Dave Mitchell. I knew the name. Knew the reputation — old school, numbers-focused, the kind of coach who treated playerslike assets on a balance sheet. I'd heard things about his time with this team. Nothing concrete. Just the particular way certain players talked about those years, or didn't talk about them. The careful silences.
Looking at Hartley now, at the way he'd braced himself just to make this ask, I started to understand what three years under Mitchell had actually cost him.
“You actually watch,” Hartley said, quieter. “You see what's wrong before I even know it's wrong. So I'm asking you.” His jaw tightened. “I don't do that easily.”
I believed him. That was the problem.
“Why can't you work it out in front of the team?” I said, after a moment.
“Because they're watching. Waiting to see if I'm still the guy who choked or if I've finally figured my shit out.” He shook his head. “I can't think when they're all staring. Mitchell used to do that — call out what was wrong in front of everyone. Said it built accountability.” Something dark moved through his expression. “All it built was an audience for every mistake I made.”
“Fine. One drill.” I pointed toward the far end. “Get a bucket of pucks. Meet me down there.”
Relief crossed his face so fast he almost managed to hide it. Then the mask came back. “Thank you, Coach.”
He came back with the bucket, and I was still standing there, so apparently my self-preservation instincts were exactly as bad as I'd always suspected.
“What do you want to work on?”
“Release. My timing's off. I'm thinking too much.”
“Show me.”
He set up at the circle and I fed him a puck. Clean shot. Fast. Accurate.
“Again.”
Same result.
“What's the problem? That looked fine.”
“Watch my hands.”
I fed him another and watched. His bottom hand tightened a fraction before release, strangling the follow-through at the last second.
“You're gripping too hard.”
“I know. I can't stop.”
“Why not?”
He looked at me, and just for a second the mask dropped completely. “Because if I don't control every part of it, I'll miss. And I can't miss.”
“You're trying to force the shot,” I said, keeping my voice even. “You don't trust your body to do what it knows.”
“My body fucked it up last time.”
“No. Your brain did. Your hands remember how to do this.” I skated closer. “It's the interference that's breaking it. Let me see your stance.”
He set up, and I ran through what I was supposed to be looking at — shoulders, hips, weight distribution — but up close, without the buffer of the bench between us, the assessment kept catching on things that had nothing to do with mechanics. He was built well.
“You're not set up to shoot. You're set up to survive.” I stopped beside him. “Drop your shoulders.”
He tried but he barely moved.
“Hold still,” I said, and put my hands on his shoulders.
His breath caught.
