“I don’t want to do this anymore. Hockey’s stupid!” echoed across the community center ice.
Rusty looked away from his little group of players toward the other side of the rink where Isaiah faced off against a frustrated twelve-year-old. They’d split the group into kids who could skate and kids who couldn’t, and Rusty took the actual players so Isaiah could focus on the learn-to-skate group. After a week, they were making better progress, but not without grumbles.
“I hear you,” Isaiah said to the boy. “But learning new stuff is power.” As a big Black man who’d played college defense and now worked construction, Isaiah looked like a guy who knew about power. “See, someone says to you, ‘Hockey’s the best sport,’ and you say, “Nah, man, can’t compete with football.’ Then they say, ‘What the fu-udge you know about it? You probably don’t even know how to skate.’ Right now, you have to give them that point. But by the end of the summer, you can say, “Hell, yeah, I know how to skate. Even played a little hockey with a pro coach. And I still say it sucks compared to football.’ Say that, and you win the argument. Amiright?”
Young TJ peered up at Isaiah, his head tilted. “Who’s the pro coach?”
“Rusty over there.” Isaiah waved in Rusty’s direction. “Weren’t you listening last week? He plays for the Gryphons.”
“Hah. Aren’t they, like, the lowest league?”
A new voice said from behind the glass, “Give Rusty Dolan a couple of years and he’ll be tearing up the NHL with the Rafters.” Cross crutched his way into view behind the boards.
“Wow!” one of the kids in Rusty’s group said. “That’s LaCroix!”
Isaiah pivoted to look. “Hey! I wasn’t expecting you, but welcome! Guys, this is Roger LaCroix from the Rafters. Speaking of pros. Stanley Cup winner. Norris Trophy winner.”
“Thanks.” Cross moved along to the door. “Rusty said I could stop by and see how his guys were doing.”
“You two know each other?”
“Sure do,” Rusty said. “I spent last summer working on Scott Edison’s ranch. I know a bunch of the guys.”Was that casual enough?
A tall boy in his hockey group said, “Is Edzie here? Cool!” He looked around as if Scott might appear out of thin air.
Cross mock-glared. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
Rusty saved the red-faced teen who was scrambling for words, by saying, “No, Scott’s in Kansas on his ranch with his two partners.”
“That’s so fucked,” one of the older boys muttered to the boy beside him.
“Oh, I bet Scott gets well fucked,” Rusty agreed, then added, “Sorry,” to Isaiah.
Isaiah waved him off. “Nothing they haven’t heard and Nathan, you want to be hateful? You keep that crap to yourself.” He turned to Cross. “You gonna maybe stick around, see the guys skate?”
“Absolutely. Show me what you’ve got.”
Isaiah said, “My guys will skate a lap around, then Rusty, you get something going with yours.”
While the non-skaters showed off their developing skills, Rusty divided his crew into pairs for a passing drill. He sent them up the ice, passing the puck back and forth between them. His top pair did a decent job, the rest were ragged. When they were done, they gathered in front of Cross.
“Good to see you guys working hard in the off season,” Cross said. Then he proceeded to give a constructive word of praise to each skater. “Nice long glides.” “Good bend to the knees.” And to the hockey pairs, “You were faster than your partner but you held back and didn’t outskate the passes. Good job.” “You chased down the one that hopped over your stick. Good hustle.”
Rusty knew his mouth was hanging open by the end of that. “How the hell did you remember all that?”
Cross raised a cool eyebrow. “Didn’t you?”
“Man,” one of the boys told Cross. “You have, like, an electric memory.”
“Eidetic,” the kid next to him muttered, then flushed. “Whatever.”
“I do have a good memory,” Cross agreed. “You might not think that’s much help in hockey, but it is. I watch a lot of game tape, so if I see Nat Johnson from the Orcas coming at me with the puck at the blueline, I can remember that more than half the time, he’s going to try to bounce it off the boards to get around me, so in this case, I don’t play the man, I play the puck. With a good move, I can steal that sucker right out from under him and head the play back up the ice.”
“So that’s why you’re so good,” Rusty teased. “You cheat.”
“I don’tcheat,” Cross protested. “I study.”
“He really does,” Rusty told the kids. “Like, all the time. Hockey knowledge coming out of his ears.”
