“Nah, dude, I’m not letting you face Cap alone.”
The way my shoulders relaxed made me realize how grateful I was.“Thanks.”I tugged my shirt straight and set off across the gym.
When I pulled open the door to the spin studio, the volume of the music hit my ears.I slid the control on the panel by the door down to background level.Pete looked over and sat up, easing his pedaling to a leisurely pace.“Vally.Bubs.”
“Hey, Cap.”I walked over and swung onto the bike next to him, starting a slow rhythm.Bubs leaned his butt against the bike ahead of us, his arms crossed.
Pete said, “What can I do for you boys?”his Russian accent lightly flavoring the words.He looked worried, and his frown reminded me that being captain to a whole team of testosterone-driven, competitive, mostly-young jocks couldn’t be a picnic.Even with the see-no-evil way he did it.
“Nothing bad, Cap,” I told him, sticking to a slow pace.“Maybe good, if you look at it that way.”
“Not sure I look at things the way you do, Vally.But go on.”
I decided to dodge around the topic a bit longer.“We have a decent team this year.Better than we’ve shown on the ice so far.”
“True.”
“Some good rookies.”
“We won’t keep the best of them long.”
Yeah, that was probably the other downside to being the captain of an ECHL team— watching your best players climb to the next level over and over, while you stayed put.Maybe it was no wonder Pete had checked out.A reason, but not an excuse.I said, “Some of them are getting hazed too long and too hard.It’s interfering with their play.”
“So you say.”Pete’s accent hit a little harder.“If they can’t handle it here, they’re too weak for the NHL.”
“A rookie shouldn’t have to fight battles in their own locker room every day and leave half his energy there instead of on the ice.Morty’s bitter because he never gets called up.Yagger’s just plain nasty and follows his lead.The pair of them are toxic in the room.Youknowthis, Cap.”
Pete looked away and picked up his pedaling.“What do you want me to do?”
“Clamp down on them,” Bubs put in.“Every time you just frown and walk out of the room, they get worse.”
“Stacker is too emotional.He needs to toughen up.”
I said, “Not like that.Whether he’s gay or he’s not, and for the record I’m voting not, having them lay every gay slur in the book on him doesn’t help.Having them towel-whip him and treat him like shit doesn’t help.”
“Every locker room has chirping.”Pete turned to glare at me.“If the boysaren’tchirping you, then you know you’re in trouble.”
“Sure.”There was some truth to that.Getting frozen out was the kiss of death.“But we all know there’s a line, and Morty and Yagger cross it, a lot.Sticking condoms blown up like balloons in someone’s locker is funny.Sticking a used condom in someone’s skate is gross.”
Pete flinched at the reminder of Morty’s actions last year, but said, “That was Dodo, not Stacker.”
“Same principle applies,” I pointed out.
“Dolan was gay.”Pete pursed his lips as if he didn’t like the taste of that word.“You said Stacker isn’t.”
“I said I don’t know, and what the fuck does it matter?Someone in that room is.Might be you.”
“Fuck you.”Pete’s face went red.“Don’t you fucking dare say that.”
“It’s not an insult, Cap,” Bubs put in mildly.
“I’m heading back to Russia at the end of this year.”Pete squeezed his eyes shut a moment.“You didn’t hear that, but fuck, I’m retiring.I took my shot, drafted into the AHL but I never could move up, and now here I am, the last few years.My family’s back home.I don’t want any fucking queer rumors.”
“Then get Morty focused on something else,” I told him.“Protect the rookies or if you won’t, let Bubs and me do it and back us up.Give Stacker a chance to breathe, and not just Stacker.Corkie, Chiller, Mannie— half the new kids will do better if we get Morty and Yagger off their backs.”
Petrov let his pedals spin down to a stop and wiped his face with a towel clipped next to his bottle holder.“Why do you care, Vally?How many more seasons are you going to hang on doing a shit job before you pack it in like I have to?”
“Ouch,” I said mildly, waving off Bubs, who was glaring at Pete.“Yeah, okay, I think we all know that if I do get called up again, it’s going to be like last year— a few days here, maybe a couple weeks at most there.I’m never going to get faster.So maybe I’d like to leave a different legacy.Maybe I want to be able to say, ‘That hotshot kid Stackhouse?He was struggling with the Gryphons, getting all kinds of abuse in the locker room, but I gave him a hand up and look at him now.’”
