For our coaches’ part, they were effusive about our turnaround, but Coach Marks made it clear during his postgame speech that the pressure would be on in first periods from here on out.
“You all pulled it together in the end,” he’d explained, “but we need to focus on playingourgame and coming out swinging, not letting ourselves get into a hole we need to dig out of. Especially since we’ll only be able to rely on some of our star power for the next few games.” He’d paused, looking at each of us in turn. “Lean too hard on Abashev, and I will bench him just to make you all pull your weight.”
He’d do it, too. Vasily hadn’t seemed pleased by that suggestion—he was as twitchy as any of us when he was on the bench—but he probably understood it. And he probably knew that Coach’s threat would get us all pulling our weight instead of relying on him.
We arrived at the airport not long after. We usually took commercial flights, but we didn’t have a lot of time between tonight’s game and our next one in Calgary, so the club had chartered us a jet. That happenedmaybeonce or twice a season in my experience, and we were all happy to enjoy the bougie accommodations while we had them.
Petters scowled a bit as we boarded. I supposed I understood; he’d played three seasons in the NAPH beforegetting dumped into the PHL. Flying like this probably felt like a taste of what he’d had and couldn’t, despite his best efforts, get back. He wasn’t a bad player by any means. He was a solid defenseman who was firmly in our top pair. But a shoulder injury had slowed him down a couple of seasons ago, and he’d never quite returned to the caliber he’d been before that. Most of the whispers and articles agreed that his NAPH days were probably over for good.
I shuddered a bit as I took my seat three rows back from Petters. I couldn’t imagine that—making it to the top, then getting hobbled by an injury and never being able to reach that level again. That was one of the harsh realities of this sport—shit could happen quickly, and it could permanently alter or even end a career trajectory in the blink of an eye.
I sent up a plea to the hockey gods to spare me something like that. I still had a lot of years left to play hockey—I hoped—and I just prayed like hell that an injury didn’t cut that short.
And speaking of injuries…
Vasily settled in the seat across the aisle from me. He shifted a little, then stretched out his leg, a flicker of a wince passing over his face.
Shit. What if his knee was the beginning of the end? That injury that haunted him and held him back for the rest of his career? Or shortened it? God, that would be criminal.
“You all right?” I asked.
He nodded and managed a tired smile that was a little too tight around the edges. “Probably just need to ice it. And sleep.”
“At least we’re…” I circled my finger in the air to indicate our surroundings. “The buses don’t usually have this much leg room.” I paused. “And neither do the planes, since we usually go commercial.”
“Commercial?” He gave a playfully haughty sniff. “I’ll hire a private jet of my own. Fuck that.”
“Hey, there better be room on that jet for your linemates!”
That earned me a shrug, followed by a wink.
“Yeah, well,” I said, “Commercial, charter—just enjoy flying at all while you’re with us. I think we’re on the bus for the rest of this road trip.”
“Not all of it,” Brown broke in, twisting around in his seat in front of Vasily. “We’re flying from Winnipeg to Toronto.”
“Oh, thankGod,” Nix groaned behind me. “That drive isforever.”
“And the drive from Edmonton to Winnipeg isn’t?” Brown scoffed. “That’s like fifteen hours.”
“It is not. It’s thirteen and a half.”
While my teammates argued about exactly how long we’d be stuck on the bus between Edmonton and Winnipeg, Vasily turned to me. “Don’t you usually fly to Calgary?”
“Pfft. No.” I turned up my nose and added a haughty, “We don’t need toflywhen it’s only a twelve-hour drive.”
He chuckled.
“Seriously, though, we’d usually be driving to Calgary, but since we have to play in T-minus”—I checked my phone—“eighteen hours or so, we get to fly this time. On a bougie jet for once, since there aren’t any flights going there this late.”
“Lucky us,” he said.
“You get to fly like this all the time,” Brown said. “Fucking lucky. This is swanky as shit.”
“Seriously,” Hoskins said. “I can’t believe they’re going to put us back in peasant class after this.” He made a melodramatically disgruntled sound. “Goalies are too tall for peasant class!”
“You can always talk to the airline,” Vasily deadpanned. “I think some of them have livestock planes.”
That had all of us howling with laughter—hey, we were fucking tired—and Hoskins muttering a few curses.
