We’ve been at this for far too long for a team that won the Frozen Four last year. Sure, the kid’s still young, but this is shit they teach you day one of being a defenseman.
He’s making the same sloppy mistake and losing the puck before he ever even touches it.
I blow out a sigh and skate back so I can watch the play from a bigger angle.
Our first game is in four days, and we’re not ready. And unsurprisingly, I have no idea how the hell I’m going to get them ready. I’m not sure what made Coach Taylor ever think that I’d be cut out to be a coach of a bunch of college kids.
I might have a decade of experience playing professionally, but that still doesn’t make me a coach.
“Stop.” I skate over to where he’s standing, leaning against his stick, chest heaving from exertion. He’s tired, but so am Iafter the number of times I’ve seen him repeat the same things. “Here’s what you’re going to do. I don’t give a shit if you think it’s a waste of time; it’s about creating a foundation. A habit because we’ve found a weakness, and now you’ve got to unlearn this. Watch. Pay attention.”
I skate toward the puck but don’t make contact with my stick. “Before you ever touch the puck, I want you to shoulder check once. And again. Your stick better never touch that puck unless you’ve checked twice.”
I glance over my shoulder once, then again, before I tap the puck with the stick.
Turning back to him, I say, “The worst thing you can do isreactbefore you even know what’s happening, all to get to the puck. Sure, you get it, but then what? You’ve lost it before you even touched it. Your job isn’t to react. It’s to predict. First read should be a habit. Every single time. Without hesitation.”
“I didn’t have tim?—”
I shake my head and cut him off. “Excuse. The earlier you look, the more prepared you are. Let’s go, Savoy.”
I skate to the red line in the center of the ice after grabbing a puck and rim it behind the net to him. This time, he checks as he skates toward it, but before he can touch it with his stick, I call out, “Pause.”
He halts, ice spraying up from his skates.
“Where’s the pressure at?”
“Middle.”
I nod. “Again.”
We repeat the drill over and over until I start to see it sinking in, the way his awareness is changing. He’s reading before reacting.
I move to the hash marks and dump the puck down the boards, watching as he checks and slows in anticipation.
“Pressure?”
“None.”
Tapping the end of my stick on the ice a few times, I nod. “That’s it.”
Well, fuck, I guess… Maybe I just taught this kid something.
He’s drenched in sweat and probably hates my fucking guts right now, but what he doesn’t know is I only know how to correct this, to unlearn a bad habit, because I was in his shoes once before.
“Glad you didn’t give up.”
Savoy smirks as he spits out his mouth guard and then squirts water into his mouth and all over his face. “Not a quitting kind of guy, Coach.”
“See you tomorrow.”
I go to skate off the ice, and hear my name called over my shoulder, so I glance back. “Uh, thanks… for helping me with that.”
“It’s my job.”
The last thing I expect to find when I get back to my office after an almost two-hour-long practice is Maisie sitting on the floor beside the door, legs crossed, her long, silky blonde hair hanging around her in a curtain as she’s bent over, reading a paperback that sits in her lap.
She hasn’t come back to my office since that first day over a week ago. Or maybe she had, but if so, I wasn’t here. I only stay on campus for as long as I have to and not a second fucking more.
