Chapter 4
Chapter Four
WHY HOCKEY MEDIA NEEDS TO GET A LIFE
We’ve seen it before. Some kid is put on a pedestal before they’re even old enough to buy beer, thrust under the scrutiny of every hockey fan in North America …
and they don’t live up to the hype. Time and time again, a young player doesn’t reach the lofty heights predicted for them by men who haven’t touched NHL ice since before those kids were born, and they’re immediately tossed out like trash.
It’s happened to McDavid for years, it sent poor Nolan Patrick to the hospital—it even happened to Crosby back when he had his first concussion.
But what the hockey media has been doing to Connor LaPorte and Nick Tiernan really takes the cake.
I get it. You wanted your big battle between the new franchises.
I too wish we could’ve seen what those two players would’ve become in that timeline.
But it didn’t happen. For whatever reason, LaPorte went to Switzerland.
Maybe the pressure got to him, maybe it really was an argument between him and Tiernan, maybe it was something entirely unrelated.
Either way, he left, and that should have been the end of it. Just because you pinned your entire hopes and dreams on a literal teenager doesn’t mean he owes you anything. And it doesn’t mean the one kid who did stick around needs to bear the burden for both of them.
We don’t need another Yakupov situation.
We’re lucky to have LaPorte back at all.
Throwing him to the wolves by setting him up as Tiernan’s greatest nemesis—at a time when Tiernan’s game is adjusting as he matures as a player, and deals with an inch growth spurt since last season—seems like a recipe for disaster to me. We’re barely a week in, people!
So get over yourselves. Get a life. And for God’s sake, learn to quit picking on children before the next draft.
—CrossCheck, October 10th, 2022
Never let it be said that Nick does not know how to repress the hell out of his own emotions.
Before leaving to join the team at the airport the next morning, he sends what he hopes is a totally friendly and normal response to Matt’s message, saying that he’d love to come to their show but could he also get tickets for Marco and Lindsay. Matt’s reply is almost instantaneous.
Matt
For sure! I figured you’d wanna bring someone haha. Just three tickets?
Is he fishing for something? As if Nick is capable of maintaining that level of privacy.
With a wish for luck in his upcoming games, that seems to be the end of the conversation, and Nick is left with a vague sense of confusion and a squirming, flickering hope in the pit of his belly. If he knew what was good for him, he’d squash it right there.
Nick’s rarely known what’s good for him.
Marco sits next to him on the flight, but the jet’s far too crowded to talk freely.
They share headphones and listen to the whole Sticks+Stones discography, including a couple of singles and B-sides Nick hadn’t yet discovered.
One, hilariously titled “Oh, Stanley”, sounds like a very gay love song but he realizes halfway through that it’s actually about the Stanley Cup, which is incredible.
Only when they’re settled in their hotel room in Tampa does Nick tell his friend about the concert tickets, and the excitement is enough to distract Marco from their promised conversation. Nick doesn’t bring it up—it’s really not that big a deal. He’s handling it.
The real surprise is that Matt keeps messaging him.
Not often enough to feel like a thing, but enough.
He sends Nick a picture of a TV screen turned to the Nevada–Tampa game at the buzzer, congratulating him on a hard-fought OT win.
He asks if NHL private jets are as fancy as he always imagined them to be.
He tells Nick about some donut place he loves in Nashville, joking that Nick should bring him back a box after their game there.
It’s … nice. He’s never really had this before—a person back home to text throughout his travels. Nick is sad to turn his phone off before his pre-game nap, but he needs to focus on his hockey, his team.
One member of his team in particular needs him a little extra tonight.
The energy in the locker room is good, everyone eager to get another win under their belts and get home, but Nick’s eyes linger on one of the stalls across the room from him. He watches trembling fingers tape socks in place, and bites his lip, abandoning his own gear to sidle on over.
“How you doing, man?”
The rookie goalie’s head snaps up, his eyes wide.
“Oh!” Picard squeaks, then coughs. “I, uh, hey, Cap. I’m—I’m good.”
That would be a lot more believable if he didn’t look like he was about to piss his pants.
“You’re ready for this,” Nick says confidently.
“It’s gonna be scary. The Cougars are gonna be right on your ass.
” The kid pales beneath his mop of mousy curls, freckles standing out stark.
“But we’ve all got your back. Those guys aren’t gonna let you look bad in your first game.
” Nick gestures across to where four of their seven D-men are all getting dressed.
“Just breathe through it, yeah? You got this.”
He’s so young—nineteen and looking all of twelve years old with his curly hair and his big blue eyes and his gangly frame.
The one time they tried to sneak him into a bar the bouncer almost had a hernia from laughing so hard.
Jonathan Picard is the very definition of a baby goalie, but he’s got talent pouring off him in waves and Nick is excited to watch him flourish.
Nick reaches for the goalie’s mask, setting it in Picard’s lap, and watches as the kid cradles it carefully, his thumb brushing over the stylized Starship Enterprise painted across the back. When he looks back up at Nick, he’s grinning.
“I got this,” he says, and he sounds like he means it, too. Nick matches his grin.
“Hell yeah.”
Nick barely remembers his own debut game.
He was a wreck, his head all over the place from spending weeks trying to find Connor and too many late nights spent watching SportsNet chatter about whether he’d be able to live up to the hype.
He has vague memories of staring at himself in a mirror before the game, pale as a ghost with red-rimmed eyes, but the actual game itself is a blank.
They won, which is all anyone needs to remember.
Nick doesn’t have time to stress about the concert when he gets home from their tough-fought overtime loss in Nashville; he’s straight into training, and then a photoshoot for Bauer, and then most of the day of the 14th is spent working on face-offs with the rookies.
He allows himself a small freak-out when he’s emailed three VIP passes, and then he zips it up tight and shoves it down into the space in the back of his mind to be dealt with later.
Suddenly, it’s later.
His buzzer rings out in warning and Nick swears loudly, looking at the pile of clothes strewn across his bed—all rejected outfits, which he definitely does not have time to put away before Marco and Lindsay reach his apartment, because they have their own keycard to his elevator, so he can’t stall them now.
He grabs Dolly under one arm and hurries out of his room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
“Ooh, you’re dressing from the twink closet tonight, I see,” Marco says by way of greeting, eyeing him over with a grin.
“I don’t have a twink closet!” Nick scowls, turning to check himself self-consciously in the mirror.
Marco loves to chirp him about the small collection of clothes he owns that do not suit the hockey bro vibe he tries to give off.
“I just don’t get many opportunities to go out for things that aren’t team events these days. ”
“God, tell me about it,” Lindsay says, groaning in agreement.
She looks punk as hell in a short red plaid skirt over knee-high boots and fishnets, with a cute black top and a patch-covered black denim jacket to go with it, her long brown hair braided up in a kind of faux-mohawk.
A far cry from the glamour of her usual WAG wardrobe.
“I’m amazed this skirt still fits. It’s been so long since I last wore it. ”
“You look hot, Linds,” Nick tells her with a thumbs-up, then winks at Marco.
“You too, babe.” He’s gone full emo kid, his tight black jeans ripped at the knees and a well-worn Green Day T-shirt under a black and red flannel.
Looking at them, Nick feels self-conscious for a whole other reason.
“This is okay, right? This isn’t exactly my kinda crowd. ”
Shit, he’s not used to feeling like this. Nervous, unsure, out of his depth.
“It’s perfect,” Lindsay assures him, far kinder than her husband. “But if you want to change, we still have time. Maybe I could take a look at your options.” She moves towards his bedroom, and Nick flings himself between her and the door.
“Nope!” he blurts out. “All good, this is fine, no need to change! We should get going anyway. Traffic’s gonna be a bitch.”
“Your entire closet is on the floor right now, isn’t it?” Marco says, folding his arms over his chest with a look of amusement on his face.
“Shut up. Let’s go.”
While his best friend laughs at him, Nick puts food down for Dolly and locks up his apartment, wondering if it’s too late to back out.
Lindsay hooks her arm through his, giving him a grin that settles the nerves twisting in his stomach. Fuck it. If the media wants to try and make a story out of him going to a concert with his best friends, that’s their problem.
Nick’s eyes go wide when he sees the huge crowd gathered outside the venue, funneling in at a steady pace. That’s … a lot of people.
“C’mon.” Marco bumps his shoulder gently, nodding in the direction of the much shorter VIP line. He steps up to the security guard at the door, who fastens neon yellow wristbands on their arms.