He leaned in close to Hannah and whispered, ‘That’s not it, there’s more.’
Almost as if he’d overheard, Sumners then turned his full attention in his direction. ‘Of course, besides injury, we’re also all aware Ward has had some … recent challenges too; issues that hehas worked very hard to overcome. His behaviour could even have been considered problematic by some, but like always, he was man enough to take all that criticism and face it head-on.’
His stomach tightened and he braced himself. All these cringe niceties aside, by the way Sumners was looking at him he was certain that a major bombshell was about to be dropped – and it was the kind of blast designed to cause maximum damage.
‘I’m sure you’ve all seen some of the press lately and I gotta say some of us have had to do a double-take to see our Panther playing around with kittens. While we knew the PR people had to tame our wildcat a bit, we didn’t expect him to be neutered.’
There was a burst of laughter from the crowd and Ward’s face flushed. Hannah grabbed his hand again and entwined his fingers tightly in hers as if the pressure could contain the humiliation burning up inside of him.
‘In other news, as some of you may already know, Coach Lewis recently alerted us of his retirement and I’m sad to say will be leaving us after the playoffs,’ he stated and Ward frowned.
Coach Lewis was leaving?He couldn’t conceive of playing under someone other than his beloved mentor who’d been at the helm since before he’d signed with the team. The big man had always looked out for all his players, both on and off the ice. He was even the one who’d encouraged Bernie to do all this image overhaul stuff to keep Ward from falling out of favour with the top brass. Granted the team’s winning streak had suffered of late, but Coach Lewis was Panthers through-and-through and a battler too. He truly couldn’t imagine the old man throwing in the towel and walking away of his own accord.
So did he jump? Or was he pushed?
‘Rest assured we’re already on the case and have put plans inplace to help usher in a new era – a changing of the guard, if you will,’ Sumners went on, pretty much answering Ward’s unspoken question. If they already had someone lined up then yeah, poor Coach had been unceremoniously axed. ‘So to ensure that next season we get some of that old predatory fire back in the team’s belly, and return to the greatness we all so richly desire, I’m excited to introduce to you all tonight – our brand-new head coach of the New York Panthers, the legendary … Jefferson Prince!’
You have got to be kidding me...
As thunderous applause exploded all around him, Ward pulled away from Hannah’s grasp, then turned and all but ran out of the banquet room.
He couldn’t do this. Not again.
Chapter 46
HANNAH
Hannah was about to go after Ward, but still uncertain as to what was going on, and deeply confused by his reaction to it, she couldn’t help but stay where she was. Her attention was drawn to the heavyset guy in his late fifties heading up to stand beside Sumners, apparently the Panthers’ (and Ward’s) brand-new coach.
After some brief backslapping, and once the applause died down, Jefferson Prince took the microphone from Sumners and boomed, ‘Well, judging from the sound of that welcome, it’s good to know there’s still some real men left in the game.’ More rapturous applause.
Hannah grew uncomfortable at the sudden change of atmosphere; there was now an edge to it that was akin to a political rally.
She stood there, confused. Who was this guy?
‘Thank you, thank you,’ Prince continued, flashing a set of brilliant white teeth. ‘Glad to see that I’m among friends here. When Craig called me up about this job, he said that he remembered a time when being an athlete meant something, signified that you were different, possessed a talent others lacked, and people looked up to because they knew you were different. Faster. Stronger.Better.
‘Then, times changed – the world changed – and they said sport needed to change, too. Suddenly athletes were expected to becaring, compassionate and filled with marshmallow goodness and unicorn-sprinkled tenderness.’
More resounding laughter and applause, and Hannah felt a bit nauseous at the nasty undertone in the guy’s words.
‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I want to go back to the way things were, folks – back to when a man was a man and didn’t wear dresses, back to when nobody but nerds gave a damn about what a friggin’ pronoun was, back to the days when an athlete could live his life on his own terms off the field without having to worry about whether he was going to be “cancelled”.
‘Some of you might not know this, but I was Ward McKenzie’s first coach after he went pro, so I guess you could say I’m the man who turned him into the badass predator we all know and love. And now that power duo is reunited! No doubt about it, by the time I’m done, WildCat McKenzie will be back bigger and better than ever. Back on the ice with the Panthers where he belongs, and back in the world ofrealmen.’
Hannah couldn’t find him in the lobby or anywhere else in the hotel, so she hurried outside and quickly spied Ward across the road pacing on the sidewalk by the park’s south entrance.
The streets were quiet and largely traffic-free at this time of night, so she hurried across with ease, approaching with some hesitation, deeply cognisant of this latest public humiliation.
And doubly annoyed that she (albeit on the instructions of his agent) had played a part in it by encouraging him to attend tonight in the first place, and thus helped set up his participation in that nasty reputational flogging. His instincts had been spot on all the same.
He’d worked so hard to turn himself around and rehabilitatehis behaviour on the advice of a coach who understood that it was doing him no favours, only to be returned into the arms of a man who it seems stood for pretty much everything toxic about pro-athlete culture.
As Hannah got closer and got a better look at his face, her heart dropped at his pained expression and the raging maelstrom behind his eyes. She reached out and gently touched his arm. ‘That guy, he was your first coach, the one you talked about before?’
He nodded, the hard set in his jawline brimming with anger, and his hands clenched as if ready to punch through the low sandstone wall.
‘I knew it, I fucking knew it was some kind of set-up. I could never trust Sumners as far as I could throw him, and now I wonder if this whole image rehabilitation thing was a smokescreen all along too.’
