"To be smart. To be strategic. You protect your team when they actually need it, not every five seconds." Ryan sets the pen down. "You know what enforcers really do? They punish players. They send a message. But that message only works if you're selective about when you deliver it."
"So what, I'm supposed to just skate around and do nothing?"
"You're supposed to read the game. See when your guys need backup. Then you handle it." Ryan stands up, moving to the whiteboard covered in play diagrams. "Right now, you're using your body in every single play. That's not enforcing. That's just being reckless."
The word stings because it's true. Scout said something similar last week. Different context, but the same idea.
"Scout told me something." The words come out before I can stop them. "She said I don't have to meet every sensation with force."
Ryan's eyebrows rise. "Scout said that?"
"Yeah. We were talking about something else, but..." I shrug, feeling exposed. "Maybe it applies to hockey too."
"Smart woman." Ryan nods slowly. "She's right. You don't have to hit everything that moves. Save it for when it counts."
"What if I can't?" The admission wrenches out of my chest. "What if being physical is the only thing I know how to do?"
"Then you learn something new. Or you trust that the physical part works better when you're not exhausting yourself with constant contact." Ryan crosses his arms. "I want you to try something tomorrow night. Go into the game with one rule: you don't hit unless your team needs you to. Watch, wait, be patient. Can you do that?"
Everything in me wants to say no. I want to argue that my value comes from being the biggest, meanest presence on the ice. But Ryan's looking at me so sternly that I can’t say no without feeling like a disobedient schoolboy.
"One game," I say finally. "I'll try it for one game."
"That's all I'm asking." Ryan claps me on the shoulder. "Now get out of here. You look like hell."
The drive home feels longer than usual. My head's full of static, thoughts tangling over each other. Ryan could be wrong. What if holding back makes me useless? What if the team realizes they don't actually need me?
Scout's at the kitchen counter when I walk in, choppingvegetables for dinner. She's wearing one of my Havoc t-shirts that hangs to her thighs, her dark blonde curls piled on top of her head in a messy knot. Bare legs, bare feet, humming along to some song playing from her phone.
She's always so damn beautiful.
"Hey." She looks up, smiling. Then her smile fades. "Rough practice?"
"Something like that." I drop my bag by the door, moving to wash my hands at the sink. "Sorry. My head's a mess right now."
"Want to talk about it?" She slides closer, those green eyes soft with concern.
"Not really." I dry my hands, pulling her against me just to feel her solid and real. "I just need to watch some film tonight. There’s some shit I have to figure out."
"Okay." She doesn't push, just wraps her arms around my waist and holds on. "I'll make dinner. You do what you need to do."
That's the thing about Scout. Counter to what she believes about herself, she doesn't try to fix everything. She just lets me be whatever I need to be while making sure I'm not alone in it.
Dinner is some kind of stir-fry she throws together with chicken and vegetables. We eat in relative silence, her trying to make light conversation while I give one-word answers. Not because I don’t want to talk to her, but because my brain won't stop replaying every hit from practice, analyzing what Ryan said, trying to figure out how to be useful without being physical.
"I'm going to watch film," I say after helping her clean up. "It might be a while."
"That's fine." Scout kisses my cheek. "I'll read or something. Don't stay up too late."
I set up in bed with my laptop, pulling up footage from our last three games. Mainly, I’m looking for patterns. Times when I hit and it mattered. More times when I hit and it didn't change anything.
The more I watch, the more Ryan's words make sense. Half my hits are unnecessary. The other half are effective but poorly timed. I’m constantly moving, constantly engaging, never giving myself time to read the play and respond strategically.
I can’t believe I never saw this before. It’s like looking at the sky through a telescope for the first time. Everything is suddenly brilliantly illuminated.
Scout appears in the doorway about an hour later, changed into one of my oversized t-shirts. Seeing her dressed in my clothes, wearing what she thinks is comfortable, makes my mouth go dry despite my distraction. She's holding a physical therapy magazine, the kind with dense articles and diagrams of muscle groups.
"Mind if I join you?" She gestures to the empty side of the bed.
