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Walking out of the locker room and into the hallway carrying our bags over our shoulders, we stopped by the front office where Craig sat.
His gray-haired head was watching a little TV in his office. The Texas Titans were playing, and a legendary kid named Greyson Scott a couple years older than us made that minor team. According to buzz around the rink it seemed like he might be called up soon for a shot in the NHL. We were all cheering for him. That’s what the hockey community was all about. We wanted to see one of our own make it. Even if we were all jealous as hell of him.
“So, got into a bit of trouble, have we, eh?” Craig mumbled without even lookingup.
Nick pushed his sweaty hair up. “Yeah, man-”
“Yes, sir,” he corrected, finally looking up at us with his tired, kind eyes. “Here’s the deal, I’m short on refs for mini-mites and forsquirts-”
“Squirts!” Nick yelled, and I internally agreed with him. The squirt league was made up of 10-year-olds, and by that time, they at least knew the rules of the game. Mini-mites were usually kindergarteners who had no clue what was going on… and saying kindergarteners was kind of a loose age standard because most hockey guys had their little tykes on the ice at three years old and just hoped no one questioned them.
Craig gave us a smirk. “I have half a mind to give you the mini-mites… but, I don’t want to do that to those parents. There’s a squirt game this Friday at 5. Be here early and I’ll get you guysuniforms.”
“Thanks, man,” Nick said.
Craig arched an eyebrow at him. “Sir,” he corrected again.
I nodded my thanks and pushed Nick to follow me and leave Craig alone.
“Let’s get home,” Iwhispered.
Nick cut me a look. “Dude, we need food first.”
I blew out a breath. That was true. Our living situation was proving to be a bit more difficult than what we’d first imagined.
When we first arrived in Minnesota, Nick and I were assigned to live with the same billet family. Only problem was- our experience was opposite of how most went. Where Stoney got to live with a fun family who had baby hockey players in the making that he could play with all the time and loving stand-in parents who came to all our games and supported him, Nick and I got shafted to the middle of nowhere with an older couple who probably only signed on to host players in order to receive free labor around the house.
I probably would’ve handled the crappy situation all season, but Nick couldn’t deal. He was pretty much a slob in every area of life except when it came to his food and eating utensils. When it came to those- he inspected each fork to make sure there was nothing on it and washed his hands about three times before eating anything. I always thought he had a bit of OCD tendencies when it came to his nutrition habits, but whatever, let a guy do what he’s gotta do. But… When he found cat hair in his cereal bowl one morning, he almost puked and then couldn’t eat a damn thing set in front of him in that house anymore and the old lady was pretty cruel to him about it.
My issue was that the old man would yell at me after games when he thought I didn’t give it my all. Like nah, no thanks, old man. I suffered through enough of that back home in Canada. Here at the Ice League, I was finally settling into the game and having fun for a change without the fear of making mistakes that would turn into a ride home from the rink with my screaming, drunkfather.
We came up with our exit plan the first week of the season, and so far, we haven’t been caught. We already had money coming in to fund billeting each month, so we told the team manager to redirect it to my mother, who we’d be staying with at an apartment here in Northfield.
It worked out great. We had the apartment paid for, and if anyone wanted to track down my mom to confirm this little situation… I’d tell ‘em good luck, because I hadn’t been able to reach her since I was about seven years old.
Our apartment was small, but it worked. Our biggest struggle was food. Neither of us had ever cooked a thing in our almost eighteen years of life, so we were trying our best with what little money we had.
We ate most dinners at the concession stand here at the Ice League or at Benny’s, the little diner in the lobby, when we felt like splurging. I was the one in charge of the money because Nick had very little impulse control and he trusted me to not let us go homeless.
Maybe the refereeing wouldn’t be such a bad thing… We could really use some extracash.
“Pizza again?” Nick asked with a grimace.
“Nah, let’s get Benny’stonight.”
“Really?” Nick asked with a shocked face. “Yes,” he pumped his fist in the air. “Gimme some lumberjack breakfast for dinner.”
I shook my head at him. The littlest things could make him the happiest guy on theplanet.
“You think Paige will be workin the tables?” he asked, practically drooling at the thought of her.
“Dude, she’s like five years older than us. Why would she even look at you?” I shoved him.
“What can I say? She’s a beaut,” he said with a dreamy look on his face. He was out of his mind. Poor Paige. She humored him every time he hit on her. He was lucky she was so nice and laughed at his antics instead of getting pissed off. I just hoped Max, her long-time boyfriend who was away at college, wouldn’t hear about Nicky’s little crush and come back to deck him one day.
2. Savannah - Friday night at the Ice League
