Hey,” he said, nodding at us. He looked a little familiar to me, but that could have meant anything. If you lasted as many years in the NHL as I had, you ended up playing against a hell of a lot of guys.
“I’m Enzo,” he said. “Goalie.”
The name didn’t ring any bells so I held out my hand. “Liam O’Conner.”
He smirked a little as we shook. “Yeah, I figured that.” The goalie turned to my friend.
“Jason Briggs. But I’m guessing you figured that out too.”
Enzo’s expression turned immediately uncomfortable. He clearly had no idea who Jay was and was probably wondering if it would be too rude to say so. Jay and I both cracked up.
“Messing with you, man. I’m a nobody.”
“Not true,” I argued. “Don’t you hold the record for most penalty minutes for the Greenville Swamp Rabbits? Or was that the record for worst shot percentage? I always mix that up.”
“Fuck off,” Jay said, grinning. The goalie looked back and forth between us, like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of our banter.
“Let’s head in,” I said. “Don’t want to be late on the first day.”
A security guard with a paunchy belly and a long grey beard met us at the door and we all held out our passes. “Head on in, boys,” he told us. “You just make a left at the end of this hallway, but we put signs up. Should be easy enough to find the room.”
“Thanks, man. What’s your name?” If I had learned anything in my years of playing it was this: befriend the guys who work at the arena. They could be the difference between a smooth day at work or one filled with any number of shitty little hassles.
“Jed Poole.”
I held up a fist to bump his and introduced myself and my two new teammates.
“Good to meet ya,” he said. “I’m sure you boys are gonna do great.”
“You a hockey fan, Jed?”
The guy laughed. “I’ve never seen a hockey game in my life. We watch football in these parts.”
“Welcome to Texas,” Jay muttered once we were inside, and I snorted.
“Guess we should expect that, huh? Not a whole lot of ice around here.” I turned to the goalie. “Where you from, kid?”
“I was playing on Atlanta’s farm team,” he said. “Down in Mississippi.” He grinned. “Talk about a hockey hotbed, right?”
We both laughed. “I think I did a stint down there,” Jay said, scrunching up his face in thought. “Mississippi Magnolias?”
“Yeah,” Enzo said, rolling his eyes. “Dumbass name for a hockey team.”
“That’s not even the worst team I played for,” Jay assured him.
The kid cast a glance in my direction, almost looking shy. “I actually grew up in New York. Bunch of my friends had posters of you on their walls.”
“Jesus, that makes me feel old,” I said, laughing.
“Because you are old,” Jay pointed out.
Just like Jed had said, the signs leading to the locker room were clear and easy to follow. After a couple turns, we found ourselves in front of a closed door with a paper players only sign taped to the outside.
“Hey kid.” I poked Enzo in the shoulder. “This your first time in the big leagues?”
His smile was a little sheepish. “That obvious, huh?”
“Just enjoy it, man,” I told him. “You make it through camp and we’ll take you out for a beer.”
Jay shot me an amused glance. “You’re just trying to be cool cause the kid grew up watching you play.”
I ruffled Jay’s hair, which I knew he hated. “I don’t need to try to be cool. I just am.”
“Uh huh.” He pushed my hand away. “Just go inside, would you?”
“Don’t rush the kid! This is a big moment.”
Enzo cast me a glance before pushing open the door. “Walking into an NHL locker room with Liam O’Conner,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Wild.”
It was kind of trippy, that look he gave me.
I remembered the day New York had called me up like it was yesterday.
My first time in that locker room I had nearly pissed myself when I realized I’d been assigned the stall right next to Dale Morrison, a legendary left wing I’d idolized since junior high.
And now I was the veteran some twenty-year-old kid had grown up watching. Life was weird, man.