 
W

A

N

D

E

R

E

R

Elskan Triumph

## BeachChair Press

Wanderer by Elskan Triumph

Published by BeachChair

www.middleschoolpoetry180.wordpress.com

Copyright © 2018 Elskan Triumph

All right reserved.

Al places, persons, events are all works of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, places or events past or present are coincidental.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact Elskan Triumph:

One

You watch him ruin your father.

In the corner of the room, only a boy, you sit in a wooden chair with armrests and watch the adults conduct their business.

Behind the broad desk sits your father. He is the owner of several businesses and an important man in town, but is known for owning several metal fabrication plants and the local hockey team. He is grounded in both his work and as a person. For this, he has the respect of everyone you know.

Framed Hamilton Forge jerseys line the wall. The black and silver with gold lettering for away games, and gold with black and silver for home. Some are from long-ago Hall of Fame players, while others are signed by entire teams that had enjoyed success. The Forge has a long, storied history.

But there is no trophy. Not the trophy that matters, anyway.

No championship.

You feel the absence because it obsesses your father. It is the one topic of conversation that agitates him; not always in a good way. He talks about it at dinner and in conversations with the other adults who visit and admire his paraphernalia. You hear other kids at school follow the successes and failures of the team throughout the season. The news tracks the team's every play, and questions and begs for a championship.

You feel for him.

All of this is on his shoulders.

It weighs on him and so it weighs on you.

Your father means everything to you.

Across the desk stands the solution: Liam Smith.

Smith was deemed a Hall of Fame player the moment he stepped on the ice. A legend from the start, he had none of the pedigree of the other players. An army brat, he traveled and switched teams so often that his exploits would be records had he completed a single season in one place. A nomad. He had every skill, and could probably play goalie if his ability to make goals was not so strong.

And his desire to control.

Smith of the Forge.

When your father signed him the legend seemed to write itself.

And for this entire season that destiny has played out.

Here they are; the Forge are ranked first as the playoffs begin.

"I'm feeling a twinge in my knee," Smith says.

You snap back into the present.

"Have a seat," your father replies. He said the same thing when Smith had arrived, and for a second time Smith declines.

Across the desk from your father, Smith is a looming hulk. He is not dressed for practice, wearing only jeans and a plain green sweater. The sweater is wool and looks rough. Your father, as always, is wearing a grey suit and tie and looks small in comparison, sitting behind that desk.

"What are you getting at?" Mr. Martin, your father's attorney and friend asks. Seemingly always present, it is the first time you notice him.

"I can't play," Smith replies.

Then, he smiles.

Even you, a child, knows he is playing a game. You have classmates who do the same, and you are smart enough not to trust them. Nothing good comes from them.

"And what would help your knee?" your father asks.

This time, his smile is only on one side of his face, but his eyebrows narrow with focus. From his pocket he withdraws a white piece of paper. It is folded in half. Without a word, he slides it across the desk to your father.

After opening it, your father stares at Smith.

The room is quiet, although you can still hear the sounds of players working out and practicing coming through the walls. A shrill whistle.

"You want to renegotiate your contract," your father summarizes.

"Yes."

"We can do that after the season."

"We can do that now."

Silent, your father's eyes flick to the paper for a second.

"I can't afford this," he says.

"You are a wealthy, powerful man," Smith replies.

"I took out considerable loans to get you in the first place," your father says. "To get here."

"You clearly want the championship," Smith says with confidence. "Are you really going to be cheap, now? So close to your goal?"

"I did not get to own a hockey club and businesses by being a pushover."

You are proud of your father's stance. He is forceful. Rightly, you expect Smith to fold. To return to the practice. He is, after all, a mere employee.

Smith does not move.

Instead, he says, "Well, I can sit on injured reserve--and be paid--or you can trade me, today, and recoup some of the contract."

Two bad choices.

Standing across from your father, looking at him in the eye, you are surprised by Smith's lack of humility. He shows no embarrassment about his lack of honor.

"You made a deal," you tell him.

Never before have you interrupted one of your father's meetings--you probably shouldn't even be here--but here you are. "You made a deal," you repeat.

Smith only smiles.

He turns to you, as if noticing you for the first time--but you know that isn't true. Although you are young, you know when someone is going to use you as a pawn in their game.

"You've got an honest kid," Smith says to your father, not you.

"Yes," your father admits. "There is one honest person in the room."

"The kids wants a championship."

"We all do. And, as he points out, you made a deal."

"Show me where my contract says I have to play hurt."

"We can sue..." begins Mr. Martin.

"Long after you're eliminated from the playoffs."

The room falls silent.

You don't move.

No one does.

Finally, Smith speaks up. "I'm going to check in with coach. Then, the trainer. Someone might find a way to make this injury go away."

And then he leaves.

Just like that.

My father turns to Mr. Martin.

"Trade him," my father tells him. "Get him out of here."

Two

"Let me tell you a story," the old man sitting next to you says. "A team is not a single player, although a single player can make a team."

"What does that mean?" you ask. There is an impertinent tone in your voice.

You don't really care, but you were brought up to be polite. To listen to older people, even if they are about to tell a boring story. So, you listen.

"For a mediocre team, a single player can break away and win a game. But a decent team, that works as a team, can neutralize that great player. If their own team is hollow, that single great player is left with nothing and the team falls apart."

"But what about the second part--the single player making the team?"

"Ah, the boy is listening." The old man laughs at his own joke. "A single great player can take that true team and make each player better at what they do. No one can beat them."

"Unless you take out the great one."

"Sometimes, not even then. Not if he truly leads."

The night of the meeting between the player and your father, Liam Smith is traded to Montreal, and then Ottawa.

It is an unexpected trade. Your father had hoped never to see him again.

Instead, the opposite happens.

On Monday the playoffs begin. Hamilton plays Ottawa. Smith never leaves town.

During the Ottawa's practice, you sit in the cheap seats and watch.

Smith's practice jersey is Ottawa red instead of Hamilton gold. It seems wrong to you. He is unmistakable, though.

You watch as he glides. His stick work is perfect, even in drills. Fluid.

Even though he has been with the team for less than an hour, all of the other players defer to him. As he barks orders and plays and positions they follow. He takes no breaks. When there is a line shift, he stays. Looking to the side, the coach quickly stops interfering and just lets the team practice at Smith direction. At first the others cannot keep up, but by the time their ice time ends Smith is an Ottawa regular.

When the Hamilton Steel practice, they look human.

With the addition of Smith to Ottawa, what should have been a walkover on the way to the championship becomes a contest. The stadium is sold out with fans expecting a rout. No one has really had time to absorb what the trade means to the series. Hamilton is still stacked with talent, but something is clearly missing: Liam Smith.

For the first time you do not sit with your father in the owner's box.

From Mr. Martin's secretary you get a seat behind the northern goal, against the glass. Twelve years old, you are in a crowd of zealous older fans who come in excited to the point of violence. They have come expecting a championship. Now they add hate for Smith to their emotional bucket. As you look around you see a lot of gold and black and silverHamilton Steel jerseys. None of them have Smith's name on the back--although a number have large strips of duct tape over where his name is and an X over his old number.

As the players circle around, warming up, the discontent of the crowd grows.

Ottawa is warming up on your end.

Loud, foul words fill your ears.

You are focused on one player: Smith.

The referee blows the whistle and the crowd erupts.

Warm ups are over. The game is about to begin.

Looking back at the owner's box, you see your father standing. He never stands. Clearly, he is nervous. Anxious. You take on his burden, but know it does not help him. Behind him stands Mr. Martin, simply distracted and slightly dour.

Three

After the puck drops you focus only on the game.

Smith is masterful.

Fluid.

You grew up with hockey. As the son of the owner you have seen hundreds of games and every great of the past decade. Your father used to prop you up on his lap so you could watch!

No one compares to Smith.

When Ottawa came to Hamilton a month ago they were hapless. Somehow, they snuck into the playoffs because another division team was even worse. They should not be on the same ice as the Forge. Yet, here they are.

Skating with us, you realize.

Smith is alone on the ice, his teammates mere accoutrements to his greatness.

You do not want to admit any of this.

All around you people curse Smith.

Ottawa's whole attack seems to be based around dumping the puck in the corner and digging it out, hoping to center it. As players go in, Hamilton players check them into the boards. The sound of the player against the glass is loud.

A pop.

Each time, the crowd cheers.

They want blood.

Only once does Smith seem to get into that fray; he waits on the edges.

Smith and a teammate go in and a Hamilton defenseman follows, hard. The boards make a crack.

Loud.

The reaction of the crowd is louder.

They think Smith was the receiver of the hit.

Instead, Smith sneaks to the side.

It all happens in front of you. You saw it:

A Hamilton defenseman comes in hard, with Smith in his sights. Free hit.

Revenge.

Smith skirts to the side, leaving his teammate, who is covering the puck, take the hit.

That is the sound everyone hears.

But Smith has moved to the side.

With his teammate against the glass, the puck kicks back a bit. Smith handles it briefly, and then flicks it to the center in front of the net. Even his own teammate, the left wing, seems surprised to suddenly be sanding three meters in front of the goal with the puck.

As he begins to shoot, Smith glides around the far side of the net. He's by the goal.

Instead of shooting at the waiting goalie, he passes to Smith.

It is as if they know.

In the stadium, it is as if everyone knows.

The puck goes to Smith.

In reaction, the goalie shifts towards Smith.

Ottawa's wing moves right, to the side of the open net.

Too late, the goalie sees what will happen.

And then it doesn't.

Smith scores instead. Flick into the upper right corner of the net.

You cannot believe it.

First, you look at that Ottawa left wing. You think he should be disappointed--it was his shot. Instead, he seems happy to just be on a winning side. He bumps his gloves to Smith's.

All of the sides switch.

Except Smith.

He stays in.

You look back at the owner's box.

Your father is no longer there.

Four

The first game is hard faught. But Hamilton loses.

The second game is better, but Smith finds a way to tie in the final seconds. Then wins.

In a best of three series, Hamilton finds itself out.

No championship. Not even a playoff win.

"It was not supposed to go like this," is all your father says.

When he goes to his office the next morning his creditors are waiting.

So much was depending on success. Your father gambled big.

And lost.

You sense that he is in trouble. That your family fortune is in trouble. Mr. Martin looks anxious and rarely speaks to anyone, instead rushing in and out of rooms with a furrowed brow.

Out of respect and loyalty to your father, you watch none of the remaining playoffs.

Still, you want to.

In school, you hear results and are not surprised that Ottawa is the unexpected champion. You have seen Smith up close and know his name alone should be on that cup. Everyone talks about him. They regale each other with his exploits.

"Did you see that play?" they ask.

They retell it before you can respond.

You begin to walk away. To isolate.

Peers leave you alone. As if mourning.

In a sense, you are.

When the professional season ends, your junior hockey season begins.

"Are you excited?" your best friend Peter asks.

"About?"

"Starting camp next week?"

You are. Camp takes place at the stadium you grew up haunting, and so you have a bit of a feeling of ownership. Also, you are by far the best player. Among your peers and in the league, you are seen as a rising star. There was talk about you playing up, but your father had wanted you to savor being a child and enjoying the game.

Now you rarely see him.

"Yes," you tell Peter. "I am excited."

Five

"Let me tell you a story," the old man says to you.

You grit your teeth, but listen.

"Before you can be a team, you have to be your best self."

Then, he stares out at the horizon.

Finally, he speaks again.

"You have to have something to offer--bring something to the table--before you can share."

Coach is all about team.

This is the third program you've been in this year, and it is the third time you have been unsatisfied.

"Okay, break-aways," he shouts.

You streak down the right side in support while your mediocre partner clumsily handles the puck before nearly losing it. His flip to the left corner of the goal is easily deflected by the goalie.

"Try again," the coach says, blowing the whistle for the next pair.

But you already have the rebound, having circled behind the net. You flip it in, backhanded.

Whistle.

After he's done yelling at you there are ten suicides to do.

For everyone.

"We are a team," he shouts over the scraping of skates on the ice.

"This drill is isolating a specific skill," he continues.

"Make way for the next pair," he mutters as you pass by him for the seventh time.

Exhausted by this punishment, the drills then continue.

When it comes time to scrimmage, you pass off every play.

"Take the shot!" the coach finally yells.

Whistle.

"What?" you ask. "You want team. I'm setting up Murphy for the score."

"If you want to make someone angry," his father once said, "give them what they say they want."

The coach makes you do ten more suicides.

Alone.

You don't care. This is your third team. You have a reason that has nothing to do with what you perceive as the "fools" around you. No time for champions, you think.

There is only one motivation: Revenge.

It keeps you up at night while your father tries to keep his world together. Your mother has moved out, "temporarily." You see little of your father--mostly Mr. Martin. To pay debts your father has lost half of his businesses.

And has lost the hockey team.

You have been friendly with the new owners since a child--your father is still respected, if a bit pitied these days--and so they allow you to use the rink and facilities to supplement your formal hockey practices. Each day you do hours of stick drills, and hours of skating. Mr. Martin notes his concern about your obsession, but mostly leaves you alone. He is counseling your father, mostly.

"Hey!" Coach yells.

You've been daydreaming. He tells you you've done twenty-nine suicides and to stop.

"Sorry," you say, but in a way that indicates you are not.

"With the team," he barks at you.

Practice is nearly over and you follow directions enough to avoid more wrath.

When you go home, you turn on the computer the call up videos of Smith. It is hard to believe, but he seems even better than last year. A mean dangle. Scoring from the puck drop. All corners. One-on-three. This is what you watch when you aren't conditioning or training. He amazes. You only know his current team because of the uniform in the clips, but league hockey means nothing anymore.

Then you leave your room and the house is empty.

Your mother is gone. In an apartment in town.

Your father is at work. Or home. When he's home he is so quiet.

"All his fault," you mutter. "You broke your word."

In your belly, you feel it.

Revenge.

Six

"You can't go to a fourth team," Peter tells you. "Not in one year."

"Why?"

Soon after going to camp with Peter, you had moved up to an older league. "I want more of a challenge," you said. Your father did not argue.

Then you switched teams when you realized you knew as much as the coach.

"A hazard of growing up with the owner of a hockey team," Mr. Martin said at the time.

"Former owner," you had muttered in response.

He had heard you, but ignored the comment.

Now, after another day of suicides, you sit with Peter and contemplate next steps.

"Then I don't know," you admit.

Sitting at the plaza in town, you are both eating dinner. Peter is your only remaining friend, as others have moved on from your indifference to normal teen interests. You rarely talk hockey, but he is okay with silence and so are you.

"Three teams," Peter says.

"This year," you confirm.

There had been others. Camps. A tour. Each was billed as a great opportunity, but each disappointed in its own, unique way. A special coach was even brought in, to no avail. Others might have felt lucky to have the chance, but you want more.

"I've been thinking," you say. "I was looking for a coach--someone different--and a name keeps coming up. I'm not sure what he does, but I'm tired of suicides in place of skills."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure how to even find out about the guy."

But you do know--Mr. Martin.

When you get home you ask him. Of course, you couch it in terms of going to camp. Or boarding school. Away.

"That might be best," he says.

Neither of you are surprised by the ease in which he allows you to leave.

When the discussion turns to where, you mention the name you had heard. He is silent, and then writes it down on the yellow legal pad he always seems to carry.

A week later you have a train ticket.

Ellets Bay, it reads.

You are going to Ellets Bay.

Seven

You are farther north than you knew existed.

The train you are on is a freight and cattle train, with a single passenger car. No frills on that; meals are cold, with coffee, tea and water the only drinks. For most of the journey you are left alone.

Thankfully.

The terrain is flat.

And stark. Straight timber and more straight timber. Homes and buildings, on occasion, made of more timber, dot the flat earth. The mud on the first day is replaced with hard soil. There is snow patches, even though it was sixty degrees when you left Hamilton.

You have not really seen the sun directly for two days. Grey is the best description; the sky is not worth spending other colors on it.

Finally, Ellets Bay.

"Ellets Bay," the conductor tells you. He says it a good hour before you get there, but in a way that implies the stop is imminent. "Get your stuff." As there is no baggage car, he hauls your green clothing bag and well worn golden Forge equipment bag from a closet at the end of the car. Thinking the stop is close, you stand like an idiot, swaying with the track.

It is getting dark, you note.

A look at your watch, you realize it is not that late.

Then it gets darker.

And the train stops.

Opening the door, the conductor is kind enough to help you down and then lowers your two bags to the platform. Before you fully realize it, the train is pulling away.

There is a small shelter. With a bench.

Well versed in carrying the equipment bag, you effortlessly throw the strap over your shoulder and heft the clothing bag to the shelter. Across the dirt road is a store--closed. There is a house next to it, but the windows are dark. Everything else is scrub. Dropping the bags in the shelter, you then pace the length of the wooden platform.

At one end, you look at your watch.

At the other, you look down the dirt road.

And then at the shelter. It is open at the end, made for temporary use. As if someone was expecting you, and planned to pick you up soon.

But no one does.

The sun will not abandon you. Although it has hung low for hours it will not fully disappear. That, at least, is a comfort. Still, it is dark enough that you see the headlights of the truck before you can make out the actual vehicle. It drives slowly, bouncing on the ruts. Appearing dark, it is actually orange when it pulls into the parking space by the shelter. There are rust holes, but half of the nation's cars are the same. On the rims are snow tires. You note that the back window as a crack in it.

Behind the wheel is an old man with a white beard; looking more like growth than a beard. His expression is unreadable as he cranks down the driver's side window. Saying your name, he nods in response. Then, he gets out and picks up your equipment bag as if weighing it.

And puts it down again.

Hands empty, he gets back into the truck and waits.

Unsure, you move to the bags and carry them to the truck. Not knowing what to do, you toss them in the back. There is sits with three milk crates and a few empty bottles. The bed is smeared with what looks like blood. It must be fresh, you think, as you can see it seep into the bottom of your equipment bag.

"Do you always treat your equipment like that?" he asks before you can even get in.

"How?"

"You tossed it in a strange truck without looking first."

"I figured it was safe."

"I'm late because I needed to get rid of the deer I shot."

You notice the two riffles in the rack behind his head.

"Blood. Now, it's in your bag. Wolves are gonna love that."

You say nothing. Then, "I'm sure they'd be attracted to the salt of my sweat, anyway."

He nods, conceding the point.

You ask him his name, but he says nothing. Just puts the truck in reverse, then into gear when it's facing where he came from ten minutes ago.

"You sure you want to do this?" he asks, before the station is out of sight.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Revenge," you say, as it is the most natural thing in the world.

He nods, knowing he can't talk sense into you right there.

Eight

When the road turns the truck does not.

You have been watching the same landscape you saw from the train, but now with a body of water on the left side. Ellets Bay, you wonder. It appears frozen. Straight trees rise from the earth. Darkness nears, finally, and the headlights begin to be of real use in illuminating the road.

"Ellet's Bay?" you ask, pointing.

"No apostrophe," he replies, noting your pause. "Doesn't belong to the Ellets. There were just a lot of Ellets living around it."'

"They still around?"

"Nope."

"What happened to them?"

"A bunch of them drowned in it," he replies. "I don't know about the rest."

Then, he shrugs.

The road cuts right.

The truck goes straight.

For a short time it rolls across hard, flat land. When the land ends, the truck is on the ice.

"Hey," you say. More of a mutter, under your breath, as you brace your body for a crash that never comes while still trying to maintain a brave face. This is what you wanted, you tell yourself. Something different. Something no one else could give you.

For a few hundred meters there is only ice in the headlights, stretching into darkness.

And then a fishing cabin appears.

Small, about eight by eight feet, a thin metal chimney pokes out the top. No smoke. It's more of a shack; weathered and bare. There is a tiny window on the side.

The man applies the brakes and stops the truck without slipping on the ice. Caught in the headlights is the front door of the shack. Without a word, he gets out.

"Take you gear," he tells you.

You follow his directions while he opens the front door.

"Your new home," he says. Then, he steps aside the door.

Looking in, you see a bed, bedding, a small wood stove, a wooden box and that's all. And a hole in the middle for fishing, newly frozen over.

"Seriously?"

"I don't know. Are you serious about learning hockey from me?"

"Where do you sleep?"

"In my house."

"Where's that?"

"What does that matter in learning hockey?"

Then, there is nothing else to say.

As you step into the shack, he climbs into the truck. Stunned, you are only dimly aware that he is turning the truck around. At the moment you realize the nature of your new lodgings, he has pulled away and is at least fifty meters away. The distance grows until the truck climbs the shore. You turn away before the headlights completely disappear.

You breathe out a word that you mother would not approve of.

And then you take in just how cold it is.

You say the word again, but it does not make you any warmer.

Nine

"You miss your father?" the old man asks.

"Not really," you say.

But then you feel the need to clarify. "He doesn't seem to miss me, I guess."

"Why do you say that?"

"He just kind of withdrew, after things fell apart."

"Who left?"

"I did."

"Children always think the parent doesn't care, when the child is the one who often leaves."

You shrug.

"Yet, those same children have a lot of anger."

He looks at you. "You're so angry, you're living in a shack on a frozen bay eating fish."

"What does this have to do with hockey?" you ask no one. This has become your mantra.

First, you say it as you open the wooden box the night before. With no signal, your mobile is useless, except as a flashlight. You need it for that. Inside the box are ten matches and a piece of sandpaper. After wasting three matches without a plan, you look for some paper.

In your pocket is your punched train ticket, as well as some other travel information you will probably never need again.

Then, you look at the pile of wood--you can't really see it in the dark--and pull out the smallest pieces. From a camp your mother had you go to last summer, you know to use the hatchet, also from the box, for easy-to-light shavings. With two more matches you manage to get something going.

Looking at the small pile of wood left you, you mutter your mantra for the second time.

What does this have to do with hockey?

"Nothing," is the reply of the chorus in your head. But you need to get through this first night if you want to complain the next day.

You put more wood into the stove, and the shack begins to warm up.

But the pile is even smaller.

Exiting the shack, you walk about ten meters towards shore--what you think is the shore--and turn around. The small window glows a bit, but not much. Going inside, you open the door to the stove and fill the room with light. Now, the window is bright. But small.

"Can I see this from the shore?" you wonder out loud.

Because you need to get more wood, to make it through the night, you have to go to the shore.

You open the door of the shack, wide. Using your equipment bag as a doorstop, you toss in a few more logs of substance and begin walking towards shore. In your hand is that hatchet.

Into the darkness, you begin to wonder about your predicament. You asked for this. Not that you can change your mind, now.

The next day, no one comes.

It is morning and your wood is nearly gone. You have five matches left.

You mutter your mantra, but still get up and head for the shore with your hatchet in hand. Hungry, you wonder about the ice. In Hamilton, the ponds are still liquid and no one is even thinking about skating. Walking gingerly does not help, you know, but it feels right.

Three more trips to the shore for wood are required before the sun sets for the evening.

In the box is a fishing line, hook and lure. You've never been ice fishing before, but can't imagine it being too hard. The hole is your concern. It is frozen, like the floor around it. Taking the hatchet to that, you get down nearly thirty centimeters before water floods the hole and your hands.

You are not wearing gloves.

Quickly, you warm your hands by the fire.

Looking at the hole, your realize it is wide and ugly and takes up a lot of your floor space. Plus, as a bit of water had gurgled up and out of the hole it is now seeping into your clothing bag, which you had left carelessly on the floor.

"Great," you mutter.

Although it is full of water, the bottom of the hole is still clogged with ice waiting to be broken. There will be no fishing until it is clear.

Warming your hands, you think.

And come up with no ideas.

Your stomach protests, but there is nothing to be done.

Ten

"Scoring goals is easy," the old man tells you.

"Not so easy," you reply. "Not when they have a good defense."

"Only hard when you let them make it hard."

"It is hard," you insist.

"Take puck. Knock it into goal. Simple."

In response, you shake your head.

"How many goals did you score?" you ask.

He smiles, gets up and walks away without answering your question.

"You have not eaten," the man states. It is not a question.

"No."

"I left you fishing gear."

"Yes."

"But you did not use it."

"I couldn't get through the ice."

He nods in understanding, but does not offer a solution.

"How was your first day, otherwise?"

"Cold."

"You have a fire."

"That shore--and wood--is pretty far away."

"Not too far."

He states this as a fact.

You don't ask him what this has to do with hockey. He will not get the satisfaction from you, even as you are unsure what satisfaction he might get, if any, from the question.

At least, you thought, he would give you something to eat.

He doesn't.

Instead, he gives you advice.

"If you don't figure it out," he tells you, "You'll die."

Eleven

"Keep the fire going," the man tells you.

"Why?" you ask.

"You have only five matches," he says. "No fire, you'll freeze before you find food."

Then he hands you a fist full of tea bags that he had crammed in his pocket. They are stale and dry, but you think about making tea almost immediately.

"You need some fun in your life," he explains. "Something that separates us from the animals."

After the man leaves, you lay on the bed to think. Your muscles are sore in ways they never have been before. Perhaps it is the lack of food, you wonder.

In the wooden box you have found a pot and a cup. Now, the tea is ready.

Never have you been this hungry. You had forgotten to eat at times, and gone long stretches, but food was always available. Not just calories, but choice. Dieticians and nutritionists had come and gone, both personal and team provided. You jumped on scales, measured your Body Mass Index and had countless blood tests taken. All you know now is that you feel thin and have not gone to the bathroom in a day. The idea of restricting carbs for protein seems like a ridiculous luxury.

Your bag.

You dump out your equipment bag and find half-a-dozen energy gels that must be at least a year old. Before you stop yourself, you have sucked on three. Then, more tea. Still hungry, your body is not awake.

Getting up from the bed, you have an idea.

After throwing some wood on the fire, you grab the hatchet and head for land. The walk seems longer than usual, but that may be impatience. You have a plan.

Finding a log six centimeters in diameter, you chop it to two meters in length.

As you do, you notice a stitch in your right shoulder. Swapping the hatchet to your left hand, you feel different muscles you typically don't use in hockey. All of your time in the gym, you realize, means little as you hack away at this log with your little hatchet. Chopping wood had made you familiar with efficiency, and you hack three times from the left and three times from the right to create chips, which fly away. Later, you will stuff those chips in your coat pocket for fuel. Finally, you cut through.

The tip of the log is a cone, but you think of it as the head of a spear. With it, you plan to pierce the ice.

And it works.

Using the hatchet, you chop down into the frozen hole until it fills with water, making more chopping impossible. Then, you put the sharp end of your log into the watery hole. You raise it a good half-meter and slam it down as hard as possible.

Then, again.

After ten times, it is hard to determine progress. Each downward strike splashes water across the ice floor. This time, you have put your bags on the bed. From your pockets, you toss in the wood chips to make sure the fire keeps up.

On the seventeenth try, the log breaks through.

Success.

You pull the log towards you a bit, and then grind it around at an angle--you want the hole to be open, larger than the diameter of the log.

Then, you pull it out.

Quickly, you set up the fishing line and drop it in. The rig has a little bell that will tinkle when a fish bites.

Looking at the fire, you know you need to get more wood.

A hundred meters away, you hear the bell tinkle.

Racing back, you pull up a fish. It thrashes around and you gingerly try and get your hands on it while not stepping into the hole. Over all of the time you have lived in this shack you have not realized just how small and cramped this space is. You get hold of it.

It's ugly, but the hatchet does quick work of it. Not bothering to cook it, you eat the thing raw because that's how hungry you are. Then, you use parts of the head for bait. After it's set, you leave again for wood.

Again, one hundred meters away, you hear the bell tinkle.

When you pull out the fish, you knock the back of the hatchet into the fish's head to kill it.

It stops flopping around.

Looking at the fire, you know you have to get more wood--now.

You reset the line.

One hundred meters away, the bell tinkles a third time.

Needing wood, you ignore it.

When you get back, the rig is there but the line broke. You have lost the hook.

And the fire has gone out.

The dead fish from before just looks at you, with its one dead eye.

Twelve

"What does your mother think of all of this?" the old man asks.

"I don't think she does," you reply.

"No, she does." He seems sure. "You were your father's son. That does not mean she is any less your mother."

Before you strike one of your five remaining matches, you think to hunt through the ashes.

A hot coal, buried.

Using some shavings you take from the hole ramming log, you blow on the ember and get something going. Carefully, you build on it.

Finally, something like fire starts. You feed it. Soon, the firebox is filling with heat and the stove itself becomes hot to the touch.

You take stock. There are about five meters of fishing line, which should be enough. Manipulating some clips you had with your equipment, you have crafted a hook. First, you open the hole again with your ramming log. Then, putting a small chunk of fish head on it, you drop your self-made hook into the hole.

It works, as you catch a third fish before the second fish is fully cooked.

Darkening, you make another trip for wood. Even after only a few days, you find yourself having to go deeper onto land to get wood. It is a small thing, but does not bode well for the future. Loading up your arms, you return to find a visitor.

The man is sitting on your bed.

"You have food," he says.

"I would invite you to dinner," you explain, "but I have only enough for one."

"A team would share, even if what they have is meager."

"Well, I am not a very good teammate."

You drop your wood in the corner.

"Has that been a problem in the past?"

"I don't know."

"Perhaps an issue for another day."

Then, you are both silent.

"I have vegetables," he tells you. "No one should eat just one thing."

"Thanks..."

"But, as you don't share your bounty, I am disinclined to share mine."

Is he really going to take this position, you think, harshly.

"I'm not sharing," you say.

"Fair enough."

"I would like the vegetables," you add.

"Fair enough."

He pulls from a small bag some carrots. A kilo, you estimate.

"Thank you," you say. And you mean it.

"What happened to your hook?" he asks.

"The fish that got away."

"Perhaps you can catch that fish, with your hook still in its mouth."

"Or, you could give me a new one."

"Why? Does yours not work?"

You concede that it does.

"Don't be distracted by flash. Or what one is supposed to do. If it works, and you think it will continue to work, use it. When you have no options, then we can talk."

"Fair enough."

You take a carrot and begin chewing it. Then, you offer the man a cup of tea.

"I only have one cup," you say.

"I brought my own," he replies. Then, he pulls his own tea bag from his pocket along with a tin cup.

In silence, you pour hot water into his cup first, and then yours.

While it steeps, no one says a word.

"Eat," he says to you, breaking the silence.

You start to eat the fish that has been waiting. The second one--the third lays, dead, freezing on the ice.

He watches.

"How does it feel?" he asks.

"What?"

"To be hungry?"

"I don't like it."

"Good."

"Is that the point?"

"Point?"

"Of all of this. Survival."

His response is a shrug.

"How is the shoulder," he asks.

"The right has a stitch in it."

"Work that out."

"How?"

Again, he shrugs.

"Ask your trainer?" he then replies, and chuckles to himself.

"And your left side?"

"Sore."

"Good."

You eat your fish.

Then, you both drink your tea.

"Get some sleep," he says. "Tomorrow we train."

"Hockey?"

He just shrugs.

"Why," he asks, "didn't you chop your hole outside? There isn't much room in here with that."

Thirteen

"Why do you expect them to let you score?" the old man asks.

"I don't."

"Then why do you go to where they are?"

"What should I do?"

"Go around."

The dawn's light comes into the shack to wake you up.

Laying in bed, you mentally go through your chores--they keep you alive. You are beginning to understand this, now.

After setting the line, you dress and get ready for the morning wood walk. There are a few logs left, but after frying up your last fish for breakfast it will need more. Hopefully, you'll hook a fish while gone and come home to find lunch.

Standing, you stretch and reach and push the door to open it.

One step and.... WHAM!

The door flies back, knocking your whole body off balance.

Falling back, you put your right arm back. Your hand goes into the fishing hole.

It is freezing.

You knock over the rig, but don't lose it down the hole.

Your elbow hits the edge of the ice at an odd angle.

Cold, you pull your arm out.

Inappropriate language streams out, briefly.

Slowly, the door opens.

There stands the man.

"You need to be ready," he says.

Then he walks away.

You don't see him again that day.

The next day, you get up and expect the door to hit you back.

It does not.

In fact, you cannot open it.

"Hey," you yell through it.

"The door is closed," the man tells you.

"Can you open it?"

"When will an adversary open any door for you?"

"I need to get out."

"Agreed. Or you will die."

There is silence.

Then, you year his boots walking away.

It takes you half an hour to get out. He had put your own hockey stick through the handle and another handle on the doorframe--you had never noticed it before. That barred the door.

You don't see him again that day.

But he has left more carrots and some fishing line.

You sleep on a hair trigger now.

You wake up earlier--before the sun.

No sounds.

When you try the door, it opens. You do this nearly every hour throughout the night.

No traps.

Finally, dawn arrives.

After making fish, carrots and tea you prepare for your wood walk.

Opening the door, you find the man.

He stands about three meters from the door, alone on the ice. In his hand is a hockey stick.

"Are we going to train, now?" you ask.

"We have been training for days."

"Oh?"

"What have your learned?"

"About hockey?"

He thinks for a moment.

"Apparently, you have learning nothing."

"At least we'll use a stick, today," you say.

"Yes."

You take a step, and find out how fast he is. Before you realize it he has closed the distance between you and the stick comes down on your sore right shoulder. A cry of pain comes from you, involuntarily.

Another hit comes to the ribs.

Your body drops to the ice.

"Now," he asks. "Have you learned anything?"

The pain in your ribs prevents a response.

He turns and walks away.

That he turned his back to you shows his contempt. You are not a threat.

You do not see him again that day.

But he leaves a winter jacket behind.

The morning is cold.

You put on the jacket he left you--and silently thank him for that.

After breakfast, you go to gather wood.

No one is there. The walk is alone.

But cold.

The jacket has a hood that zips up, creating a narrow blinder around your face. You lose peripheral vision. You are warm, though.

On the shore, you gather an armload of wood. It is heavy.

The wood is then knocked from your hands.

Because of the hood, you did not see him sneak up from the side.

"Watch it," he says.

You start to pick up the pieces.

He hits you on the back of the neck.

When you try to unzip the jacket, he hits your hands.

Turning your entire body to face him, you catch a glimpse as he slides to your left.

You track him.

When you are facing him square, you attack.

He easily moves aside, and then knocks you on the back with his stick because he can.

"Finally," he says. "You attacked. We can build on that."

Fourteen

Training progresses after that.

You still have to get up and catch your breakfast, chop and carry wood and maintain that fire.

A few times the fire goes out. There are only four matches now, a month into training.

"Why did you not anticipate?" the old man says to you, a scolding posed as a question.

He still attacks you.

One morning he is in your shack as you open your eyes. A hard tap on the belly and then he leaves for the day. After slowly getting up you spend the time chopping and carrying wood.

To supplement the carrots, he leaves you cans of vegetables. No opener. You use the hatchet.

Then he leaves you an ax. The longer handle allows you to stand taller as you chop wood, and works different muscles. New muscles. Your upper body is getting stronger. The walks cause your legs to strengthen, too. After years on the ice, you had thought your legs were strong and lean--but this is strong and lean. Walking with boots on ice requires more tension than skates.

As the daily temperature drops, the days get shorter.

He leaves another coat.

Two blankets.

New socks. They don't match, and there are seven. You find them warm, though.

In all of this, you do some hockey skills.

He walks halfway from the shore to the shack and drives a metal rod into the ice with a hammer. Then, he paces off 27 steps north and drives a second rod. You count seventy paces as he walks east. He then squares it off. As you return with an armload of wood, he asks you--if "asking" is the right word--to shovel the light snow from the ice.

"This is your rink," he says.

"Another task," you complain.

"Then go home."

But you don't.

As if a present, he gives you a coal shovel.

Now, before dawn, he drives his truck onto the ice so that the headlights illuminate a piece of the lake between your shack and the shore. "You need to use the daylight for other things," he explains.

As you lace your skates you realize it is the first time you have done so in the month you've been "training."

It starts with suicides.

Twenty.

"I could have gotten this at home," you say in recovery.

"Because they work."

One of the benefits of Ellets Bay, you realize, is there is no anticipation of a scrimmage. They are a distraction, you realize. People only want to skip the drills and get to the game.

You mention this to the old man.

"Playing is fun," he replies. "Why else do this, if not for fun?"

Revenge, you think.

In thinking of Smith, though, you begin to lose the image of him. Even as you feel the wonder you felt in watching him play, the specifics are cloudy.

Then, the old man hits you with his stick on the thigh and you are back on the ice, mentally.

Now. Today.

He has you go very fast.

Then, very slow and deliberate. The latter is hardest and your mind and muscles scream to get to the goal. You know what he will say if you ask the point, and so you don't ask.

He tells you anyway.

"Practice makes permanent," he tells you.

"You mean 'perfect'."

"Practice it wrong, and it goes wrong in the game."

On that first day, after three hours, the sun illuminates the horizon, if not the bay.

"Time for chores," the old man says. "You don't want to freeze when you finally get to do some stick work."

He begins to climb into his truck.

"Keep the ice clear," he instructs. "We don't have any other way to smooth the ice than the sun. Keep the snow off of it."

Fifteen

"Don't you worry about your truck going through the ice?"

"No. You can smell when the ice is no longer safe."

"Smell?"

He shrugs.

"Maybe there is a feeling. Moisture in the air, like before a storm comes through. I don't know. I just know."

You sit a moment in silence.

"You don't smell the ice?" he asks.

This time you shrug.

"You smell," he tells you as you wake up. "Your body. Clothes."

It has been over a month since you bathed.

Or did laundry.

"Get the ax" he instructs. You follow as he walks five paces from the shack.

It is like digging your own grave, chopping this hole in the ice. Although he has not said it, you know he will expect you to jump into the cold water to clean.

"Be careful," he offers as encouragement.

Then, as expected, you go in.

He dumps your clothes in after. You had left them on the edge, expecting to scramble out and back into them. Now they are wet. And, you need to fish them out or lose them forever.

The hole you chopped is not big--less than one meter by one meter--but when he dumps your clothes from the shack in, too, you are surprised by how difficult it is to reach the far edges to save items from sinking.

"Is that everything?" you ask, depending on his vision from above to spot any stray items before you climb out.

He shrugs.

And then you feel the freeze in your core.

You need to get out.

Now.

Clawing at the edge of the hole, your fingers no longer fully grip. You power your legs, thrashing, to provide your body with enough lift so that your balled hand can get enough agency for your arms to lift your weight. As your torso rises from the water, it gets heavy. You feel the difference. Still, it is enough where your waist meets the top of the ice and you fold over. Now, you swing your legs onto the ice.

In a moment, you are in the cabin.

Under blankets.

In a minute, you stoke the fire.

The door opens.

"You need to get your clothing," the old man says.

Your body is still shaking.

He does not leave, but closes the door behind you.

And stands silent.

Eventually, you realize he is not going to get your clothes. That is for you. He is going to make sure you won't die, though. Eventually, you do get up and gather clothing nearly frozen to the ice. You do as much as you can stand before limping back to the shack.

He stands outside, by the door. In his hand is a rope. "For a clothesline," he says. Then, he pulls five random socks from his jacket pocket. "Keep your feet warm," he instructs.

You put two on the left foot and three on the right.

Then, you fall into a deep sleep that feels like it will never end.

In your dreams, you smell ice.

Sixteen

"This is making you paranoid," you say.

"What?" the old man asks, not really asking.

"Getting hit. This unknown. Everything."

"This is the reality of success. Is the pain of losing a game less than a slap with the stick?"

"Yes," you reply, with a small laugh.

He smiles, too.

Then you get serious again.

"I don't trust anyone," you say.

"Do you trust yourself?" the old man asks.

"Not really," you admit. "I used to."

"You thought you did," he replies. "If you did, what others do becomes less of a concern."

When you wake all of your clothing is drying on a line strung back and forth from the walls of the shack. When you reach up and touch a shirt, it is nearly dry. You are naked under the blankets, other than those five socks he had given you earlier.

The stove is glowing red, as it has been recently stoked. More wood sits in the corner. On top of it is a pot, which you find filled with fish stew. In the stew are potatoes, carrots, onions and a thick cream sauce. Your shack smells of spices and warmth.

Using two of your hockey sticks, you rig them so that a few key articles of clothing can be placed right in front of the stove. Waiting for them to dry, you eat a bowl of stew. Then, another.

Successes grow.

Using the shovel you build a wall along the western side of your makeshift rink. This keeps the wind from blowing old snow onto the ice. Another problem is that, when the ice melted in the sun, the wind sometimes creates ripples that will freeze. Your wall solves this, in a way.

Then you explore more of the bay, using your skates.

On the far side of the land you find wood hanging over the ice. Wearing your skates, the passage is quicker. An irregular and imperfect surface, you find skating helps your core balance and works the muscles around the knees and ankles.

Soon, you are always on skates.

In the wind or falling snow, you enjoy the freedom that skates afford. Before, every movement felt like a chore. Now, you glide everywhere. It becomes the best part of your day.

The lessons continue.

Your stick work has gotten faster than you ever thought it could be.

An awareness of location develops. Soon, your realize that the old man has moved the corners of the rink; shrinking it and expanding it from day to day. This used to trip you up, but no longer.

One day he blindfolds you and makes you do suicides.

The third day of this, you do not fall or run into the far end.

Always, you know where he is.

When he tries to hit you on the shoulder, suddenly, you withdraw.

Not much; just enough.

He misses.

It was a quick slash and he misses.

A smile.

"Merry Christmas," he tell you.

He did not give it to you. Your earned it. He meant to compliment you on your accomplishment--the present was that accomplishment.

Later, when you are sitting on the edge of your bed and eating, you realize it really is Christmas.

You have been here three months.

Seventeen

"On one team," you begin. Then, you tell him about a hazing ritual they did to new players. "Every player went through it. It was supposed to bond us."

"Trauma can create a bond, but not the type you want. That brings fear, not team," the old man replies. "It teaches the wrong lessons."

Then you tell him about a coach who would yell and, on occasion, knock you down or hit.

"That's abuse. Again, the wrong lessons--and from a teacher!"

You sit in silence. Then, he breaks it.

"These acts are about power, not respect. They seek control."

"How are they different than why you're doing?" you ask.

"I'm doing it for your own good."

"Isn't that what every abuser says?" you ask.

"Tell me about this man," he gently commands. He means Smith.

You do. The entire story.

"How is this revenge?" He sweeps his arm at the the bay, the shack, the rink.

On this point, you are less sure. As a child--it seems so long ago, but it was only a year or so--you fantasized about destroying him and his team. You would personally do it, as he did when he left Hamilton for Ottawa. As you imagine this revenge fantasy, the other team is less clear. Smith's face is not even in as sharp of focus as before.

"So, you hope to face him?"

"Yes."

"Do you think he remembers you?"

You shrug, but think that he will not.

"He will be old," the man notes. "A life playing hockey at the top does not last long."

"Are you saying this is folly?"

"This is never folly," he replies. With his hands, he again indicates the bay, the shack, the rink.... All of it. "Your motivation, though. That is folly."

Still, you find that feeling of anger inside of you and hold it.

Tight.

"What do you know?" you snap at him.

"I'm a man," he replies. Calm. "Living here. With a single student."

The old man looks quietly at the landscape.

"How do you think someone gets here?" he asks.

"How is your father?" he asks another time.

"Fine."

"What are you basing that on?"

"He's always fine."

You are both sitting on the tailgate of the truck. He brought soup. "Lots of salt," he had said, explaining how it replenishes alkalites. Your appreciate the warmth--your fingers are useless, although he expects you to do stickwork for another hour. Between those hands is the thermos.

"But you feel the need to seek revenge on his behalf? You don't think he is strong enough to take it."

You describe the loss of the team. Of your father's withdrawl. How Mr. Martin took more of a leadership role. Your mother left.

"And you left him, too," the old man points out.

"It is not the same."

"No. Every action has a story. In the end, they are often the same."

"What are you saying?"

He shrugs.

"This man," he begins.

"Yes," you reply in a tone that indicates a warning.

"He is like your father."

"How?" you snap.

"Businessman. He had leverage--the championship--and your father made a choice. Two men making adult decisions."

"But my father lost."

"True. But at a choice he made. Like an adult."

Silently, you finish your soup.

"I have a question about the man...."

"Smith."

"Yes," the old man confirms. "Smith."

"I have a question," you say in response.

He is silent. Waiting.

"I came to learn hockey. To take it to another level."

"And you are unsatisfied." He pauses. "You can leave anytime."

"No."

"Then what is the problem."

"You keep asking about my family." You practically spit this at him. "You keep harping on my motives."

"Why you play hockey is at the core of your ability to play hockey."

"I disagree."

"Which is why you are the student and I am the teacher."

Your sit in silence.

"I would like to focus on skills," you say, finally.

He lets those words sit for a minute before replying.

"You can leave anytime," he advises. "I can drive you now, if you want."

Instead, you finish the soup and return to the ice.

Eighteen

"Ice is what makes this sport great," he tells you. "No other sport uses ice in the same way. Field hockey uses sticks and a team. Curling and figure skating happen on ice. Hockey, though, is one hard, grunting sport. But, on ice."

You say nothing.

"Can you smell it."

"What?

"Everything is going to change."

One morning, you notice water on the ice.

Thaw.

"Our time here might be done soon," the old man tells you when you ask about it. "Not today, though."

He waves his hand and you climb into the passenger seat of his truck.

"Where are we going?" you ask.

"To see."

He drives further out into the bay. It is noon, the sun at full strength. You are uncomfortable with the speed, as the few times he tries to brake or steer the truck is slow to respond in any meaningful way. It is unsettling.

You say nothing.

Then, you hear the snap below.

The old man laughs.

When you look around, the shore is far away.

He does not slow the truck down, but begins to turn bring it to a slow arc that will point you two back towards the shore.

"Every year," he says, "someone loses their truck through the ice."

You do not find this reassuring.

A crack.

"Do you think it makes sense to drive fast--so that not so much weight is on the ice long--or to creep slowly and carefully?"

"Why ask me?"

"It's important," he calmly replies. "You have been living on the ice for six months. That makes you an expert."

Slow, you advise, but have no idea if that is correct. He doesn't change his speed, anyway.

You are back at the shack.

"I will not be taking the truck onto the ice again," he informs you.

"Why did we go out today?"

"To see." He is quiet for a moment. "You are still not ready for land, though. When you are, you will go."

The next few weeks is an education in ice phases and fear.

Your floor is always slick, so everything is either hanging from the line or on your bed. You sleep with your skates.

When you look in the fishing hole, you are not happy to see the lower edge of the ice getting closer. This is a time when you wish you could look things up for reference.

"You don't trust your own instinct?" the old man asks, later.

"My instinct says to flee."

"You don't trust me?"

"I'm still here," you say in reply.

"That is just fear."

You admit he is right.

"But you don't have to spend the night here," you add.

Skating is like running on sand--just soft enough to dull your jump. The blades make a softening sound instead of that of a knife.

"All of my moves feel slow," you tell him.

"As if muted," he replies.

You agree.

He shrugs. "You play in the conditions given."

Then it is time to chop and carry wood.

That morning, you get up and decide it is time.

Packing your bags, you have more than you came with. Using the rope he left months before for a clothesline, you bind both bags and the rest together and fashion a harness. It is early enough that the ice is not slick with water--your things should stay dry.

When he comes, you are sitting on a rock.

He only nods. Getting out, he begins to untie your things.

As you put your bags into the bed of the truck, he says, "The rope is mine."

"What about the shack?" he asks.

"That's what the rope is for. Pulling."

"Do you need help?" you offer.

He shakes his head.

"You are a hockey player. That is your future. This is your past now."

Nineteen

"You have to remember," the old man tells you, "that not everyone is on the same page. That does not mean that one is right and the other is wrong. Just that you are in different places."

You are both sitting in his truck, waiting for the train to arrive. He has brought pizza, although you cannot fathom where he might have gotten it. At night, on the bay, you did not see the glow of a civilization hub. Nor have you seen other buildings--or people. And it is nine in the morning. Where did he get pizza, you wonder. You take a slice.

It does not sit well. For over six months you have eaten nothing but fish, vegetables and salt. Flour and cheese and sausage are foreign.

"Perhaps you should stay away from carbs for a bit," he suggests.

You agree.

The gurgle in your stomach distracts you from hearing his prior words, about everyone being in different places. When the train comes, he has nothing else to share. You board it, unsure of how you feel about the past six months--or the old man.

"It is good to see you again," Mr. Martin tells you, meeting and greeting you at the station.

At first you think he has aged, but quickly you realize it is you. He wears the same dark grey suit and one of three ties. His shoes are black wingtips, the cracks in the leather filled with shoe polish. You are still a child, of sorts, but have grown much. Now, you can appreciate that in others--the age that comes with experience.

"Does he know I'm back."

"Yes, I have told him you are coming."

"Did you tell him anything else?"

"I know nothing, so I cannot tell him anything."

This is true. You are unsure of your plans. But you are home.

He glances at your luggage trolly. Your two bags are dirty and wet. That is nothing, you realize, compared to the smell you and it emits. Graciously, Mr. Martin ignores all of this.

"How is my father?"

"He misses his son."

Then, you are ushered into a waiting car.

He is waiting at the front door.

Your father.

The house has wide stone steps, which you played on as a boy. Dressed in casual weekend clothes--a green sweater over a t-shirt, khaki pants--his body looks healthier, but is marked by the ravages of the past two years. There is a slight stoop that is new. He is like a recovered patient--he will always carry the scars and memories and never be whole, you think. Although he is three times your age, you judge him for this.

Your loss.

Perhaps the old man was right, you think--your father is an adult businessman who made a deal--a choice--just like Smith did? Then, you wipe that away and find that ember of glowing anger. You blow on it.

Someone takes your things to your room, while your father invites you in. He keeps shaking your hand and putting his hand on your shoulder. Clearly, he is unsure what to do or what to say but he is glad you are home.

"You have grown," he says.

"You look well," you reply.

"These six months have done us both well, I think."

"I am glad to be home," you offer. Neither of you are sure you believe this.

You ask for tea, which takes a burden from your father as now he can be busy with something, even if someone else will actually boil the water and set the service. He knows you are different--changed--and is unsure how to honor it. His instinct--the instinct of all parents--is to treat a grown child like a child.

After drinking a cup and making small talk, he asks, "What are your plans?"

"I don't know."

He nods.

There are a thousand things he tells you that you don't really listen to. When you were younger--only a year or two before--he did not expect it. Now, he is treating you like an adult.

Is it your brawn, you wonder? Or something else?

You suss that he is no longer hemorrhaging money.

"That is good," you confirm.

"Last month, I went to my first Forge game since I sold them."

"Oh?"

"The new owners invited me. I was honored at the break."

"That sounds nice."

"They are still in the hunt," he tells you.

He does not know that you have outgrown your fandom for the Forge. For professional hockey.

"Where is Smith playing these days?" you ask.

You had thought it was a natural question. Instead, the man's name still rubs raw.

Later, you realize you asked the question sharply. As if blaming your father for all that has happened.

"I do not know," he says, quietly.

"I did not mean to alarm you," you say, calmly. "I am only curious."

Your father nods silently.

The conversation turns to your mother, a few friends you have lost interest in and the new servants in the home.

You are itching to go to your room.

Twenty

Liam Smith has disappeared.

A ghost. Gone.

The news of Smith ends about a year before. He is nowhere to be found after being dismissed by Winnipeg. And no one seems to miss him, either.

For two days you search every source.

Nothing.

Now what? you wonder.

"Smith?" the owner of the Ottawa team asks.

"Liam Smith," you respond, trying to push down your impatience. "He helped you win that cup."

You nod your head to the case behind his desk.

He grimaces.

The owner has agreed to sit down with you out of respect for your father. He does not feel guilt for poaching Smith--and the cup--from your father. That was business. Still, owners stick together.

Even fallen owners.

And word of your hockey prowess has gotten around. You are a potential catch, and worth of a few minutes of indulgence.

"Yes," he replies. "He went to Toronto."

You know this from reading. Hamilton to Ottawa to Toronto to Winnapeg. Then, he disappears.

You wait for more.

"He wanted a lot of money," the owner continues. "We were fine for the playoffs, but our market is not large enough to keep such a talent for long. One and done. Then, he went to Toronto. They could afford his talent."

"But he didn't last the season."

"No, money is not his primary motive," the owners says, cryptically.

"No?" you ask, leading him towards more.

But he does not take the bait. Other than pleasantries, you get nothing from him.

In Toronto you get a little more.

"We were too traditional for his taste," the coach tells you.

"What do you mean?"

"We had a system. I guess every team has a system, but he was the key piece that made it go. We started out the season well."

The coach looks into nowhere, recalling what could have been. You wait; take a sip of tea.

Then, he snaps to the present.

"He was hailed a hero. Then, he gets painted as a primadonna."

"Why?"

"He likes to stir the pot."

The coach laughs to himself.

To the memory.

"Restless. We were a winning machine, and then he began to get creative. Amazing, but not a team. And we were a solid team. People--teammates, management, the media--began to wonder if he was worth the bother. Toronto is the biggest media market, so when the local media poisoned on him the league did."

"Was he? Worth the bother, I mean."

"We didn't win the cup. So, perhaps, yes. I can't rule it out."

"You let him go?"

At this, the coach laughs out loud.

"No. He tried to pull what he pulled on your father. Made a stand for more money. This time, management let him go."

"No trade?"

"No." The coach looks at you. "You saw what happened to your father--his hope killed by the very person who forced his hand. No. And, they told the other owners not to pick him up off of waivers."

"Blackballed."

"Exactly."

A trip to Winnipeg was hard to explain to your father, but he let you go.

Something happened there, but the reports are vague. You need to find out for yourself.

"I took a chance," the Winnipeg owner tells you. "It did not make me popular among the owners, but I have to put a product on the ice. We are a small market team. When someone like Smith is just sitting out...."

The standings tell the story--Winnipeg went from the cellar to the playoffs. Facing incredible odds, they were even in the series against a Montreal machine.

"They were brutal," the Winnipeg owner tells you, referring to Montreal.

He goes on to describe the hacks to the knees, the back. The not-so-secret hits to the head. Trips.

"The referees did not call any of it." He pauses. "Well, one did. But, otherwise, he was playing against a stacked deck. Still, he fought. I think he actually got better the more things were against him. It seemed to feed him."

"But you lost."

"You can't win against a lie."

You have seen the game a dozen times, and the clip a few dozen more. With no time left, he skated through two defenders and flicked it into the upper right corner, above the goalie's glove.

Tie.

Except, the referees said he was in the crease.

Video replay show he was a good meter from the line, but once they blew the whistle and indicated the penalty it was over. Smith got in the referee's face, who then put him into the penalty box for the last ten seconds of play.

"We were playing in Montreal," the owner said. "There was no way anyone was reversing that call."

The Montreal players were all on the ice before the time expired.

"What happened to Smith?" you ask.

The owner shrugs.

"No one even saw him leave the penalty box. His locker was empty. He didn't travel back to Winnipeg with us. When we got back, his locker was empty and his car gone."

"Did you pay him?"

"Direct deposit. Never saw him again."

Twenty-one

You find him coaching children in a rural town in the middle of the oil fields.

Silently, you sit in the dark end of the stands of a large ice rink in an isolated city. There are three dozen elementary aged kids all skating backwards. Watching, you contemplate the reality that has unfolded. This is not the revenge you expected.

Still, you burn.

He is actually quite good, working with the children. Patient. A different persona than the man cheating your father, or slashing through defenders.

Which brings your hostility to the surface.

Needing more information before you next move, you have breakfast at a local diner. Local diners always have local answers, and gossip.

"Can you tell me about the guy I saw teaching skating at the rink this morning?" you ask the waitress.

Sitting at the counter, you order coffee and protein--eggs, sausage, no toast. You are still getting accustomed to foods other than fish, and as part of this are avoiding potatoes--so, no hashbrowns. Their portions are big, and you have hit a lull between breakfast and lunch. The diner's set-up is basic, but appears to have been untouched for thirty years.

The waitress brings you tea.

You take her for a grandmother, but she might just be older and friendlier than any woman you have spoken with in a while. She smiles and is going to walk away when you ask her about Smith.

"Liam?" she responds. "Nice guy. Works well with the kids. Showed up a year ago and volunteered. He said he was between jobs and needed something to do while he waited for something to come up."

"Nothing's come up?"

The follow-up raises suspicions--who are you, she seems to think.

A patron fills in some gaps.

"Something about nerve damage making him unable to play hockey, but he can teach it." This is the word of an old man who nurses a cup of coffee. You know the type from the locker room--quietly absorbing gossip and freely sharing what he knows. "It stops him from getting most of the jobs around here--physical, oil field jobs. Said he lived on disability."

"He's good," you say, hoping to ease the concerns of the waitress. "I saw him working with little kids this morning." You mention your own interest in hockey, and your hope for an oil job. "Just figuring out the local hockey scene," you say.

They relax.

"He's got an actual program going," the man tells you. "My granddaughter, Suzie, is there now. Plans to be a pro."

"That's his job, now," the waitress tell you. "Officially, he's a part-time maintenance man, but he practically lives there."

"I think he actually lives there," the man corrects. "At the rink."

You aren't sure if he's making a joke or not.

In the end, you find out that Smith has been in town since Winnipeg was bounced from the playoffs.

He just showed up.

And they don't know his last name is Smith.

Or that he's Liam Smith, professional hockey player--or, former professional hockey player, apparently.

No one really questioned it--people came and went with the oil jobs. The city is small and isolated and between two larger, more preferential cities. Soon, he was teaching kids how to skate and play hockey.

After a few months, you suss out from the diners, Smith proposed a whole rebuilding of the program. They had coaches, but he began coaching the coaches. Soon after, he had taken over the equipment room, the physical plant and even the schedule.

There was resistance.

"Locals like to run things as they always have, even if that way has failed as they always have."

"People are territorial all over," the waitress adds.

"The lower the stakes, the more territorial they are," the man tells you.

Then they started winning.

"There is not much to do here," the coffee drinking man admits. "Work. Drink. Fish. People go to the games--all of the games. Little kids, local adult leagues.... But the games in the league were dismal. Sad to watch. People thought they represented the area, and they were right. We didn't know it, but we were a sad little spot in the world."

"Liam seems to be changing that," the waitress adds. "What he's doing.... It means the world to the community."

You nod.

And calculate.

Twenty-two

"They say you're the man to talk to."

This is what you say to Smith.

He looks at you.

Hard.

You fear he recognizes you. That kid from the Forge. But he's not going to recognize you after all of this time. You know that.

Still....

There is a part of you that hopes he does.

Your hatred of him--of that moment in your father's office.

Of his skill on the rink with Ottawa.

Envy.

It burns so hot. You hope he recognizes you because then you know it haunts him as it does you. Then, you can destroy him and watch as he falls.

"What do you want?" he asks.

He does not recognize you.

"At work--I'm new to the area," you stammer. "I'm new to the area, and they said you might need hockey players."

He looks at you again.

Harder.

"I need a lot of things."

But he doesn't tell you what they are.

Instead, he gives you a time.

Practice.

Be there.

Although you are a junior, the league allows a great variance with regard to age.

"Things are a bit relaxed," you're told. "Until you start winning."

There's no worrying about that, you think. Looking at the warm-ups, you try to imagine how these guys were before Smith began training them into shape.

You play down.

It's hard. All of those drills on the bay. Your moves are natural--practice makes permanent.

You choose the wrong spot and miss on purpose--you hit each miss perfectly.

A shot wide.

Pass off the forward's left skate.

Crossbar.

But you can see something here.

They hang as a team when they attack.

They stand as a wall when they defend.

No goons.

Lots of drills.

"We do fifty minutes of drills for every ten of scrimmage," Smith tells you.

"Everyone moving, all of the time," he yells to the group.

Everyone moves.

Always.

Two hours later the teenage players arrive for their practice.

You stay and watch.

A week later you have a plan for revenge.

It is measured against the harm that was done against your father.

Against Hamilton.

You now understand his program. The local team is not very good, but the teen players that feed it show promise. Looking at the roster, you calculate in two years this team will be ready to make a run for the local championship.

"True," Smith replies when you talk to him about it.

He suspects nothing, so you see nothing wrong with getting confirmation on this key element of your revenge plot.

In two years they'll be looking at the cup.

That is when you plan to deny him.

Destroy him.

When he fails in this small prairie town Smith will have nothing left.

Smiling at the thought, you pack your things and go back to Hamilton to wait.

Twenty-three

For a season you burn up the junior hockey circuit.

What you learned on the bay is beyond the comprehension of these system coaches.

They run their fiefdoms.

They control. In the name of training.

Discipline, they say.

Suicides.

They try to break you with suicides and suicides and suicides.

"This is nothing," you mutter to yourself.

Hungry. Cold. You have done that.

No, this is nothing. A heated locker room at the end. Energy gels. Trainers.

Other people.

Still, you sit alone in the locker room. On the bench. Even as you joke and chat there is something of a distance in your words.

You are not missed when you leave for another team.

Your father and Mr. Martin push when someone quibbles over the rules of changing teams--a program owns you even if you decide to drop out. What happened with the Steel continues to garnish sympathy and works in your favor; they let you roam a bit.

Playing creatively, no one can keep up.

A no look pass behind your pass doesn't get picked up because your fellow attacker was as faked out as your defender.

Drawing two against you, your teammates can do little with the power imbalance they have gained.

So, you score.

This age is competitive.

And you are alone.

No one misses you when you leave for another team.

"I am concerned," your father says to you.

In his office, Mr. Martin is off to the side as always.

You stand in front of your father's desk.

Later, you realize these were the positions when Smith met with your father. Except, there is no boy in the corner. Now, you stand where Smith did.

It is not the same office, though. That one was in the stadium. When he sold the team, he lost that office. This is his business office, but he brought the ghosts of those times with him--the chairs, the desk. He has brought Forge memorabilia, too. It still burdens him.

You feel both pity and anger for the man.

Your father.

Once so grand. Now, he sits behind a desk while you stand.

"You are alone," Mr. Martin clarifies.

"We understand your desire to be with the best, most competitive teams," your father states.

"You seem rudderless," Mr. Martin adds. "Unsatisfied."

Then, there is silence.

"We will not support your moving to yet another team," your father says. His drawing a line reminds you of when you were a child--when he was a great businessman.

Standing, you take in the uniforms and trophies; remnants from those earlier times.

"That's fine," you reply. "I'm done when the season ends."

They are shocked.

But you have planned this for a while. Every night you look up Smith's teams. You see that next season will be their winning season.

It is time to put your revenge plot into play.

Twenty-four

Bastille Day.

You arrive and reconnect with your newly adopted city--the one you plan on betraying in your plot to take down Liam Smith.

Showing up at a program for kids under ten, you get Smith's attention and help pick up equipment.

"You're back," he says to you.

"I am."

"You gonna stay this time?"

"That's the plan."

Turning his back, he skates towards where the Zamboni would be.

"We use a tractor," Smith yells at you, over the engine as it coughs to life.

Then he motions for you to get out of the way.

You do.

And watch.

The program is run on a thread, you find out at the Long View Diner. That is the name of the diner you had gone to a year earlier.

"The tractor is a donation when a big agro-business bought out a local farm," the man at the diner tells you.

The same man, still there. Still with a cup of coffee. Phil. He introduces himself.

On the same stool.

"Keeps it running himself," the waitress tells you. Liv. You note her name, too, this time.

You eat your eggs.

Drink your tea.

Listen.

Learn.

Plot.

Twenty-five

"Come on, Carter," Smith shouts. "Move!"

For three hours you have all been moving.

Suicides.

After three hours of try-outs you are being told to do suicides.

On the third day of try-outs.

Then, having done twenty, everyone is free to go.

You stay and just circle the rink, alone.

When the tractor starts up, he shoos you off with the back of his large hand.

On the bench, you take off your skates. Then, you climb into the stands and watch the tractor go back and forth. Still wearing your gear, save for the skates, you watch.

Down to one end, and around to the other.

The ice grows smooth. Like glass. You remember when you were a child, before Smith came into your life--destroyed your life--how much you liked the ice at the exact moment the zamboni finished.

Pure.

After twenty minutes, the tractor pulls into the stall.

Someone--you figure Smith--shuts off the lights. You are left in the dim of the emergency lighting.

It is quiet.

"Get enough of the rink," Smith growls at you.

"Never," you reply, not making eye contact.

He is skating next to you while you warm up with shots on goal. First from the left. Then, from the right.

"I hope you showered," he says, low enough so only you can hear it.

"I did."

For three days he had left you alone. Sat on the bench with a clipboard. He had pulled out this or that guy for extra critical attention, but not you. Carter, he made do puck work for an hour alone while Smith stood and scrutinized.

Now, he is in your face.

"Can you pass?" he asks.

"That's not the drill," you reply.

He makes it the drill.

You pass.

"Passing in a drill is easy," he says.

Then he sets up three-on-three games.

You pass.

You never shoot. Just pass.

Your drill team has a clear scoring advantage because you can pass, but no one is focused on the score. People who focus on the score on such a simple drill were asked to leave after the first day.

Now, you are fighting for ice time.

For position.

To not be an alternate.

At the other end of the rink you see three goalies doing their thing--you aren't even sure what goalies do. A fourth is trying to keep your threesome from scoring.

Yet again, you remain after the ice is cleared.

Peaceful.

Then, from the stall of the tractor climbs a large, dark figure. He stands about three rows up into the section of seats.

Slowly, he works his way across each section until he in the one next to you. Up the aisle he climbs until he at your row. He sits four seats away.

"Why are you here?" he asks.

"To play hockey."

"No," he says. "With your skills, you could play hockey anywhere."

He doesn't trust you.

You shouldn't, you think.

"I don't like to be tied down."

"Then I can't use you."

You shrug.

"I need someone who isn't going to bail," he says.

The irony is hard to keep silent about, but you do.

He tries to scrutinize your face, but the darkness helps hide your tell.

"You should dump Carter," you tell him. "He has a hole in his shot."

Smith grins. He looks across the ice.

"They all have holes in their play," he says. "That's all I got."

After a bit, he groans and gets up.

"Coach's lot," he mutters.

"What?" you ask.

"Whole team of holes. But, if you put them together right, none of the holes align. Instead, the strengths cover each other's holes up."

Twenty-six

The team is hopeless.

Three losses.

"Hopeless," you mutter in practice.

Ten more suicides. For everyone.

"Thanks," Carter mutters at you.

You say nothing. He can't shoot from the left side and he's mad at your for speaking the truth.

Then, the entire team takes shots from the left side. For an hour.

"Tired yet?" Smith asks.

He skates past the line as if those skates were a part of him. Born with them on.

"No," Carter mutters.

"Tired?"

To this, no one answers.

Frustrating.

That's the word you use.

You account for two-thirds of the goals and Smith rides you every practice.

No one likes you.

"Trying passing," Ludoc spits during a drill.

"I would, if there was someone ready to receive it."

Smith has you both go again.

You pass. He misses.

"Again," Smith tells you both.

Again.

"Tired?"

We all have other jobs.

Half work the oil fields. It's hard work--physically demanding. This is how everyone knows that suicides are punishment and not conditioning. The oil field workers are conditioned. Smith tells them, "Work on your flexiblity." That's it.

Two guys work in retail.

Carter is a miner, but doesn't talk much about the work. You picture a pick and shovel and donkey, but know modern mines are nothing like that. Not recalling seeing any mines, you ask him about it. He shrugs.

"He works in an office," someone else says. "Engineer."

This time, you shrug.

For what it's worth, you tell everyone you trade stocks. "I can do it anywhere," you say. "This city has cheap rent," you explain, "so why not?" Because no one knows anything about financial work, no one challenges you.

"I thought you'd be richer," is all someone says.

"I'm not very good at it," you reply. "Good enough to pay for my hockey addiction."

Everyone laughs.

The remaining players work at ranches, helping bring beef in to slaughter.

"Do you work in the slaughter houses?" you ask.

They shake their heads. Their jobs are less messy, but dull. They live for hockey.

Now, on the ice, everyone is focused.

Two-on-two. Three-on-three.

Smith believes in drills and practice, not scrimmages. "You don't get better in a scrimmage," he tells them. "That's where you put it all together. Now, you have to work."

And you do.

"Hopeless," Smith says to you. Growls.

When everyone gets off the ice he stands in your path.

"Hopeless," he repeats.

It was not what you had meant.

"Three games," he says. "Did you see what we did?"

"We lost."

"We played with them."

"And lost."

Just as you know you will lose this argument.

"Can you name three things we did well?" he asks.

Besides your own play, you cannot.

"Look for it," he tells you. "This Saturday."

Twenty-seven

You sit on the bench Saturday, and they lose.

That's four, you think.

"Did you see it?" Smith asks.

The whole game, he is sitting next to you. Throughout, he grunts for a line change or uses two or three words to signal a strategy. Mostly, he just sits next to you.

"There," he shouts.

You missed it.

Lying, you know, would be caught. You stay quiet.

"Close," me mutters under his breath.

But you can't see what was close.

Then you do.

For game five, you feed.

Playing the left side, you feed anyone who is anywhere and they miss until they don't.

They score.

The other team scores fewer.

You win. "We win," you say, mostly to yourself.

The four who scored celebrate in the locker room. Your defense also celebrates--two fewer goals were let in than previous games. Everyone is happy.

On a bench by your locker, you smile on the outside.

Inside, you are shaking your head.

"You got it," Smith says to you.

"What?"

"The strategy."

And you do have it. It's simple: The more time you have the puck, the less time they can score.

Hanging back with the defenders, they dump the puck to you and you work your way forward. Near scoring position, your forwards are waiting to be fed. They shoot and miss. You retrieve and feed. They shoot and miss. You retrieve. This goes on and kills two, three minutes each time.

"Two or three minutes they aren't scoring," Smith tells you, later.

When thinking of the first four games, you realize the other team had being doing the same thing--to you. "You can't score more than three," he tells you. "They'll break you."

For this game, you became the workhorse.

From one end of the rink to the other, you are killing time and setting up the others.

"I am sore," you say.

No one hears.

It is much harder to be in the thick of it then an efficient scorer. "Killing time hurts," you say to no one.

Others are celebrating.

Someone sings.

You groan as you lift your jersey over your head.

Later, in the parking lot, some of the team is planning on meeting up for dinner.

"Two goals," Carter tells you, as if you hadn't see them when you fed him the puck. "Two goals," he repeats.

"Yup," you reply. "I was there."

He is too pleased with his work to hear the tone.

No one invites you. You are unclear if the invitation is assumed, they forgot, or if this is a slight.

Then, you remember your plan for revenge.

They'll get it. In the end, they'll get it.

You're bringing them all down--Smith, the city.... Everyone. Revenge.

Twenty-eight

Now you have a streak.

The team.

Not you. You haven't scored since the third game.

Four wins.

Four losses.

"Five hundred," one of the defensemen says as you skate around in warmups.

Despite your animosity towards them and their snub--you've decided it was a snub--you cannot but help to be pleased.

"We aren't winners," you begin.

"But we aren't losers," another ends.

Everyone laughs.

Then, Smith arrives.

He does not work you that hard. Perhaps he, too, is pleased not to be losing.

"We win with the attack," he tells the team.

You are doing offensive drills. None are fast enough for him.

"You must be faster," he says.

"A good defense is a good offense," the tells the team.

Your defensemen are working on pushing the puck forward.

"You must be faster," he says to them.

In every drill, you are "the water carrier." That is what they call you, as your job is to bring the puck from the defense to your forwards.

"The water carrier," Carter calls you with a smile. It is a jealous, mean smile.

"The water carrier," Smith says. No smile.

You do your job.

The offense puts in goals as you feed it.

The defense handles the puck, barely.

In practice, Smith declares open season on you.

You are hit.

Tripped.

Mugged.

Someone, you know, will have to clean the glass because you face has been wiped across much of it.

But this is nothing the old man on the bay didn't prepare you for.

You are tougher than this.

They can't see it, but you are.

There are no suicides today.

Everyone practices half-speed for the last hour. Light. Most of it is passing.

This is when you show off.

A flick, and the puck goes in the right upper corner.

Slapshot through the goalie.

Another flick, while skating around the back.

"Easy in practice," Carter says.

He is making revenge a pleasure.

"You do not like Carter," Smith says to you.

"Does it matter who I like or do not like?" you reply.

He shrugs.

"I do my job," you say.

"If only everyone did."

"Who doesn't?"

"Everyone. Except you. You do it."

"They think I'm just a plumber."

"What do they know?"

"Then why dump on me in practice?"

"Every tool in the toolbox has a purpose," he says in way of a reply. "The hammer is for pounding. The saw is for cutting. Even within each category, there are specific tools for specific jobs--a cross-cut saw as opposed to a rip saw."

"Fascinating," you reply, not really being fascinated.

"When you try and keep a tractor like that," he gestures towards the stall where the "ice resurfacer" is kept. "Then, you appreciate the difference between a #1 and #4 Phillips head screwdriver."

Even as a dozen sarcastic remarks push their way into your head, you remain silent.

"A craftsman knows this," he says.

"A good coach is a good craftsman," he adds.

"So, I'm a hammer."

"One of the more useful tools, yes."

You are about to say something, but he stops you.

"You cannot win without them."

He turns and looks at your square.

"You can score, but you cannot win. We cannot win."

Even as you do not score, the team is nothing without you.

"If you left," he says, "the team would fall apart."

Twenty-nine

Your record is eleven and six, with a tie.

Not you, but your team.

You scored once. "Garbage time," Carter laughs.

No one local has known such success.

They do not handle it well.

While your goalie and Carter get their faces in the local news, you are in group shots--if at all. When you look at the account of your latest victory, you see your hand in the shot.

"What do I have for assists?" you ask Smith.

He shrugs.

"Only one statistic matters," he says.

Then laughs.

"The score," he grunts, as if you did not understand.

Back in Hamilton, you would have had access not only to data about assists, but playing time, possession and half-a-dozen other numbers other than who scored. To his credit, Smith doesn't keep track of who scored, either. "We win as a team," he says.

In the locker room, everyone keeps their own data. And shares it loudly.

You remain silent, which others take as having nothing to crow about.

At night, you add up your passes. Your assists. How many times Smith kept you on the ice instead of pulling you with your shift. How long your kept possession, and translate that into how many goals you save because of it.

"The water carrier," you mutter.

The hammer, you think.

At the break, you do not make any lists.

Each city's news has an "All Star" list, but you are on none of them.

Part of it is your team--even with success, it is still in third. Only a few members on any team get noticed, and a third place team does not scream for attention.

Plus, Smith does little to advance individuals.

"All Star votes don't win cups," he says. You know that his All Star performance won Ottawa one--and destroyed the Forge.

For the break, Smith gives everyone a few days off.

You come in.

So does a defenseman. One.

"Working out?" he asks. His name is Tremblay

"Keeping my edge, I guess."

When the two of you get on the ice, there are two dozen kids out there. Smith has them doing stick drills. You guess the oldest to be eight.

"Ah," Smith says, seeing you. "My helpers."

And now you are stuck, "helping".

For three hours you skate backwards while little kids try and take the puck away, get around your stick, or make it past your hulking body. They are so small, you think.

No, you have grown.

How old, you wonder, were you when Smith faced off against your father? How small were you?

So many benders. They'll learn, you think. Just practice.

When you are done your muscles ache. Backwards skating requires different muscles, and you never got to break out. To stretch.

Now, you do.

As the kids trundle off the ice, you begin to do circles.

Around and around.

Faster.

Your arms sway, stick in hand, and you just go clockwise for five, ten, fifteen minutes.

A few kids sit in the stands and watch, while parents untie skates and tie boots.

These are your fans, you guess.

When you slow, Tremblay is leaning against the wall by the bench.

"Want to take a few?" he asks.

You go to the stall and wonder where Smith is. Before you drag out the goal, you want to make sure he's not going to start the tractor up and kick you off after only two minutes of fun.

"Help," you say, nodding to the far side of the goal.

For another hour you work Tromblay.

Stick work. He picks you up at the center line and tries to force you outside. You keep working towards the middle. Tired, you both avoid the physical play.

His stick work is weak. You can move ten times on the puck for every two slashes he tries. You go left, right, left and his body has no way to recover--you're open. When you change speed, he is desperately cycling to match you.

Rarely do you put it in the net.

Instead, you circle around the back and set up another run.

"From the left?" you ask him.

He nods.

He's tired. But game.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Tromblay gets better. Then, he nods you off.

Enough.

When you bring the net back into the stall, Smith is waiting. He's leaning against the side, but says nothing. Instead, he climbs on the tractor.

"Leave the door open," is his goodbye.

Thirty

Second place is not a bad place to start the playoffs in.

"We get to take on the second-worst playoff team," Tromblay says to you.

Since that informal practice, you spend some time with him.

He's not a bad guy.

Through him, you get to know a few others.

"I heard you helped Tromblay," another defenseman said to you. "Anything that helps the team."

Laughter.

There is a lot of laughter these days.

Usually, if your team even makes the playoff, they are the ones facing the second place team--or the first place team. This is new.

"Don't get complacent," Smith tells everyone.

No one listens, until you lose the first game.

Because of the distance between cities, the first round of the playoffs happens over a short period of time--two games away, and three games home.

A best of five series.

This happens in six days. There is a rest day to travel between cities.

Down one game, your team has to rally back in the second.

"Carter," you yell.

Three times you've passed him a perfect shot and he's muffed it.

"You do it," he snarls back, as you climb on the bench.

And you do.

Smith sits you.

Not for long.

Forgetting Carter, you begin setting up others. They take the passes slightly better and two make the best of it. Three goals, total.

There is a power play against your team, and you hang back.

Tremblay is there with you.

You are a wall.

He manages to pick the pocket of a forward trying to be clever. On the right side, he takes two steps and knows he's out of his depth. With thirty-two second left on the penalty clock, his instinct is to guard it until help can arrive.

Instead, you flash up besides him.

Without a word or signal he knows to let it out the length of his nose, where you take it.

The player from the other team who was about to confront Tremblay is surprised that you are suddenly there. He reacts--too late.

Lowering your shoulder, you pitch left and just miss him. No contact.

A defenseman is three meters ahead, ready to pick you up.

Surprisingly, Carter is open on the left. He has been so useless all game they stopped covering him.

For a moment, you think to score. You can. You know this defenseman, and his inability to go right after a quick fake-out.

You do the move--left, right. Fake.

He falls for it.

You are open, with only the goalie.

Instead, you flip it to Carter.

He's surprised--more so than the goalie.

His half-hearted attempt hits the post.

No goal.

You pick it up after rounding behind the goal, flip it backhand into the upper corner just above the goalies glove. The red light spins.

Goal.

Game won.

Now, you head back to your home rink.

Thirty-one

It goes to five games. No one is pleased.

Not Smith.

Not the players.

Not the locals.

Still, you win. It's a first. No one celebrates, though. Relief is the emotion.

"We got to be steady," Smith tells everyone.

Everyone is tired of hearing it, but scared enough that they listen.

"Nice job with Tremblay," another player says as you prepare to leave for the night.

His name is Harry. He is second shift, put in to give the better players a breather. At left forward his job is to move the puck up from the cluster of defense to the traffic of offense.

Harry is to take the hard hit.

That's his job. "Hold the fort," is all their coach says when Harry goes over the wall. You don't understand why he doesn't get the "water carrier" moniker, other than Carter sees you as an actual threat to his legacy.

"Tremblay's a good player," you reply, not looking up from the boot you are tying.

"He said you helped him."

"I practiced with him once."

"He said it helped."

It did, but you don't say that out loud.

"Can you help me?" he asks.

Smith has you doing double sessions before the next round the playoffs begins. Light work, but work.

"Find ice time and, sure."

Your teammate smiles.

"Hey," you add. "Keep it quiet."

"Okay," he agrees.

Smith has you on the ice at six in the morning.

It starts with ten suicides.

"It should not have taken you five games," he barks.

Then you relearn your positions as if it was the first day on the ice.

At eight he gives each of you a bunch of plays to review and study. There is also a breakdown of the other team, player by player. Smith leaves all of you at desks in a conference room. Your second session is at four--he expects you to know this stuff.

"I'm good," Carter announces ten minutes later.

He gets up to leave.

"Hey," Tremblay says. "We got to learn this."

Carter shrugs and walks out the door.

Others follow.

Seven of you stay, and talk. You lead a discussion of the last team's weaknesses--and your own team's. Looking over the paperwork, you can image the matchups.

"You remember Williams," you say to Harry. "One eye hangs lower than the other. He dips his right shoulder about two seconds before he shoots."

For about an hour you share your own insights as the group goes through the list.

"You ready?" Harry asks.

"What?"

"Ice time at ten."

No rest for the weary, you think.

There are eight people there.

"This is not keeping it quiet," you say to Harry.

"I didn't mention it," he replies.

After dragging out a single goal, you begin to drill them in a way that exploits the weaknesses you see--but no one else seems to.

Harry has no peripheral awareness.

Tremblay is still working on speed.

Stanley's center of gravity is too high.

Bernard quits to easily.

Everyone skates around while you lead eight individual practices that all happen to take place on the same ice.

At noon a gaggle of little girls eager to learn figure skating pours out on the ice.

"Now I just need to eat, sleep and change before four," you tell Harry.

"Keep the skates on and you have one thing ticked off already," he replies.

Thirty-two

For the semi-finals you play the third best team in a best-of seven series.

This is a team you know--and they know you, personally.

Right off, they try and isolate you.

And hit you.

Hard.

Tremblay, Harry, Stanley, Bernard.... They all pick up the slack. Your team is playing as one unit.

Even with the extra attention the other team provides, you still manage to do your job.

"Carrying the water," Carter says after you assist him in the team's first goal.

You grimace.

But say nothing.

Despite the pressure your team continues to do their job.

"Carrying the water," Carter says again, later, after you fight the length of the rink to set him up.

Now you know he is just doing it to get your goat.

"You need to stop," you tell him. It's a whisper, but sharp. Only he hears it, as the crowd around you roars for the goal.

"What?" he asks, but you know he heard it.

You refrain from pointing out how much you set up his goals. Team.

Instead, you think of your revenge. If you can wrap Carter into the grand collapse, the whole effort will be sweeter still.

So, you smile and skate away.

Despite the two hours of practice work with the others, the game is still a high scoring affair.

Besides Carter's two goals, the other team has four. Their team consists of two strong players--an exceptional forward and a fearless goalie. As Carter won't go back for anything resembling defense you are essentially playing a man down.

Going into the third period, you need three goals.

Tremblay makes a nice stand against an exceptional forward, sending the puck into the far corner.

You dig it out. Pass to Harry.

Making it to the center line, you receive the puck again and work up the left side, fading from the middle.

Carter waits.

You let him.

Instead, you stop short.

Wait.

Your defender flies past you--you know there is less than a second to make your play.

Still, you wait.

Harry finally catches up and you hit him with the puck.

With a flip, he misses. Into the glove of the goalie.

When the goalie feeds it out, you intercept it.

Carter has the play, which you ignore.

Behind the net, you come around the left side and offer a gentle lob to Harry.

This time he hits. Goal.

"I was open," Carter tells you.

"Were you?" you reply, as if innocent.

"Just carry the water," he tells you.

"I think I just did."

This plays out a second time, with Gagnon receiving the gift. Again, you're behind the goal.

He, too, misses. Their goalie is good.

But you pick up the puck when it bounces off his pads and flip it in, backhand.

"Look at me," you say out loud. "The water carrier, taking a drink."

Gagnon gives you an enthusiastic bump; he's all smiles as the game is tied.

The game winning goal is not very dramatic to watch, but the personal drama underneath is everything. No one in the crowd is aware, although you suspect Smith is. As a few thousand people go nuts in the stands, he does not crack a smile.

Time runs out. You win the first game in the series.

Thirty-three

You win three straight.

The team, you should say, wins three straight. Their play improves every game. Your goalie has gained more confidence as Tremblay and others step up. Carter is the only one playing at the same level as before. Actually, in the statistics, he is playing worse, because you stop feeding him.

"What's up with Carter?" you hear someone ask at the Long View Diner. They aren't asking you--no one would, and you wouldn't say--but the question everyone wants to know is why Carter isn't scoring as he used to. "We need him now" is the sentiment.

Eating silently, you can feel the buzz. This city is excited.

On the wall is a photo of this year's squad. That's not unusual--they are all-weather supporters--but this one hangs above the door. You notice some people touch it when they leave.

Good luck.

There are also a few photos of players, signed. Not you--you don't bring attention to yourself. Carter, yes.

There is more of the same as you walk the streets.

Flags of the city and the team hang besides each other, in windows and outside homes. Kids wear team sweaters about, and knit hats with the team logo emblazoned on the front. You are the first thing on the news, and what you overhear in the line at the grocery store. They have the fever.

Your only fear is that you will catch it.

"This is not what you are here to do," you mutter.

The fourth game should have been the last game.

It did not play out like that.

Since the first game, you have been playing a game with Carter--keep away. Five other people, including yourself, have scored. Each has been set up by you.

"Carrying the water," you exclaim each time.

It becomes a joke among your line, and then a chant on the bench and in the locker room. Others see your value.

Carter, too, sees it.

But it is not serving him, and, of course, he won't admit it. Now, he won't say the chant.

"Just do your job," he tells you at warm-ups.

"I think I have been," you reply. "What, something like ten assists. Right? Three wins."

Then you add, "Oh, and I've scored a few, too."

Carter has not scored since that first game.

This game plays out like the others. It is a low scoring affair, though, as their goalie is playing at his peak. Nothing is getting through. Carter even takes a few shots--none passed from you--and is denied. The score is tied at one in the third period.

Then, you get a break.

When their shot goes off the post, it rebounds to your side. There, it stands alone.

Taking it, you see Carter on the left, waiting but with a defender on him, and Harry streaking up the left side.

Harry is alone.

You send him a long pass.

Carter escapes his defender and clears five meters in a flash.

And takes the puck.

He is off balance, slightly, Still, you think he might recover. Leaning on his stick, he makes a good shot, but there is not enough heat on it. The goalie stops it.

One of their defenders pins you against the glass.

Harry, with his momentum, is streaking behind the goal.

Carter is on one knee.

The defender who once had Carter now has the puck. He passes it up the ice. It touches two other sticks and goes in.

Goal.

Like that, you are down one goal.

It remains like that. They win.

Thirty-four

"What was that!" Carter shouts at you.

You don't say a word.

Everyone had filed into the locker room. Heads down. Equipment dragging. Some take seats immediately, heads in hand.

"I was open," he continues.

"Carter..." someone tries to interrupt. Carter won't have it.

"Carry the water!" he commands.

"Harry had the shot," you say, calmly. If you have learned anything from the old man on the bay, it is to be calm. "Harry was open up the right side. You had a defender. The shot was his."

"The shot was mine."

"Then why didn't you make it?"

You are holding your helmet in your right hand by the strap. Your eyes look at Carter.

Still, you don't see his fist.

You go down.

Thirty-five

"I remember you," he says. "A boy from Hamilton. Son of the owner of the Forge. You were in that room the day I gave him my ultimatum. Of course I remember you."

Smith is sitting beside your bed. Smiling with the memory.

You are in the hospital. Your head is wrapped in a bandage. "Orbital fracture," the doctor tells you. Your eye. The bone--your skull--around your eye is broken and needs to heal. Carter's punch connected just right, breaking your skull.

Then, you passed out.

Hit the floor.

They brought you here. Put you under. Took x-rays. Wrapped you up.

And you slept.

Now, here sits Smith.

You say nothing.

It is clear that he senses your motives. That you will destroy him by destroying the team.

All of this goes unsaid.

"When I played for Winnipeg, we were in Montreal in the playoffs."

"I've seen the clip."

"So, you know who I am?"

"Of course," you reply.

"None of these people do."

"You want me to keep quiet?"

He shrugs. Then, continues his story.

"We were in Montreal and the refs were letting their players hack at me."

"Because of how you left Toronto?"

"Maybe. They might have just been letting us play. That's how they call it in Montreal. 'Let 'em play.'"

"Oh."

"I got a shot off at the end. Good goal."

He pauses.

"But they disallowed it," you say, interrupting. "You were in the crease."

"So they say."

"You weren't?"

He shrugs.

"I don't know what the refs thought. And that's the thing--you can't play to the refs. You can't question someone else's motivations without being them."

"So?"

"Judge people by their actions."

He turns and looks away.

"Until now," he continues, "you've been a team player. That's who you are. Now."

"Do you want me to forget about what you did to my father?"

He says nothing.

"Scouts have called. There is a party interested in you. You never have to put on our jersey again--project your skull. That's my advice. Stay in bed."

You say nothing.

"The thing about that Montreal game," he begins. "Not everyone agreed. There was one ref who knew I wasn't in the crease. He conferred with the others. The fans were celebrating and the whole Montreal team was skating around and celebrating, and the refs were all huddled in the corner. I'm standing there, by the goal, watching the discussion.

"He's this little guy. I can see him talking, pointing at the goal and me, and motioning with his hands. He skates over to where I was when I shot the puck. One of the other refs are looking around at the mayhem. Then, they all go silent.

"Honestly, I don't know what they're going to decide. I didn't really care, to be honest. I knew it was done. But that little ref didn't know. He saw what he saw, and was trying to bring order and justice to the whole thing. It would have meant talking to the Montreal coach, getting the players off, calming the crowd down."

"It wasn't going to happen."

"It didn't happen," he says with a laugh. "But that little guy made his case. The head ref shook his head, turned and skated away. That was that."

"So, you were robbed?"

He shrugs.

"Did the ref say anything to you?"

"No. Not his place, I guess."

Then, silence. You do not break it, because you know there is more.

"When the media did reviews of the play, and questioned the official call, he never said a thing. I learned later, though, that he had filed a protest with the league. Standard issue, but there it was on paper. A trail. A doubt. An asterisk on the victory. Apparently, they tried to get him to retract it."

"Did he?"

"No."

You can now hear Smith breathing.

"He got dropped by the league. Somewhere in the north, he's a ref in the minor leagues. As good as dead, as far as anyone cares."

"Like you?"

"Like me. Except, I'm not dead. And he's not, either. It's a thing that happened."

"Except he got sent north."

"He did his job. What else can you do?"

"Is that why you're here? Instead of hooking on somewhere else?"

He shrugs.

"Because you were great," you admit.

"We win as a team," he tells you.

After he leaves, your team plays three more games.

They lose all three of them.

The series hinges on that seventh game.

Thirty-five

Going into the seventh game, you can't leave things alone.

In many ways, things are perfect as they are: The team is going to lose a series they should have won; Carter is to blame because he punched you; you leave to play for a high-profile team; Smith is doomed to losing--victory snatched, and you know now he knows it.

This, you think, is pretty good revenge.

But you can't leave things alone.

You suit up.

The team doctor clears you, even though your bones have not even begun to heal. You are on a powerful pain medication, and they fit you with a protective mask. It cuts into your peripheral vision a bit, but even your partisan team doctor won't allow you to leave the hospital--much less play--without it.

Everyone but Carter greets you when you enter the locker room. Still, they are distant--not knowing how to react. Their own desire to win, and the guilt they feel knowing you are putting your career on the line for it, conflicts with their friendship. You should be in bed, but you're here. They keep that distance throughout the pregame talks and warm-ups.

"You can dress," Smith tells you. "But I'm not playing you."

You sit.

He doesn't play you.

The team slips behind, one goal to their two, when the last period starts.

"Put me in," you tell him.

"No."

"This isn't your decision to make."

"No? I'm the coach."

"This team needs me."

"This team wins and loses as a team."

"And it will," you say. "Lose. But not as a team, because one player won't be out there."

"You think you're that important?"

"You know how one player can make a difference."

Then, you both stand in silence.

"Go in," he says, but he doesn't look at you.

It may have taken your absence during three games to do it, but the home crowd knows you are the linchpin to the team's success.

They cheer.

"Carry the water," Tromblay says, smiling.

Only Carter does not seem happy. But he also wants to win, so he nods at you.

You wave back.

The other teams wants this victory. They can taste it. Pushing hard, they are physical. No nuance, player after player finds himself being held, against the boards, hit from behind. Although it is your home rink, the refs are letting the game be decided on the ice.

"I'd rather it be that way," grunts Nathan as you sit next to each other on the bench, taking a break.

And then Stanley robs one of their attackers of the puck.

Pass to Henry.

Score.

The crowd goes into a frenzy as it is tied-up.

You go crazy. For a moment, you forget your plan of revenge and just enjoy the game.

The bench goes with you. Everyone is banging their stick while Henry takes in the victory adulation.

You tap him as you change shifts.

"We're just tied," Smith barks. "We should be winning this."

On the ice, you feel a team. Without looking, you know where everyone is. Have the puck, you pass it to nowhere, yet there is Carter. Before the defense can get on him, he has passed it off. Someone gets a shot off--you aren't even sure who. Collecting the garbage, you feed it out. There is a swarm around their goal.

You have it.

Just as you pass off to Carter, you are checked with more force than you have ever felt before.

The defenseman's forearm goes into your ribcage, and up. You lift off the ice. Spinning, you land facing the barrier.

Then your face finds the barrier.

"Good thing you were wearing your protective mask," the trainer says a few minutes later, on the bench.

Everyone is ignoring you.

All attention is on Carter.

He scored. You won.

Only one more series.

Thirty-six

The ice storm is unprecedented.

Not in its severity, but in duration.

The finals were to be seven games--two played away, three home, and the final three away. That changes, and then changes again.

No traffic moves for a week. Commercial trucks try to brave it, but this is not weather that a hockey team and its fans want to risk. The weather folks advise people to stay home, as did the regional government. Schools and businesses close for a day, and then a week. Time marches on even as each day looks the same--bleak and cold

When the ice stops falling, the temperature drops.

When that goes up to simply below the freezing point, the ice returns.

"We are calling it," Smith tells the team.

"What do you mean?" Tremblay asks.

"One game," Smith replies. "One. For all of it. There."

And so it is.

One game.

You think about your revenge plan.

Thirty-seven

Finally, it stops.

The ice stops falling. No freezing rain. Although the temperature is below the freezing point, the sanders and salters and plows all make work of the roads. No one has gone to school, yet, but they schedule the game, assuming the roads will be passable.

When you go to their rink, so does the city.

Tickets are hot.

Although the regional government advises against driving, no one listens.

"This is everything," Liv says at the diner.

She pours you tea--on the house.

You are a celebrity.

"How's the eye?" Phil asks.

You shrug.

Smith is not so glib.

He has joined you at The Long View. Together, you move from the counter to an empty booth in the far corner.

"You could lose it," he says. "A hit the wrong way and you could lose vision--not the vision that a normal person would notice, but you will not have the vision you need on the ice."

"It's a risk...."

"It would be a shame."

"What if I don't want to play hockey ever again?"

"It's nice to have the choice. Not have the choice forced upon you."

Again, you answer with a shrug.

"I'm worried about your motives," he then says.

"If I wanted revenge, I'd let these guys play without me."

"They might win."

You look at him; it is clear he does not believe that.

"Anything can happen," you admit, half-heartedly.

Both of you drink your tea.

If he does not let you play, the team will probably lose. That is not a bad outcome, you think.

Not an ideal outcome, though.

From its inception, you have imagined the fall being in your hands. At your hands.

This seems anticlimactic.

"Why risk your future, then?" Smith asks.

"Perhaps I care."

"Perhaps I am cynical," he replies. "I find it easier to believe in revenge before altruism."

"Because that's what you did?"

"I acted out of self-interest, not revenge."

"What would you do?"

"When I was younger?"

"Yes."

"Not played. Rest. Sign a big contract away from here."

"And now?"

Smith thinks for a minute.

"I want to see this through."

"Me, too," you tell him. "I want that. To see it through."

You almost believe it, too.

Thirty-eight

"You think they care what you did?" Smith says to the team.

You are in the locker room before the game.

The one game.

"No," you reply.

"Every shift, you prove yourself. Every game. You. No one else. Take pride in yourself, because no one else will do it for you."

You didn't think anything could be this insane.

At the Hamilton-Ottawa game, the crowd wanted Smith's blood. From when he climbed onto the ice to an hour after the game ended it was mayhem. Being against the glass, you saw it all. The stadium shook.

Now you are one seat closer.

Sitting on the bench, you see fans that want blood.

Even though you are the away team, your fans seem to have gotten seats. Not that anyone is sitting. There is a lot of red being waved in a sea of yellow.

Either way, this will not end well.

When your team loses, you think, it will be devastating.

"Hit him!" Smith yells, before turning away from the ice.

The game is hard fought.

And stingy with goals.

None to none.

Very physical in both play and speed. During shift changes your teammates gulp down water and breath hard, barely catching breath before having to go out again.

Smith has not put you out.

Harry streaks up the right side, makes his way through two defenders. He gets off a shot before being slammed against the boards.

Off the post. No good.

Carter is playing some defense. He levels three guys in the first five minutes and actually passes.

Tremblay is a wall.

You don't ask to go in.

You sit.

Around you the crowd is going wild. The red. That sea of red is vibrating along with the stadium.

Then, they chant.

Not for a player, but for the city.

Right there you decide.

Letting go of your anger, you decide to win this thing. Not just the game, but create a salve for this city hurting for legitimacy. You can't do much, but you can score when they need it.

But not from the bench.

Leaning forward seems to be the key to getting Smith's attention. You are invested. When Carter skates by, you bang the glass and yell and encouragement.

"You ready?" Smith asks you, with a bark.

You are.

Checking your facemask, you get in.

Hit hard right off, you peel yourself off of the glass and attack.

Streaking up the left side, you find yourself suddenly open.

Everything slows down. Your mind sees the goal and the space in the upper left corner that you think the goalie cannot cover. Your defender is a good meter away. Pulling your stick back, the goalie is entirely focused on your actions.

You flip it to Carter.

He drops it in on the right. Goal.

Stands erupting, your world is very small right now. Not even the thought of passing went through your head--you just did it. Automatic. Like a team.

"The old plan still holds," Smith growls at your line. "Our defense is being on the offense. The longer we possess, the less time they have to do something with the puck."

We hold the line.

The game is odd; a mix of elegant play, with gracious stickwork and skating, combined with pure violence. Your trainer has been busy. Still, you play as if you did not have an injury. Smith does not mention it--he did at the diner, and not since. This is your choice.

You choose to win.

Today.

Tomorrow is then.

You are flattened.

Getting up, you lay out their forward. The old man taught you well on that cold bay, you think.

In front of your goal is near chaos, as their attack breaks down but your team cannot get control of the puck. Two bodies are laid flat on the ice--one is you. Tremblay blocks the goalie's view for a second and....

Score.

Game tied.

The crowd takes the noise to another level.

Your side sits.

You hand Carter a water bottle.

"Water carrier," he says.

This time it is not an insult.

The last period is a fever dream.

You hammer at the goal like a sledgehammer on a door, but it will not budge.

Their goalie is amazing today, but your side does not let them cross the centerline. You or Henry or Carter takes it and tries to something with it. You pass and retrieve and pass and shoot. Nothing.

For every pass you shoot. For every shot, you pass.

No one can penetrate.

"It has to fall," you mutter.

And you hammer it another time.

You are hit hard.

Face against the boards.

Just as you scrape yourself off the glass, another hits you. They know.

They know you are the lynchpin to the offense.

Silent, the refs just skate in the background.

Their defenseman puts his forearm against your helmet, right by your eye.

"Stay down," he growls at you.

An elbow to the gut, followed by the butt of the stick, and you are free.

No whistle.

Turning in time, you pick up the puck and hammer a pass to Carter.

Off the left post.

Instead of retreating, you attack again.

They have their chances, and one works.

A trail of vicious hits blazes a path from line to line.

Smith is yelling about the crease.

Your goalie is on the ground.

But the siren is spinning--you can't hear it over the crowd's reaction--and the refs are allowing it.

Down one.

This time Carter passes it back to you.

You shoot.

The goalie still has not gained his balance. His momentum is still falling right towards Carter even as he knows--he knows!--the play is now to the left. As he falls, he flails everything he can in the way. You have not yet shot but he is reacting to what he knows you will do. This is it.

No one is near, in hockey time. The meter between you and their defenseman is a year if a second.

It is all sitting there.

You take your shot.

And miss.

It hits the post and out.

The horn blows and ends the game.

You really aren't sure if time was that close, or if a full minute happened between your shot and the game's end--but, for you, that was it.

Thirty-nine

"If we practice in the off-season, they guys have a lot of potential," you tell him.

"They do," Smith admits.

"We could win it all next year."

"You can," he clarifies.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm leaving."

"But you have to finish this."

"Why? I'm not their savior. We all have lives to lead."

"But..."

He holds up his hand, as if surrendering. But also, a kind of shrug.

Not my problem, he indicates.

"Where will you go?"

He only shrugs. You never see him again.

You have a contract to be on a farm team, with assurances that you would be called up within a year.

It is not signed.

Your father is probably expecting a call, you think.

"Can I get you more tea?" Liv asks.

She smiles the friendly smile all locals get.

"Yes," you reply. "Please."

She turns and hustled away.

Looking out the window, the ice has turned to puddles and rain. Everything is mud and the sun is trying to come out. So far, the results are weak. Soon, you know, the bugs will arrive and everyone will complain about the heat.

You stir your empty cup absentmindedly.

A man in coveralls gets up from the counter. As he leaves, he touches the framed picture of your team. For good luck.

You look down at your contract.

And don't sign it.

"I'd like another cup of tea," you tell Liv. "And I see you have a fish stew. Perfect."

Author Q&A

Where did you get the ideas for this story?

They come from a number of places. Japanese samurai and Zen stories, for one. I heard and then read about Musashi, a samurai who later became a Zen monk and wrote The Book of Five Rings. He was such an upstart--in his last duel, he overslept and carved a sword from a broken oar, and won with a single hit. Fantastical stuff. I've watched some Kurosawa films, particularly Yojimbo. They have a sense of humor and irreverence to them that I tried to capture. Also, arrogance. Plus, the hero is usually really good at what they do. D.T. Suzuki is a Zen Buddhism scholar who includes a lot of good stories and legends in his work, in addition to offering a structure to the whole Zen philosophy. So, that's a foundation.

I'm also a sucker for the sports movie. It's a formula, but it works: Underdog team of misfits, they collect some key players, train a lot and eventually overcome great odds. Even the worst of them have good, memorable moments--that final play that everything hinges on. I love it. And, even though I know the result, it still works. Those training montages are inspirational--you see one of these movies and think you can be a professional in an hour (you can't). No logic, just emotion.

A specific influence is Bernard Malamud's The Natural. Not the movie, but the book. I had thought of telling this story as a baseball story. In Malamud's book (spoiler alert) Roy Hobbs strikes out. That's right. In the movie, Robert Redford hits a home run--knocks the park lights out and they explode into fireworks--and everything is right in the universe. It's a great, magical scene. The book is depressing. Everyone is a flawed and horrible character, except when Hobbs is playing. Hobbs takes a bribe, but decides not to take it--he really tries to hit the ball and win the game. Instead, he strikes out. It comes out that he took a bribe, even though he meant to hit the ball, and his name is ruined. Everyone, including him, loses everything. I know why they changed it for the movie. Still.... In the book, Hobbs has a moment of peace at the end, and that stuck with me. I tried to do that here.

I also think of "Casey at the Bat". He strikes out. I try to see it as, "Well, at least he took his swings," but the end is just a downer. Mudville has no joy. It's a pretty good ending to an otherwise hokey poem. I could also mention the end of the original Bad News Bears--they lose!--but you can see that's a lot of baseball for a hockey story.

Did you play hockey?

No. When I was eight I finally learned to skate well enough to play. We had a pond at the end of our road, and my friend Scott played and I had a stick. I lived near Boston, and it was right after they won the cup with Orr. Hockey was big. Then, spring came. Over the summer, my feet grew a full size and my skates didn't fit. My parents never got around to buying me new skates, and I never got back to skating or hockey. I think the five in the morning practices Scott went to did not entice me, either. I'm sure my parents were fine with skipping that.

In fact, I stopped playing team sports when I was in ninth grade. I was a poor sport, and controlling. It was hard for me to accept that other people were better than me. I really believed that if you dug down emotionally that was enough. I remember watching Chariots of Fire and thinking I just needed to dig down and I'd be an Olympic runner. Nope. It's not. You have to practice. A lot. I played basketball, and was tall, which worked for a few years. Soon, though, everyone caught up with my height and lapsed me with their skills. My last year I was tossed from games for mouthing off and given technicals. I had no control, so I stopped playing. That year I went out for track, and I still run. I recognize that about myself and avoid even getting in the situation. Even when I play kid-adult games today I get too involved, so I try to avoid them. I just can't have fun. It's easy to tell me to have fun, but I can't.

Are your kids like that?

Not like I was. And not rude or angry at adults. My younger son plays soccer and is just hard on himself. But he's a goalie and takes on all of the team's angst for each goal scored. He used to kick the post for a good minute after getting scored on. My older son hates competitive sports; he casually throws discus on his track team and goes to the gym a few times a week.

What made you tell this as a hockey story?

I was going to write it as a baseball story. I grew up with baseball and baseball movies were big at the time. The Natural, Field of Dreams, The Bad News Bears, Bull Durham.... But it didn't work. The sport seems bloated and every image I had was loaded with a mythology that was beyond my story. Perhaps I could have. I can see it as movie. I recently read an article where people wondered what happened to the great baseball movie, but I can see this as one.

The winter on the ice is what got me. When I look out at fishing shacks and the grey ice and sky I see my story. Bare. Raw. That's what I'm looking for; something that matches the emotions going on. The training segments are key to understanding a good sports story. Baseball is all hot and spring and sun and I couldn't get past that. I could, but I couldn't. I think that's why baseball stories tend to hark back to before polyester--when times were simple. Or, in a movie like Major League, it's all a joke. No one finds an epiphany in Florida wearing orange socks. Lately, though, I wonder about the absence of minorities in these stories, because harking back to simpler times also means pre-Jackie Robinson. I'd like to make a purist baseball movie with a cast that looks like our society today. But, with old flannel uniforms and wooden bats.

Hockey is a really interesting sport, with a fascinating past and great fan base. I worry that I sold hockey short in this book because I don't know anything--I think I don't know anything, but that could be my own insecurities. Time will tell, and reviews, I guess. Even though it is clearly a business, hockey still has elements that are basic to its mythology. I don't know any kids who play baseball outside of a league--it starts early--but I like to imagine kids on ponds and backyards just hacking around. I've been told I'm delusional and that shows my ignorance. So be it. I'd rather live in that simple world.

What sports books to you read?

None (laughs). Does Michael Lewis' book Moneyball count? I can watch that movie or read the book countless times. Chris Crutcher writes a lot of YA books that are sports books, but good sports books are really never about sports. I liked Rich Wallace's Wrestling Sturbridge. Again, not about sports. These are coming of age books, just like my book isn't about hockey. But it is. But it isn't.

One of my motivators were the number of YA sports books that kids pretend to read. Because it has a football or basketball or whatever on the cover, kids pick it up and carry it around and not read it. If you ask them about it, they say, "Yeah, I like it." But the bookmark doesn't move. Why? Because they think reading the book will be like playing the sport. It never is. It's about some kid with a missing father or being poor or whatever and his coming to terms with that--and that happens around baseball or another sport, but the book's not about the sport. Boring, if all you want to do is play that sport. And while the cliches of the sports story work in movies, they seem to drag books down. Writers like Crutcher spend a lot of time creating the personal story because they know, when the game is on the line later in the story, the personal makes it real. There is no anger like being angry at your dad, and then throwing all of that energy into the climax of the big meet.

That's why I wrote this book in second person--to put the reader in the story. You. The sentences are short and the paragraphs aren't even a line, sometimes. Like a machine gun. The eye moves down the page, and the pages turn. The whole time it's you, you, you doing stuff. I'm trying to capture what it feels like to play the sport. The reader can judge if it works.

Someone told me Kerouac wrote an epic description of football from his Lowell high school days, but I've never found it. He played for Columbia for a year, but quit. The first pages of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War are evocative. "They murdered him." That's the first line. Great. Then, it's never about football. Great book. One of my favorites. Every chapter is tight and has a point--a different way people are cruel to each other.

Like Lewis' book, I enjoy adult non-fiction sports books. I like to learn. Moneyball is like that. David Halberstan's The Education of a Coach, about football's Bill Belichick, is like that. You learn stuff. But I think adults like to read so many non-fiction adult books because it triggers memories and nostalgia. I used to try and get kids to read Larry Bird's Drive and they'd carry it around and not read it because Larry Bird means nothing to them. I read it and think, "I remember that game." Don Cherry is a great announcer, and his autobiography is the perfect mix of nostalgia and humor and his voice in the text is his voice on television. Kids don't want to learn about history; they just want to play. Or laugh.

So, movies you recommend, then?

Does the trench run scene in Star War IV: A New Hope count (what I call "Star Wars" because I'm old)? Because they kind of inspired my final game here (laughs).

Hockey? Miracle. The true story that is like a perfectly scripted fictional one. This is why the actual story at the time, 1980, worked in real time, and the movie did, too. When they played the actual game, all that was missing was the win--when it happened, history in real time. Hoosiers, same thing. Remember the Titans. Yeah, they tweak the history to make the movie. But look at Chariots of Fire, one of my all-time favorites. It makes no sense as a story: Your two main characters, sprinter Harold Abraham and middle distance runner Eric Liddill, face off in the middle of the movie and never run against each other again. Their stories don't even line up. It's great, but only if you accept the conventions aren't there. You'll never see more beautiful shots of people running, but you'll be hard pressed to get a kid to watch it.

Actually, the media makes real games seem like fiction. I love the colorful lead-up to the game, with clips of action, brooding faces and winning smiles. The language they use in the copy is some of the best writing. Then, the game is the game. I'm one of those people who stay to the final whistle because I believe in comebacks. I buy the hype. You got to buy the hype.

For fictional ones, the field is wide open. Your worst movies can often still claim that final scene. And they often have one or two elements that leave you seeing nothing but the potential left on the table. I can't watch Unnecessary Roughness again, but what a waste of a cast, and I can remember dozens of scenes that give you a hint at what might have been. The end of Best of Times and Diggstown still get me, emotionally--they have no business doing that!

I like the original Bad News Bears, but that's not about baseball and is really disturbing seeing it as an adult. It was the first PG movie I ever saw in the theater--I was eight--and I thought it was hilarious. I watch it now and that final game is terrifying! But it's great. I think it's great because it's real--that's what it feels like to be a kid (they lose--another losing sports story!). Life is unfair--that's what it means to be a kid. But then they almost win and I'm in it. And they get beer and spray it all over....

Other sports movies are not as good, but I enjoy them each time. Creed is a great boxing movie, and Whip It, about women's roller derby. Bend It Like Beckham, too, about soccer. Well, not really. Women's sports movies recently are getting pretty good, because (I think) women are natural underdogs in our society. They aren't allowed to play, period. And when they do, nobody cares--well, mainstream male media doesn't. How can you not root for that? I'm not even sure Whip It or or Beckham is even a sports movie, but they're great. Add Girlfight to that list. Creed did an interesting trick of making his privilege a hinderance, so he slums it in Rocky's old neighborhood--and Rocky himself is living a simple, honest life. It's like they are redefining what it means to be an underdog and what they have to overcome. Very exciting for storytelling.

There is where I put in my pitch for Lagaan. It's a movie about a cricket game between the British army and a local village. It's in Hindi, nearly four hours long and has dance numbers. Amazing. I've shown it to my classes and they complain but keep watching. Then, when the game happens (the second half), they can't stop. The ending is amazing, even though you know who's going to win. It's all cliche, but not.

You seem to like ideas more than action?

No. They go together.

One of the reasons I don't enjoy most fictional sports books is that they don't have ideas--or the ideas are cliche and so simple you know the story in the first twenty pages. That's okay in a movie, because it's a visual medium--you can picture yourself involved with the game--and it's quick. Plus, a good soundtrack manipulates other parts of your brains. All together, it creates a mental soup that triggers a story now matter how bad or traveled the story might be. Books have to capture the brain in a different way.

That's why people like coaching wisdom. You can really get into a coach's philosophy and then build on it. If a coach is about something basic, like hitting hard, you now have a story--the whole season is about physical punishment. It's about pushing the other guy. That's a good story. We like true sports because that's the story--the philosophy of the coach or the star player or the team.

But action is just as important. That story plays out on the ice, field or court. When the team fails to respond, well, that's a bad story and people stop tuning in. Being a Red Sox fan in the days before they won the series was interesting, because they were a tease. The Sox sold out year after year because the fans still held the dream. It was like being in a story. People sitting on their couch, yelling at the television, are full of ideas and philosophies. Boring. You have to put it into play. You have to be a contender.

I was like that. I had ideas and philosophies about how to win, and then I volunteered to coach basketball one season. We lost nearly every game because it's hard. For the record, let me also recommend everyone try being a referee for a game. Just volunteer for some youth league. Eight year olds. One game. It's hard. I mentioned how I'm a jerk playing, but I'm also a bit too vocal as a parent on the sideline. The thread of having to ref keeps me in check. (True story: I shouted, "What was that?" at a youth soccer game and the ref stopped and offered me his whistle. It worked; I froze up and declined and was publicly shamed.)

You take on the refs?

I don't mean to. My things is I let out a lot of involuntary reaction sounds--"Come on!" and such over a push or something. But, it's vocal and clearly directed at the infraction, the player doing it, and imploring the ref for not calling it. I have a big thing about safety, and also fairness and fair play. When a kid hacks I get upset. Soccer was tough, because what you think is a hack as a parent is just an aggressive move--perfectly legal. In truth, I've only seen one biased ref in all of the years I've watched my kids play. Even the "bad" refs were fair, and only a handful of games seemed to be on the edge of their not controlling it (youth league, with volunteer, untrained refs). So, total respect for refs. These are children playing--even at the older levels--not a professional game. Again, before you pipe up on the sidelines I recommend you a) go to one of the ref day trainings--very informative, and b) ref a game. It's hard. Total respect.

Any last words?

Keep reading. It's important, and it sticks with you in a way that movies do not.

Also, get outside. Be active. I love how sports stories and movies and even video games inspire kids to play, but going out that second day after the buzz is gone is key. Just kick a ball around. Whenever my family travels, I bring a tennis ball. We just bounce it around, pass it, whatever. But, it's fun and connects us as a family while we wait for the bus or whatever. Or, my son bounces it to keep occupied. If you just shoot baskets or throw a ball onto the roof so you can catch it when it rolls off or ask a neighbor to throw a frisbee around, you will find yourself much happier than before you did such things. Five minutes.

Be active.

About the Author

Elskan Triumph is the author of several titles, some adult and some young adult. In his writing, this is his first attempt at the sports genre, although he loves sports movies of all stripes. Although his sport of choice is long distance running (more of a slow, heavy slog), he appreciates a good winter and all of the terrible weather it provides. Look for The Night Librarian and Planning Room for other YA reads.

