“The problem with these daily highlights is that they’re disjointed,” Bennett said. “One doesn’t follow from another, and if I don’t have enough material from the day before, I supplement with previous days’ material, like I did with this one. These don’t tell a story. They’re just . . . slice of life. And while slice of life isn’t bad in certain contexts, that’s not what this series needs.”
“What does it need?” Sandro asked, kicking his legs out as he unintentionally fell into a pattern they’d repeated over and over—brainstorming a project, whether it had been for one of his own classes or Bennett’s. “What’s the story here?”
Bennett made a frustrated sound and crossed his arms over his chest. The move tightened his T-shirt around his biceps, and for a moment, Sandro got lost staring at them.
“I wish I knew,” Bennett said. “I haven’t figured it out yet. My producer keeps insisting it’s that you’re defending Cup champions, but while that’s interesting, it’s not enough for a six-part series. It’s the story within the story that’s going to be the heart of the show, whatever that story ends up being.”
“Hey.”
They turned at Roman’s voice. He stood at the end of the long, multi-station desk, eyeing them like the school principal who’d caught them making trouble.
“Are you guys coming, or what?” he demanded before turning on his heel and returning to his office.
“You’re coming to my meeting?” Sandro asked Bennett as he stood.
Bennett swung the headphones over his head and left them on the desk. “Roman invited me.”
“Why?”
“Beats me. He hasn’t told me anything about it. Only that I might find it interesting for the series.” Reaching for his phone, Bennett hesitated. “If you don’t want me there, I can?—”
“No, it’s fine. You can help me convince Roman that I’m the wrong person for the job.”
“What job?”
“You’ll see.”
Bennett had set up a couple of cameras in Roman Kinsey’s office prior to the meeting, in opposite corners, to capture a couple of different angles. The tripod setups weren’t exactly discreet, but Sandro merely gave them a passing glance before he focused on the whiteboard against one wall.
“What’s that?” he asked, while Bennett leaned back against the wall next to the door and tried to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. This was Sandro and Roman’s show; Bennett was just along for the ride.
“It’s what the new wellness initiative needs to cover,” Roman said. He rounded his desk and stood next to Sandro by the whiteboard, where three bullet points had been written in chunky all caps. He tapped the board next to the first one. “Identity beyond hockey. Players—rookies especially—tend to define their entire worth as I’m only as good as my last shift or my last game. But who are they two years into a professional career? Five years? How do we help them build meaning that isn’t wiped out by a bad season?”
Bennett pulled out his phone to take notes as Roman tapped the board next to the second bullet point. “Emotional literacy.” He paused there, head cocked. “I don’t love that wording, but I’ll leave it to you to call it whatever you want.”
Bennett glanced up from his phone, his gaze pinging from Roman to Sandro and back. Was Sandro meant to develop the wellness initiative?
The proverbial lightbulb clicked on in his head. This was the job Sandro wanted Bennett to convince Roman he was wrong for.
“Anyway,” Roman continued. “Whatever you want to call it, emotional literacy is all about supporting teammates without defaulting to avoidance or jokes.”
Bennett’s gaze swung back to Sandro at that, because he’d noticed Sandro doing exactly that with his teammates, but with Eli especially. Roman had noticed it too, judging by the side-eye he was currently tossing Sandro.
“But it’s also about how to ask for help,” Roman said. “How to be seen without feeling too exposed, and how to talk about pressure without feeling ashamed.”
Bennett let out an involuntary “Oof,” that last one hitting too close to home and to his own baggage with professional hockey. Sandro shot him a questioning raised eyebrow, which Bennett shook his head at—now wasn’t the time.
“We have a team culture that already promotes all of this.” Roman tapped the board again. “And the mentorship program helps. But we can do better.”
The mentorship program. The proverbial lightbulb clicked back on—or maybe off? That was what Sandro was doing with Eli. Bennett had researched the hell out of the Trailblazers, and he’d read the document outlining all of their programs that the organization had provided to him, yet he’d failed to put two and two together.
Of course Sandro was mentoring his younger teammate. He had a decade and a half of experience. The rookies had probably assigned him god status and Sandro didn’t even know it. Hell, Bennett wanted to pick his brain about all things Trailblazers. Problem was, he was biased where Sandro was concerned, and he wasn’t sure how to interview Sandro without that bias getting in the way.
“And finally,” Roman said. “The initiative needs to address public narrative versus private reality. Who are you on camera? Who are you in the locker room? Who are you when you’re alone at home? And most importantly, what happens when those three don’t line up? Fans tend to put athletes in a box and give them a label, but we’re all human and multifaceted. Those lines should blur.” Roman grabbed a dry-erase marker and uncapped it. “These can’t all be developed at once—you’d never have time to sleep. So which one of these do you think takes priority? And more importantly . . . why haven’t you been taking notes?”
Bennett swallowed a laugh.
“Because,” Sandro grumbled, “like I already told you, I’m not the right person for this. B, tell him.”
