He muted the game and checked the team’s Instagram instead.At the top of his feed, he spotted footage of the team practice in Colorado.Kayleigh must have posted it just now.For some reason, people always wanted to see Denver practices because of the altitude.Phil couldn’t say he’d noticed much of a difference when they played there, but the NHL did love a gimmick.
Tom and Jax were playing together again.
Phil squinted down at his phone to make sure he had seen right.But there they were, doing passing drills up and down the ice, all but ignoring Mike Vanderbilt, the third guy on their line.
Why put Jax on Tom’s line, pull him off as soon as he fucked up in a game, and then put him right back on?Was he supposed to have learned something in the zero opportunities he’d had to try?What did Morris intend on doing the next time the team played the Magpies?Or when every other team in the league exploited Jax’s very obvious weakness and chirped him about the trade?
Phil dropped his phone face down into the cushions.
Instantly, his fingers itched for it.
He wanted to ask Tom why he’d cared enough to ask for a line change when he never had before and why Jax had fucked up so badly last night.But then he’d have to face Tom’s questions about his knee, and Phil didn’t want to admit his season, if not his career, was likely over.
He wanted to ask Jax for a long-term strategy when dealing with his ex-teammates, but he didn’t know Jax well enough to be so confrontational.
Most of all, Phil wanted to ask Morris why he let players dictate the lineup.Unfortunately, Phil had no gauge for whether he was the type of coach to welcome feedback or the type to bench Phil for daring to have an independent thought.He didn’t know much of anything about Morris at all, which was weird.Head coaching gigs got tossed around between the same fifty-odd middle-aged white guys.New names seldom entered the mix.Unlike Tom, Phil didn’t follow hockey news religiously.He didn’t memorize the name of every assistant coach in the league, but if someone got a head coach gig, Phil ought to have at least heard the name once or twice.He couldn’t recall having heard “Ben Morris” anywhere.Now, watching the team practice on Instagram, Phil couldn’t even find Morris on the ice.
What was the point of a new head coach if he let the players do whatever they wanted?If he let them be jerked around by a shitty subordinate like Trout?Maybe Phil’s disappointment that Morris’s laid-back demeanor had done nothing to protect him had influenced his train of thought, but on a purely professional level, Phil wondered why none of the coaches had listened to the trainers about his goddamn knee.
Beyond his own frustration and the likely end of his career, treating players as expendable couldn’t be a long-term solution.Especially players who had been with the team as long as Phil.They were assets to be used, sure, but longevity was a good quality in an asset.
Mind made up, Phil flipped his phone over again.He tabbed out of Instagram and headed to Google instead.He would find out everything he could about Ben Morris and why he let his subordinates and his players run roughshod all over the team.
Phil’s knee twinged, and he adjusted his ice pack.
It was better than watching more hockey when he couldn’t play.
Chapter Two
Olivia Starling: What led you to hire a relative unknown as head coach?
Martin Pulvermacher: Good question, Olivia.As GM of a hockey franchise, you’ve always got to focus on the best interests of the team.It’s not just my legacy as GM I’m building; it’s the legacy of every player wearing the team sweater.And when I’ve got good players asking for trades, and we have cap space to spare, that tells me San Francisco isn’t seen as an attractive place to build a legacy.So it’s time to think outside the box.
Olivia Starling: What players asked—
Martin Pulvermacher: Beside the point.Sometimes shaking things up is the right tactic to making a big change.I believe Ben Morris—who I’ve known for a long time and who I trust to make the right choices for my players—will bring in some new ideas and some fresh air.He’ll make the difference the Sea Lions need to be a contender.
Top comments:
Clions2010: not to be all doom and gloom, but this screams “last-ditch Hail Mary before the GM jumps ship.”
seelionssaylions: hiring a guy who hasn’t coached more than college hockey shows the lengths the NHL will go to in order to avoid hiring a qualified woman.
(Interview with Martin Pulvermacher, Sea Lions GM, at preseason training camp, on 09/17/2024)
“I moved into the apartment four months ago.How is there a rent adjustment so soon?”Ben hissed into the phone.
“Sorry, dude.It’s in the contract, in case of—”
“Ireadthe contract,” Ben said and then lowered his voice immediately.He stood in the glass-walled head coach’s office of the San Francisco Sea Lions’ practice facility in Palo Alto.Unlike his enormous office in the massive arena, the windows let enough sound through that someone might overhear him.If anyone heard him complaining about money issues, they’d have a lot of questions Ben couldn’t answer.Underpaid, NHL coaches were not.“Fine, thanks, I guess.”
He hung up.Nothing to be done there.
The hell of it was, Ben already paid north of 3,000 a month for the pleasure of not even living in downtown San Francisco but in a shitty suburb.He’d taken this job on the promise of eventually seeing revenue from it, not because he was earning jack right now.Ben lived off of royalty checks and the vague hope that maybe Netflix would be interested in making a six-part miniseries based on his last book.They could get someone iconic like Stephen Fry to narrate.It would do great.Everyone wanted to watch six hours of content about how pharmaceutical companies were destroying the healthcare system.
Anyway, an extra 150 a month would eat into his savings.And by “eat into,” Ben meant “decimate.”Sure, he technically got wages as a coach, but Ben had set up a separate account for his paychecks, and he had no intention of touching the money.He didn’t want compensation for a job he hadn’t earned and wasn’t doing competently.
Ben had let the situation continue unchecked for long enough to break Phil Easton’s knee.He had to set some sort of professional standard.
