My gaze catches on the group of suits in the stands as I swing my attention away. They’ve been showing up for practice pretty often this month, just hanging out and watching. I haven’treceived an email or text in response to their attendance, so I assume they just want to… observe?
They’re far enough away that I can’t make out who they are in the dark bleachers. One, I believe, is the owner because he wears tropical shirts a lot. Or maybe his suits are just loudly patterned. I’m not sure, exactly, but I’m confident one of the men is always Edries Franklin.
“Swap,” Reno calls as he slowly skates in my direction.
The bubble of keepaway breaks apart and heads for the bench. Those shooting on the goalies move to the breakaway bubbles, and those who’d been on bench are now with the goalies. Once more, the arena is filled with blades digging into ice, the puck sliding, and sticks hitting.
And laughter. I love that my team remembers to laugh. It’s one of my favorite parts about being a coach. Hockey is hard work, and there’s no time to laugh during a game. That’s when they should be entirely focused. But during practice? I welcome a little laughter. A little goofing off. Most of the time, I don’t even call attention to it because it lasts only a minute or two, then they’re back to giving it their all.
We continue to rotate positions throughout the rest of practice. Reno calls them in at the end, though I don’t have much to say.
“Good practice. Go wash up and enjoy your evenings. Get some rest. Be ready for Buffalo tomorrow.”
“Aye, Coach,” Felton says as the team begins toward the chute.
Reno and I remain where we are for a minute. Reno usually heads in with the team, so the fact that he’s staying here means he has something to say. I glance up at the stadium again, but the seats where the suits have been are empty.
“I want you to hear me with an open mind,” Reno says.
Grinning, I shift to face him.
“I understand and fully support how you handle Marion and Felton swapping during games, but we’re in the middle of the season now. We need to clinch our spot in the playoffs, so I think we need to back away from fair trade-outs and move into strategic planning.”
“You want to see Marion in the net tomorrow,” I guess.
“Yes. Marion is habitually better against Buffalo. I think it’s a smarter decision.”
It’s not that I don’t understand his position. It’s the same mumblings I hear my team voice when they don’t think I can hear them. But I need both goalies to be versatile andgoodagainst every team.
“I hear you, and I’ll think about it.”
Reno grins. “Good. I’m going to keep harassing you until you give in. Have a good night.” He raises his hand in a wave and heads for the chute.
At least he was kind enough to warn me that he plans to harass me. Though… maybe they’re all right. Let’s see if switching it up to which of my goalies has historically played better against a specific team makes a difference this season.
With this thought in mind, I head toward the chute as well and toward my office. The voices and laughter from the locker room drift through the air, making me smile.
My office is quiet, the sounds of my boys in the locker room not quite reaching me in here. Even so, I keep my door open as I drop into my chair and unlace my skates. I stick my feet into my sneakers then sit back to open my laptop.
The team cloud has an archive of all games in recent history. Most of what had been kept on VHS or within other formats was digitized so that they could be kept within the cloud archive.
I don’t need to go further back. Instead, I generate a search for the last dozen games against Buffalo and weed out the ones which had Marion in goal—about half, so that’s nice.
I watch both sets of games, though not the entire way through. I don’t care about the whole game right now. Only the bits where I can watch our end of the ice. It doesn’t take me long to determine two things. Reno is right, and Marion needs to work on his stick handling.
Once I’ve decided to try Reno’s suggestion and put Marion in net tomorrow, I lose myself down a rabbit hole of watching all the games this season with Marion in net to see if I’ve just missed this one thing in person.
It wouldn’t be entirely shocking if I overlooked it. I have almost thirty players, so focusing solely on Marion for a game isn’t realistic. But hands down, the majority of goals scored against Marion are on his stick side. I watch a few clips in particular to determine whether it’s a need to strengthen reflexes or something else.
While I’m watching, I note which games I’m playing and the times of the moments that align with what I’m thinking so I can share it with Reno, get his opinion on it, and make a plan to strengthen Marion’s stick side going forward.
I pause on the replay of Marion adjusting so he can try to catch the puck with his glove instead of using his stick though the puck is clearly heading for a position that his stick could block easily. He still blocks the puck but does so with his body. Not an awful strategy. That’s why they wear ten inches of pads.
I’m startled when there’s a knock on my door. It’s wide open still, so I see Sylvan Vishan, the team’s general manager, in the doorway, watching me with an amused smile while I blink to focus my eyes. How long have I been looking at the screen? My eyes feel strained.
“Hey, Sylvan,” I greet and push my chair back, rubbing my eyes in the process.
“You look focused. Am I interrupting?”
