“Wow.”
“Welcome to Division I hockey, Aiden Mercer.”
I laughed, and if it wouldn’t have looked strange, I would’ve pinched myself. He must’ve realized I was trying to not look like a square peg in a round hole, because he chuckled, then yelled, “Move over assholes, our new star forward is here and he’s fucking hungry.”
Cries of descent ripped through the air from every corner of the room, claiming the spot for themselves. As I looked around, I noticed some familiar faces and realized even the goalies were in on the ribbing. While heat bloomed in my face, embarrassed he’d make that claim for me, it didn’t seem to piss off any of the guys I hadn’t met yet. Everyone took turns coming over to shake my hand, either saying hi if we’d met before or introducing themselves if we hadn’t. Everyone pressed me forward toward the food.
As I sat down with the rest of the team to eat, I thought of Shane and the guys I’d played with before, a few of them in this very room, and realized that this school and team would be no different than the ones I’d been a part of before. The stakes were huge… for most of us around the table. The U had put together a dream team of superstars, but they were still just hockey players, and I started to relax. It didn’t matter that we had a couple of guys already drafted one of which my roommate the Olympic medalist. The U was just a fancier version of every other rink and team I’d played on.
FIFTEEN
SASHA
With his vest on and his leash clipped to my waist, Hawk and I set out in the early morning hours the next day before the moon dipped below the horizon. The team would be arriving at the barn for the first practice of the season, and I wanted to get a run in first.
The words I would say to them when we stepped onto the ice together the first time ran through my head. I wanted to be their friend, their mentor, but first and foremost, I would be their coach. They needed to know my door was always open to them. That my number and Will’s should be the first two they called if they got in trouble and needed rescuing. Help, they could call their teammates and the captain. If there was real trouble, it needed to be Will and me.
Three miles in, I turned toward the arena. I was as ready as I would ever be to face down the division champs and make them believe I was the guy to get them to not just the Frozen Four, but to another national championship.
As I reached the barn, the sun peeked over the horizon, peeking through the buildings on campus. I stopped in the grass next to the building, opening the bottle of water I had strapped to my hip. I dumped some into Hawk’s collapsible bowl before downing half the bottle, then poured the rest into his bowl. While he lapped it up, I unclipped his leash, and he ran around sniffing and doing his business while I dropped to the ground to do some push-ups and stretches.
Excitement and nervous energy flowed through me, weaving themselves into the fabric of my being. It reminded me of my days as a player, both on this campus and for the Raptors in New York before my injury took me out of the game. There was never a morning I woke up and dreaded the grind. I relished it. Craved the insanity, structure, and discipline, but it took me a while to learn those things, and I wanted to help the young men on this team learn the lessons I learned the hard way with as few growing pains as possible.
Especially the boys heading for the show. They needed to know how to create balance when something in their life was designed to take over. Because that was professional sports in a nutshell. It wasn’t just a career. It became everything. The way you ate, slept, talked, walked; it all changed, but it also impacted how you interacted with others, even those you’d known all your life. And I needed to teach them what to look for and guide them in how to respond.
Switching from push-ups to hip dips, I moved the focus to my core. I was worried about keeping up with a bunch of seventeen to twenty-two-year-olds. I’d stayed in skating shape, or as close to it as I could, all these years away from the game, but I hadn’t been on the ice since my injury. When my injuries forced me to walkaway from the sport, I hung up my skates. I won’t say I didn’t look back, but I never laced on another pair of skates. Every time I thought about it, I dismissed it. The dream life I’d been living and taking for granted was over, and I needed to let it die.
Hawk barked and I flipped over, planting my ass on the ground. “Hawk, come,” I ordered, and he came to me, sitting next to my deaf and blind side.
A big shadow blocked out the sun, and I looked up as someone thrust a cup of coffee under my nose. Will Grigor stood before me.
“We have a state-of-the-art training facility inside those doors, you know that, right?”
“Thanks for the reminder.” I got to my feet, accepting the offered cup. “And for the coffee.”
I gathered mine and Hawk’s belongings while Will waited, and my esteem of the man went up a notch or two. Most people would’ve jumped to help without asking if I needed or wanted it.
I waved him toward the building, clipping Hawk to my waist again. “C’mon. I need a shower.”
He stopped, unlocking the door that Michelson told me led into the admin area and was for staff use only. The team could access the building through an underground tunnel with their student IDs.
“Did you get access to the team app?” Will asked.
I nodded. I liked the setup and idea behind it. It controlled access to the building for each player, had all their stats, andsynced with the team’s website and management software automatically.
But I’d not delved into it too much yet. I didn’t want any preconceptions about any of the guys before I met them myself. I hadn’t even watched film on the guys because I wanted to see them on the ice and base my decisions on what I saw and knew about them, and not what others wanted me to know. That time would come, but they each deserved a shot at a clean slate, and that’s what I would give them.
Will gave me a quick tour of the facilities since this was my first time here, and my jaw threatened to drop at every turn. State-of-the-art didn’t cover it. The design and build were better than the locker rooms I’d used as a pro.
The arena was… yeah, I don’t think I had the vocabulary to say what the arena was other than fucking spectacular. To coach this team, well, it was the opportunity of a lifetime, but to do so in this space… wow! That was all I could come up with.
“This is…” I started, and Will finished with “Over the top and better than what I had in San Diego and Boston.”
I laughed, nodding. “Yep, that was my thought about New York.”
“Those visitor rooms in New York were amazing, though.” He paused, opening the door to the coaching suite. “Your office is through there,” he said as he waved toward my office.
And again, I was blown away.
