“No, not you. I was telling Arnie that the term is chip in not chirp in,” I explained. Coach gave me a dark look. I shut up. Chip nodded. Seemed he didn’t care. Nor did Bob or Taft. Only our emotional second-string goalie was upset.
Chip nodded like he didn’t care, but then, as usual, he couldn’t help himself. “Actually, ‘chip in’ comes from poker,” he said, twisting slightly on the bench to face me. “Early 1800s. Everyone had to put a chip into the pot to be part of the hand. So it just sort of morphed into meaning contributing to anything: money, ideas, effort.”
Arnaud rolled his eyes. “Chirp, chip, chap. It is all for the good you know what I am meaning. I am not angry. No, no, I am hurt. I wish for next time, when we do art classes, we will present Teacher Finn with a gift from us all. This way, emotions are happy and not flat. Oui?”
“Yes, oui, sure, da, ja, whatever.” Oh my God. I wasn’t sure which tendie was worse. The Russian who called people otters and broke his stick in half when he missed a save, or the French Canadian who talked incessantly while trying to make friends with the ice. Goaltenders were a whole different breed. “Fine, we’ll all chip in to buy Finn something. Can we maybe play hockey now?”
“Oui. We can play. Thank you for consideration of my feelings. You are not always un gros canard.”
“Thanks?” He clapped my shoulder and sat back down in his backup goalie chair. I dropped onto my ass on the bench, eager for the third line to roll. I was ready. More than ready. I was stoked. This was the way back to Manhattan. Getting to play, proving I was a new man, letting the GM back in New York eyeball me being a good noodle.
I shot Bob a look as we hit the ice. He and I had been paired up, a blessing because I knew him from art class, and the other D-men seemed to be kind of wary of me. Like they didn’t trust me not to clock them for some minor infraction. Which, given I had punched one of the Vipers in the face a year ago for some stupid practical joke, was a legit concern. The road back to the pros was a long, long, long, long one to walk. I saw many foot blisters in my future.
“You ready to knock heads and chew gum?” Bob asked as we skated out to join in a breakaway in the making. I saw Taft lose the puck, a nasty turnover, and got the puck carrier for Jersey locked into my sights. My check to his shoulder was clean but hard. It knocked him into the boards, leaving the puck sittingthere like a cupcake for a good boy. I did love cupcakes. I shoveled it up, chugged down the ice to the Jersey net, and fired. It bounced off the upright with a clang. The Copperhead fans all AWWW’d at the same time. I skated behind the net, eyes on the puck, and entered a nice little knot of players in the corner. Elbows were higher than they should be as we all poked at the little frozen rubber disc down by our skates. When one such elbow connected with my eye, I did not react. Left eye watering, I kicked the puck free and grinned at the Jersey player as a whistle blew.
My smile followed Elbow Boy all the way to the sin bin. We didn’t score on the power play, but I did pull a penalty, which made me and our defensive coach happy. Blood pumping through my veins, sweat in my sore eye, I felt about as good as a man could feel.
Win or lose, my life was back on track. Now all it needed for a cherry topper was a dinner date and a goodnight kiss from the world’s best teacher.
TEN
Finn
It wasthe last of the ten mandated art lessons with my hockey guys, and I was surprised by how sad I felt that it was ending. What had started as an awkward, reluctant series of sessions had grown into something I looked forward to. Sure, I’d have more time for my thesis now, but I would miss the weekly meetings, the easy laughter, the chaotic energy, and the unexpected friendships. With their jokes and teasing, these guys had become more than just students in my class—they felt like my people.
Even two weeks after Christmas, the room smelled faintly of pine from the garland someone had stubbornly refused to take down. But the thick snow and the freezing temperatures had inspired today’s project, winter landscapes, and an attempt at mastering impasto painting, thick layers of oil paint sculpted with palette knives to create texture. Taft had gone wild, slathering bold streaks of icy blue and snowy white across his canvas in chaotic swipes. Bob was more careful, painting in deliberate strokes of slate gray and shadowy blacks that captured the starkness of frozen branches against a cold sky. Walker had made something softer, blurry trees fading into snowfall. Arnaud and Chip had both gone to create a frozen lake.
The conversation turned nostalgic, and they shared childhood memories of pond skating as kids.
Arnaud spoke fondly of his winters in Quebec, where the icy ponds and lakes sounded like a part of daily life. His voice grew tight when he talked about his father teaching him to skate and how they’d race across the frozen surface while his dad laughed and shouted support.
“I wish he still… ” he began, coughing lightly. He forced a smile and changed the subject before the emotion could overwhelm him. “What about you, Chip?”
“Every winter, my brothers and I built bonfires on the shore of the lake. We’d pile up driftwood, get it roaring, warm our hands until they stung, then skate until the stars came out. It should’ve felt like magic. And maybe it did, for them. But all I could think about was how fast a fire spreads. Did you know a house fire can double in size every thirty seconds? And it only takes about three minutes for a room to be fully engulfed.”
No one quite knew what to say to that.
Bob leaned back in his chair, arms crossed loosely, voice low and a little gravelly. “Back home in Minnesota, my dad used to test the ice before we were allowed on it. He’d grab this big-ass branch—like, heavy enough to swing like a bat—and just slam it down on the ice a few times.” He paused, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Said if the ice didn’t crack under that, it could handle a couple of dumb kids with skates. We’d be bouncing up and down behind him, dying to get on, but he always made us wait.”
He looked down at his hands, thumb running over a scar on his knuckle. “Never let us take chances. Said the lake doesn’t care how old you are or if you think you’re tough. You fall through, then you fall through.”
There was a silence after that profound statement from the big man, a stillness that hung for just a moment before someone cleared their throat.
Taft fidgeted in his chair. “I was only three the first time I skated on the pond. My best friend swore up and down it was safe, but I kept freaking out because I could hear the ice creaking. With every step, a horrible cracking sound.” He mimicked the noise dramatically, drawing snorts from Bob. “Anyway,” Taft continued, his smile faltering just a little. “I got maybe six feet before I panicked, fell straight on my ass, and somehow managed to drag Mick down with me. We both slid halfway across the pond like two sacks of potatoes.”
He chuckled softly, then looked down at his hands, his voice hitching. “There aren’t enough good things to remember.”
“What about you?” Bob asked Walker, but he showed every sign he didn’t want to talk about the pond because he immediately changed the subject.
“Present time!” he announced. Bob then left the room and came back with a big box wrapped in shiny red paper, topped with a crooked bow. Scrawled on the side in bold scarlet marker was the word TEACH. Given his love of anything red and dramatic, I assumed this was Taft’s handiwork. “Open it,” Walker urged.
I tugged at the paper and pulled out a Copperhead hoodie.
“That’s Walker’s number,” Chip announced as I traced his last name, HANNAN, and the number 10. “You know, only about 8 percent of defensemen in pro hockey wear the number 10 on their jersey. It’s usually a forward’s number, so when a defenseman picks it, it usually means one of two things: they’re honoring someone, or they just really don’t care about position-number conventions. Statistically, number 10 defensemen block more shots than average. Like, significantly more. It’s like they’ve got something to prove.” He subsided. “Sorry.”
“Why 10 then, Walker?” I asked.
He shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “Because it used to be this kid Julian’s number. Back on my junior team. Cocky bastard wouldn’t shut up about it and said no one else could wear it after he got drafted.”
