Chapter 9
The first day of training camp always got me fired up.
Didn’t matter how long I’d been in the league, the start of the season still made me feel like a little kid, eager to lace up my skates.
That kind of passion, that love of the game, was every bit as important as any skill I might have.
Without that passion, I would have quit a long time ago.
The road to an NHL career is long and difficult.
For years I practiced before school, every day of the week, while most of my friends slept in.
In high school I got a part time job to help my parents pay the hefty ice time fees.
Combined with my school work and my two-a-day hockey practices, it’s a wonder I ever got any sleep.
But it had been worth it. It had been worth every drop of sweat, every knocked-out tooth, every check to the boards. When I skated out onto that ice for the first time in Austin, I knew I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. A hockey rink was where I was supposed to be.
“Listen up, men,” Coach Dillion called, and we all grouped around him.
“We’re gonna start with some drills today, get your blood pumping.
” He gestured to his side. “This is Gates, your assistant coach. He’ll be in charge.
You do everything he says and you don’t complain and you should survive the day. ”
He looked around at us, making eye contact with a few guys, then let out a sigh before turning and skating away.
“That guy really needs to tone it down with his optimism,” Jay said. “I’m going to start feeling spoiled.”
I snorted and turned my attention to Coach Gates, ready to hear what he wanted to see from us.
We ran drills the entire morning. Dillion didn’t come back to the ice, nor did I see him in the stands. Knight was up there with a few of the management guys, but no coach. You’d think he’d want to see what we were capable of.
Then again, if he stuck around to watch it might just destroy whatever shred of optimism he still possessed.
We were a mess. There was just no getting around it. The first day of camp was always an adjustment. Veterans usually felt rusty. It didn’t matter how much you worked out over the summer, getting back on the ice with a major league team after a few months off was a shock to the system.
But rusty veterans were the least of our worries. The rookies—and man, there were so many rookies—were skittish and nervous. I had watched them doing some of these same drills earlier in the week so I knew they had it in them. Hopefully they just needed a little time to work out the nerves.
Otherwise, we were going to be in really big trouble.
After a quick break, Gates broke us up into scrimmage teams. I found myself with Jay, Karlsson, Ryan Cane, and a bunch of guys I didn’t know well yet. Enzo was in goal for our side, and I skated over to him before Gates dropped the puck. “You feeling loose?”
“Not too bad,” he said, stretching in the crease.
“I watched you play the other day at prospects camp. You were looking solid out here.”
He grunted. “Got to tell you, I wasn’t getting many difficult shots coming my way.”
Yeah. I’d noticed that too.
“Well, you got some real competition today. A bunch of these guys have been in the big leagues for years.” A bunch was probably exaggerating a bit, but he didn’t call me on it. “You just stay steady, kid. You’re gonna do well.”
Then I skated over to take the first face-off.
By the end of the first period of the scrimmage, it was becoming pretty easy to see what we had to work with.
Several of the rookies seemed to loosen up a little, now that we were playing a game.
There were still some nerves evident on that ice, but there was plenty of talent, too.
A little more experience and they just might do okay.
Now if I could just get some of the veteran guys to fix their attitude.
I’d never heard so many grown ass men complaining in my life.
They bitched about the rookies, team management, the move.
They grumbled that it was too hot in Texas and the ice was going to be shit.
They whined that no one in Austin was going to come out to watch us anyhow.
They even complained about the new owner, how he was too full of himself and wanted to make the whole thing about him.
“My kid doesn’t whine this much,” I muttered to Jay when we finally hit the locker room. “I mean, Jesus.”
“Some of ’em are pretty damn ridiculous,” he agreed. “The way they’re carrying on, you’d think they were playing on a minor team in some podunk town in the middle of nowhere, barely making beer money.”
“You say that like you have some personal experience there,” I said, fucking with him, and he flipped me off.
We hit the showers and got dressed. “You want to stop in the lounge?” Jay asked. “See what kind of spread they have out?”
“Sure.”
The lounge was not even recognizable as the half-finished room we’d seen the first day.
The building team must have been hustling their asses off, because most of the off-ice player spaces were up and running.
This room had plenty of seating—leather arm chairs and couches—as well as a full bar and a buffet table.
Every time I’d stopped in here there had been food and snacks out.
This would be a nice place to bring family after the games.
It was also nice to just chill with teammates in here when we weren’t working out.
We filled up our plates with sandwiches, fruit, and a half dozen hardboiled eggs each—hockey players could never get enough protein during the season—then went to sit down at a table occupied by Tommy Weaver, Enzo the goalie, and Karlsson.
“You were looking pretty good out there, Tommy,” I said to the bean pole rookie. He was one of the only new guys to score a goal today, and he’d made a sweet pass to Karlsson in the last five minutes of play that ended up in the back of the net.
He grinned sheepishly. “You couldn’t tell that I puked three times this morning?”
We all laughed. “Been there, kid. Sometimes I still puke before a big game,” Karlsson told him.
“Where are you from, anyhow?” I asked Tommy. His accent was Canadian and thicker than I was used to.
“Grew up on a little farm outside of Saskatoon,” he said.
“Shit, you’re far from home.”
Tommy smiled. “Yeah. My mom about had a coronary when I told her where I was going.”
“Funny,” Cane muttered, walking past our table with a plate filled with sandwiches. “I about had a coronary myself. Fucking Texas.”
Whatever else he was going to say about our new home city we didn’t hear as he walked away.
“That guy’s a peach,” Enzo said, reaching for a bottled water.
Tommy was shaking his head. “I’ve heard a bunch of the guys from Atlanta bitching about Austin. I don’t get it.”
“You know what happened to the team?” Karlsson asked.
“Oh, yeah. That shit was a big deal even way the hell up there in Saskatchewan. I just don’t get why they’re so mad to be here.
” He shook his head again. “Closest town to me had a population of three hundred and forty-seven. Now I’m living in this legit city.
Do you have any idea how many restaurants there are here?
Back home we had two—a diner and a bar that served burgers and they both closed at ten.
Now I can call up a place pretty much any time day or night and they’ll bring food right to my apartment!
” He shook his head. “That’s crazy, man. ”
We all laughed. “The farm boy discovers the joys of city living,” Enzo said.
“I just don’t get it,” Tommy continued. “We get to play for an NHL team. That’s the fucking dream. What the hell is there to complain about?”
“Here, here,” Jay said, raising his water bottle.
For the rest of the meal, Jay entertained us with tales from the various shitty minor league teams he’d been sent down to over the years.
As I watched him talk, I couldn’t help but wonder what had been behind the decision to make him alternate captain.
I loved Jay like a brother, but he was far from a big name in the league.
He was a solid player, but he’d never had much luck.
No matter how well he played, he just couldn’t seem to find a team to stick with him.
Then again, that meant he probably had more experience than anyone in the locker room.
He’d played everywhere, from the most minor farm squad to playoff contending NHL franchises.
Maybe with such a young group of players, management was hoping that his experience, colorful as it was, would equal leadership skills.
And speaking of management…
“Does that guy intimidate anyone else?” Tommy asked in a low voice, his eyes on the door. I turned to see Andrew entering the room, decked out in a custom fitted suit that probably cost more than my folks made in a month, his normal intense expression on his face.
If the other guys agreed with Tommy, I didn’t hear it. I was too busy staring at the woman who’d come in with Andrew.
“Shit,” Enzo muttered. “That’s the hottie he had with him the first day. Please tell me she works here. I love redheads.”
“Stay the fuck away from her,” I growled, never taking my eyes off Grace.
My attention was so single-minded it took me a minute to realize her two friends from the bar were with them, too.
Andrew was talking to the girls, waving his hands around, while they nodded.
It looked like he was giving her friends a tour of the new facility.
“Captain is a little protective of that one,” Jay said, and I could hear the amusement in his voice. I flipped him off. Then Grace caught sight of me and her eyes widened, just a bit, before she gave me a shy smile and a wave.
Shit, that smile did things to me.