Chapter Two
Olivia Starling: What led you to hire a relative unknown as head coach?
Martin Pulvermacher: Good question, Olivia.
As GM of a hockey franchise, you’ve always got to focus on the best interests of the team.
It’s not just my legacy as GM I’m building; it’s the legacy of every player wearing the team sweater.
And when I’ve got good players asking for trades, and we have cap space to spare, that tells me San Francisco isn’t seen as an attractive place to build a legacy. So it’s time to think outside the box.
Olivia Starling: What players asked—
Martin Pulvermacher: Beside the point. Sometimes shaking things up is the right tactic to making a big change.
I believe Ben Morris—who I’ve known for a long time and who I trust to make the right choices for my players—will bring in some new ideas and some fresh air.
He’ll make the difference the Sea Lions need to be a contender.
Top comments:
Clions2010: not to be all doom and gloom, but this screams “last-ditch Hail Mary before the GM jumps ship.”
seelionssaylions: hiring a guy who hasn’t coached more than college hockey shows the lengths the NHL will go to in order to avoid hiring a qualified woman.
(Interview with Martin Pulvermacher, Sea Lions GM, at preseason training camp, on 09/17/2024)
“I moved into the apartment four months ago. How is there a rent adjustment so soon?” Ben hissed into the phone.
“Sorry, dude. It’s in the contract, in case of—”
“I read the contract,” Ben said and then lowered his voice immediately.
He stood in the glass-walled head coach’s office of the San Francisco Sea Lions’ practice facility in Palo Alto.
Unlike his enormous office in the massive arena, the windows let enough sound through that someone might overhear him.
If anyone heard him complaining about money issues, they’d have a lot of questions Ben couldn’t answer.
Underpaid, NHL coaches were not. “Fine, thanks, I guess.”
He hung up. Nothing to be done there.
The hell of it was, Ben already paid north of 3,000 a month for the pleasure of not even living in downtown San Francisco but in a shitty suburb.
He’d taken this job on the promise of eventually seeing revenue from it, not because he was earning jack right now.
Ben lived off of royalty checks and the vague hope that maybe Netflix would be interested in making a six-part miniseries based on his last book.
They could get someone iconic like Stephen Fry to narrate.
It would do great. Everyone wanted to watch six hours of content about how pharmaceutical companies were destroying the healthcare system.
Anyway, an extra 150 a month would eat into his savings.
And by “eat into,” Ben meant “decimate.” Sure, he technically got wages as a coach, but Ben had set up a separate account for his paychecks, and he had no intention of touching the money.
He didn’t want compensation for a job he hadn’t earned and wasn’t doing competently.
Ben had let the situation continue unchecked for long enough to break Phil Easton’s knee. He had to set some sort of professional standard.
The sound of a whistle echoed around the arena, and Ben cursed. Late to practice again. Who knew organized sports were this much work?
He didn’t rush. Rushing would be admitting he wasn’t late on purpose.
Instead, he went over the list of hockey drills he’d memorized in early August while he walked downstairs: Two-on-two.
Or three-on-three. Maybe four-on-four, if he was feeling really adventurous.
He could combine the name of the drill with “half ice” or “full ice,” and everyone would know what to do.
Times sure had changed since Ben had tried college hockey, where the drills consisted of getting everyone winded and panting by making them sprint really fast and then having them whack a few pucks in the vague direction of the goal. Or maybe he’d just been bad at hockey.
One time, Ben had assigned a quarter-ice drill to see what would happen. Vanderbilt and Calabrese crashed into each other three times, which had been highly entertaining. Afterward, Ben claimed he was training their finesse.
It was November now, and at the start of this job, he’d fully expected to be done here by Christmas. Surely, he couldn’t do too much damage in less than half a season.
Kilian Howard and Diego Lunes finished a pretty passing sequence and looked over to Ben. He shot them a thumbs-up. It was unusual for them to appear so graceful on their edges, Howard particularly.
Ben couldn’t believe he knew that.
Since when did he give a shit about Howard skating better? He never meant for this to be a long-term gig. Who cared about what would happen to the team’s playoff chances once Ben left mid-season? Not Ben.
Definitely not Ben.
“Coach? Can I talk to you?”
“Huh?” Ben said.
Crowler, the team captain, never wanted to talk. He just did what the coaches told him. If anyone were to follow Ben’s harebrained example and pose as an NHL coach, he’d wish them a captain like Crowler. Never being questioned went a long way.
“I’m worried about Phil. Easton,” Crowler said.
“Hm.”
Beyond updates the team trainers gave Ben about Easton’s injury, Ben hadn’t heard much.
He knew the ACL hadn’t been completely torn, but if Phil couldn’t rehab it by the time his contract expired in the summer, it could end his career.
There wasn’t a lot Ben could do, as guilty as he felt that it had happened under his watch.
It sucked, but Ben had faith Easton’s current multimillion-dollar contract would be a great comfort in this trying time.
“He lives alone,” Crowler continued. “He’s been sleeping on the couch because he can’t get up the stairs. I think the team needs to send someone by to help him.”
Ben frowned. All annoyance about hockey and hockey players aside, Easton struck him as a good guy.
The team was less enjoyable to be around with him gone.
And while Phil, like most professional athletes at the highest level, might be undeservedly wealthy in Ben’s opinion, the thought of Easton all alone and unable to sleep in his own bed made Ben’s stomach squirm unpleasantly.
Especially given Ben’s part in his injury.
Still, he doubted Easton would enjoy his employer deciding whether he was capable of living by himself or not.
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “If Easton doesn’t want—”
“He’s thinking about suing.”
Ben froze.
“We all know his contract’s not getting renewed,” Crowler continued. “And if Trout hadn’t been running the defensemen ragged, he might have—”
“Ah, fuck.” Ben dragged a hand through his hair.
If Easton sued now, they would all be in deep shit.
He didn’t have any proof, and Trout would laugh it out of court.
Someone needed to convince Easton to wait a couple months, and unfortunately, someone’s name began with a B and ended with EN-the-colossally-fucked. “Thanks for telling me, Crowler.”
Crowler shrank back as if being called by name reminded him that he was currently interacting with another human being. “Will you— He won’t— I mean, if he wants to sue, it would be his right.”
“Oh, believe me, I know.” Ben probably knew better than anyone else in the building how in the right he would be. “I’ll take care of him—of it.”
He headed to his office, practice forgotten. So what if Coach Trout broke another player on Ben’s watch?
When Ben had researched a major pharmaceutical company two years ago, the human cost of malpractice had been a constant looming specter.
Patients, particularly low-income patients of color, suffered because of the decisions a bunch of old white men in suits made on the daily.
Righteous indignation fueled what Ben saw as some of his best work to date.
Being one of the white guys in a suit felt very different. The guilt of knowing he was letting the team down haunted him constantly, even though he believed everyone would be fine—in a monetary and physical sense—when he finished this job.
But being responsible for shitty things happening to other people felt a lot worse than uncovering shitty things someone else was doing to other people. He should have seen that one coming when he took the job, given who hired him.
He let himself fall into the comfy leather chair behind his desk and wondered if anyone would notice if he wheeled it out of the arena when he quit.
Phil Easton, all alone with an injury immobilizing him. Aware his coaches had let him down. Contemplating suing seriously enough to tell Crowler. Leaving Easton to muddle through alone could only make his ideas for revenge fester. Ben knew what isolation could do to a person.
Ben eyed the rental contract for his stupidly expensive one-bedroom apartment.
Phil Easton needed a caretaker. Ben needed to not pay out the eyeballs for accommodation.
Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone.
Ben turned up at Easton’s house three hours later with his suitcases packed and in hand.
It was a dickishly confident move, but desperate times called for dickishness.
If Easton couldn’t be talked into an in-home caretaker, Ben would check into the nearest Super 8.
He’d already broken his lease and left the apartment, thankful he’d chosen a month-to-month and could fit all his possessions into two bags.