The room went quiet, and my eyes flitted back to Ariana’s. She was frowning at me, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was annoyed I was arguing with her, or because she understood the point I was making.
“But hey, maybe it’s a bit of both,” I conceded, and really, I was speaking only to her then. “Maybe, sometimes, resilience is what you carry inside. And sometimes…it’s who carries it with you.”
“Very good points, Mr. McCabe,” Professor Reid said, and then he tapped the white board and transitioned into his lecture.
But I was still looking at Ariana.
She was still looking at me.
And when her lips melted into a soft, breathtaking smile; I knew I was a goner.
This Is It
Shane
Present
At forty-one years old, I was having my patience tested as a coach in a way I imagined it might have been tested had I ever been a parent.
It was mid-September in the most chaotic opening of a season I’d yet to experience. As head coach for the Tampa Bay Ospreys, I’d seen a lot over the years — suspensions from offseason debauchery, rookies who just never showed up to camp, rookies whodidshow up and then underperformed in a way that had us all wondering why they were ever drafted.
But this season felt like my own personal hell.
Our goalie, Will Perry, affectionately known as Daddy P, was the best in the league. There was no debate. Irrefutably, he was the best — and all summer, he had been sitting on the Ospreys’ offer for a contract extension next season. He’d promised me he’d seriously consider it, but I had a feeling he was leaning toward retirement.
And I couldn’t blame him.
He’d put his body through hell for decades, won himself a Stanley Cup with the team a few seasons ago, and had played one hell of a career, in general. He was married now to his former nanny, Chloe, and they were ready to give his daughter a sibling.
But just because I could understand his choice didn’t mean I had to love it.
Perry had his struggles — the same hip that had carried him through two decades of saves now protesting every drop to the ice, his stamina fading with it. But all in all, he was still incredible. He was a powerhouse and a team favorite. He was the heart and soul of the team.
And everyone knows if you kill the heart and soul of anything, it doesn’t take long for the rest to decay.
So, I walked into the first day of preseason training camp with a promise from Perry that he’d have an answer for me. It was the first time since my rookie year coaching that anxiety thrummed through me on the first day of camp — coffee full in my hand, stomach too tight to take a sip.
If I had to rebuild our team around our backup goalie or, worse, a new goalie altogether — I was in for a tough season ahead.
To add to my misery, we’d lost our General Manager unexpectedly over the offseason.
Richard Bancroft, or “Dick” as we all called him, had been a jolly old man. He was everything you might think Santa Claus might be in his down time when he wasn’t running the North Pole. And though a bit eccentric, he’d helped me turn this program around. We went from a losing team that could barely fill half the arena to a championship one that frequently had sold-out games. Between his off-the-wall marketing and my knack for bringing out the best in players, we had what it took to achieve greatness.
And we did.
Up until the very moment he passed from a sudden heart attack.
Grief didn’t like to play by any rules you tried to set out for it. I’d learned that at a very early age. Still, now that camp was here, I didn’t have the luxury of grieving my old friend anymore.
Because I had to prepare for his replacement.
The Tampa Bay Ospreys had scrambled to get us a new GM before the season started, but by the time negotiations were settled, we were right on the cusp of preseason. That meant this new guy was walking into a team already settled for him. There was no time for him to make any of the changes he might want to, unless he decided to do so in the middle of a season, which wouldn’t be the most ideal situation for anyone.
I didn’t consider myself a very religious man, but I did pray. I’d been praying since I was a kid, since the day I lost my parents in the most unfair way imaginable.
And so, when I walked into camp that day, I was praying — that somehow my goalie would stick around for a couple more seasons, and that my new general manager wouldn’t be a prick.
Fortunately, once I stepped behind the bench and heard the familiar slice of skates over ice, my nerves settled. The rink was alive with motion — pucks clanging off the glass, coaches barking drills, trainers hauling gear across the bench, the low thud of sticks meeting the boards. The smell of fresh ice and sweat was like a candle scent poured just for me.
