Helovedbeing a Montreal Voyageur. He loved what he and his teammates had accomplished here, and he wanted to keep doing it for the rest of his career. He was an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season, but he fully expected to sign with Montreal again. He didn’t even want to look at options. This was his team. These were his fans.
And those were his three fucking Stanley Cup banners.
Someday his number would hang from the rafters too. He had no doubt that it would be retired here. He’d earned that. Even if he quit right now, he’d done enough to earn that.
“You know what’s even better than three Stanley Cups?” J.J. asked.
Shane smiled. “Four Stanley Cups.”
“Fucking right. Let’s get it.”
“Let’s get it,” Shane agreed.
Home openers in Ottawa always felt a bit ridiculous.
Like all NHL teams, there was a lot of fanfare: videos projected on the ice, a whole light show, lots of dry ice and loud exciting music. Each player was announced individually as they stepped off a red carpet and onto the ice.
When Ilya had played for Boston, the energy in the building had crackled with pride and possibility. The team had been making a promise to the fans to do everything they could to win for them. The fans in Boston had expectations; they wanted champions.
Ottawa’s home openers were more like a pre-emptive apology. There were no promises being made here tonight, just a lot of fancy lights to distract from the fact that the team was truly terrible and would almost certainly lose this game. And the next one.
Ilya hated it. The worst part was that it didn’t even make sense to him. Ottawa had the elements of a great team, himself included. Their new coach, Brandon Wiebe, was untested and very young, but Ilya liked him already. Wyatt was a great goalie, and was regularly stopping forty shots or more to keep them from losing too badly. Ilya was still scoring plenty of goals, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t be a whole team.
As the captain, Ilya’s name was called last. He stepped onto the ice, and the fans went wild. They truly did love him here in Ottawa. It was nice.
He took his place, completing the circle his teammates had made around the logo at center ice. The Centaurs logo was one of many baffling things about the team: a cartoon drawing of a centaur playing hockey. Ilya wasn’t sure how exactly that wouldwork. It was sort of the perfect representation of Ottawa’s team, though: a bunch of things mashed together that had no hope of winning hockey games.
“These poor bastards,” muttered Ilya’s linemate, Zane Boodram, as he gazed at the crowd through the dry ice and the dim lighting.
“Maybe we will win,” Ilya said.
“Sure. Maybe this will be the season we finally decorate the ceiling of this dump.”
Ilya glanced up at the rafters, where exactly zero Stanley Cup Champions banners hung.
“Maybe.”
“This was one fucking game,” Coach Theriault said in his usual gruff, humorless tone. “We’ve got a long season ahead of us, so let’s not start jerking each other off just yet.”
There were murmurs of solemn agreement from the players in the locker room. Shane nodded along with them, agreeing with his coach but wishing he could have used less homophobic wording. After nearly thirty years of a life in hockey, though, Shane barely knew what counted as homophobic anymore.
It had been a good game. Montreal had dominated from the very first minute, and their goalie, Patrice Drapeau, had only let in one goal. Nearly perfect, really.
“Tomorrow,” Coach said, “we’re going to talk about the power play because it was a fucking mess tonight. Video meeting before practice. Nine A.M.”
There were mutters of “Yes, coach.” Shane honestly wasn’t sure what the power play problem was, since they’d only had three power plays and had scored on one of them, but he supposed he’d find out. This team strove for perfection, always.It wasn’t easy being a Voyageur, but at least the hard work and sacrifice paid off. Only one team in the league had raised a banner tonight.
He couldn’t imagine being on a team like Ottawa. Ilya rarely complained about it, but Shane wouldn’t be able to cope with the embarrassment of losing that often. It was a bit disappointing, if he was being honest, that Ilya didn’t care more. He missed actuallycompetingagainst Ilya. These days there wasn’t much challenge.
“Coach didn’t cheer up any over the summer, huh?” Hayden said to Shane after Theriault left the room.
“He’s our coach, not our friend,” Shane said, somewhat automatically.
Hayden nudged him. “Youdidn’t cheer up any over the summer either.”
Shane scoffed, which didn’t make him sound any more cheerful.
Hayden laughed and threw an arm around Shane’s shoulders. “Love you, pal. Wanna get lunch tomorrow after practice?”
