Chapter One
“Coaching a hockey team is hard work for several reasons.
One, hockey is a fast, loud, aggressive sport, and the coach needs to be able to reliably track the movement of a very small piece of frozen, vulcanized rubber on the ice as well as make constant judgment calls about which line ought to play which strategy.
As a writer, none of these things are my strong suit.
Two, you have to be good at conveying the belief that your team losing a game is on par with a national tragedy.
Another personal failing of mine is that I do not care, nor have I ever cared, about who wins or loses sports games.
When my uncle’s brother-in-law, the Sea Lions’ erstwhile GM Martin Pulvermacher, called me up to ask a favor to investigate someone on staff sabotaging his team, I wasn’t prepared for how much the players would look up to me.
As their coach, they trusted my opinion on their professional skills, their teamwork, even their philanthropic efforts off the ice.
Once, in order to pursue my investigation, I had to healthy scratch (i.e.
, take out of the starting lineup for a game) a player who had done nothing wrong, and I made him cry.
When the team discovered I was not a real coach, in an act of grace I have a hard time believing to this day, they unanimously agreed I should continue on, enabling their best chance at success, though it meant more work from all of them to make up for my failings.
All this to say, coaching ended up being far more responsibility than I ever thought when Pulvermacher volunteered me for the gig.
After a year on the job, I know I am never going to become skilled at or interested in reading hockey plays or deciding the lineup.
But with these articles, I hope to at least live up to the trust the San Francisco Sea Lions put in me by revealing the truth about their owner, their defensive coach, and their GM. ”
During last season’s playoffs, Luca would relax between games by curling up on the couch to watch old soccer matches, yelling at the refs in Italian.
Chris spent some time during the off-season looking up the sport in the hopes it would make him a better roommate.
In the year they’d been living together, he’d gotten the impression Luca sometimes enjoyed living in his spare room and hanging out on road trips, but other times he would suddenly blow cold and make fun of Chris.
While Chris knew it was valid to make fun of him—because everyone in his life always had—the way Luca did it with his piercing, intelligent eyes and his matter-of-fact statements made Chris want to do better.
When Italy lost to Switzerland in the knockout rounds of the European Championships two weeks after the Sea Lions had been ousted from the playoffs, he texted Luca commiserations.
It was the first time they’d talked since parting ways after locker room clean-out.
Luca sent back a picture of himself in a soccer jersey with Italian flags painted on his cheeks, staring morosely at a large beer, and the floodgates opened. They texted all summer.
It made Chris glad he’d put in the effort to research all the different European soccer leagues, though there were a lot, and it took him most of a day and three Wikipedia spirals.
Luca had very few reasons to continue putting up with Chris.
Luca was clever, handsome, and good with women.
He had fantastic edgework on skates and unbelievable hockey IQ.
By contrast, Chris, while a solid enough defenseman, played the protector more than the playmaker.
His personal life had been nothing but a string of failed relationships, and he had the looks of a potato balanced on top of a boulder.
It was no secret that Luca knew it, either.
Luca didn’t beat around the bush; when he thought Chris said something dumb, he told Chris so.
At first, Chris found it a bit rude and jarring, but the longer he knew Luca, the more he appreciated his honesty.
It was refreshing. Most people acted nice to Chris and then made sly little digs that it took him a week to realize were meant to be mean. Luca was mean right to his face.
It amazed Chris that a guy as cool and smart as Luca had taken the time to text him all summer even while living it up in Europe.
By contrast, Chris had spent his off-season sleeping in the twin bed of his childhood bedroom and training at the same gym he’d been going to since age twelve.
It meant something to Chris, even if Luca barely tolerated him.
“Seriously, you should put your phone down. You will see him this afternoon.” Luca didn’t bother looking at him, eyes still trained on the game.
Dortmund was up one–nil. In a hockey game, one–nil meant nothing.
In soccer, it could be a death sentence.
It was the slowest sport Chris had ever watched, and being from Canada, he enjoyed curling.
Chris threw his phone face down onto the sofa. “I don’t want him to leave.”
“It might not be up to him,” Luca pointed out.
“You mean a trade?” Chris shuddered at the thought.
Over the summer, the San Francisco Sea Lions had gotten a new owner and a new general manager.
Presumably, they would need a few new coaches as well, since their former defensive coach was in jail and their former head coach wasn’t a coach at all.
So far there had been no announcements. The prolonged insecurity of the team’s situation left Chris on tenterhooks, worse even than last season, when the whole team had known about the messed-up coaching situation but couldn’t tell anyone.
At least then they could talk to each other.
Now, there was nothing to say because no one knew anything.
And the biggest question of all was Phil. Phil Easton, their alternate captain, had been out for most of last season with a torn ACL. He’d returned for playoffs in a diminished capacity, and his contract would run out tomorrow.
Chris was keenly aware he had taken Phil’s place in the first D-pair and on the first penalty kill unit.
For a while, he’d also been on the first power play unit, and the pressure had nearly killed him.
Being the lone defenseman on the power play required the kind of quick thinking that Chris was not known for.
When Luca took over on PP1, Chris breathed a sigh of relief.
And when Phil got back on skates in February for practices, he’d given Chris tips for the PK, making him hope things would return to normal.
If Phil left them, Chris had no idea what he would do. He couldn’t be responsible for PK1 without a mentor. He was an idiot. A potato-head idiot.
Luca poked him with his big toe. How were even his feet so elegant and handsome? “Stop worrying. Do you really think Phil would invite us to a barbecue specifically to tell everyone he is leaving?”
“Phil loves barbecues.”
“Breezy.”
Chris sighed. “No, probably not. I just don’t want to steal his position, you know? He’s so much better than I am. And what about—uh—his house. He wouldn’t want to give that up.”
Mentally, Chris kicked himself. He’d nearly revealed the team’s second-biggest secret.
No one knew Phil had married their ex-not-coach, Ben, midway through last season.
Chris found out by accident when he ended up as a witness for their wedding.
He’d done so well not telling anyone last year, but the summer break had lulled him into a false sense of security.
It was much easier not giving away people’s secrets when texting.
Speaking to Luca in person, Chris had a hard time not blurting out every stupid thought in his head.
There’d been no announcement on the team’s official Instagram before the party started at Phil’s.
Chris checked four more times. The soccer game ended, still one–nil, so Luca roused himself from the couch, and Chris drove them over in his truck.
Along the way, they picked up Howie from the one-bedroom shoebox he rented in Yerba Buena.
“Are you going to get a decent place this year?” Chris asked him.
“I thought you did not let players on ELCs pay for their own apartments,” Luca said from the passenger seat.
Chris had only been off his own ELC for a year now after a harrowing contract negotiation last summer.
His agent made it a sticking point that the contract last until Chris turned twenty-six, which dragged the process out by two whole weeks.
Chris didn’t understand why it was important for him to be an unrestricted free agent by the time the next negotiations rolled around.
He didn’t want to leave the Sea Lions, not now and not in four years.
His agent seemed sure he would get higher offers from other teams, but the whole concept made Chris uncomfortable.
Why would he want to give the Sea Lions a reason not to re-sign him? He wasn’t worth a big cap hit.
He would have been happy never earning more than he got on his ELC. With bonuses, it came to nearly a million a year, and he was nineteen when he signed. At nineteen, he earned far more than a living wage for the chance to play hockey professionally. Why ask for more?
But Chris knew the whole team would mock him for saying something so na?ve.
He had an accountant and an agent for a reason.
He couldn’t be trusted to make the right calls on his own.
So when his accountant suggested real estate as an investment, and his agent said finding a permanent place in the Bay Area would be a good idea, Chris did.
He used his bonus money from a lot of ice time and a decent plus/minus to buy his apartment a few months later.
It had high ceilings and big windows, a great location in the middle of Haight-Ashbury, and way too much space for one person, so Luca would not be paying rent, now or ever.