1
Abbott
The kid was doing it wrong.
It wasn't catastrophically wrong. But it would show up two months from now as a missed pass in the neutral zone. It was a habit that would calcify if nobody caught it.
Jamie Hayes caught it. He was already skating over with an easy stride, his stick loose in one hand. I watched him angle his approach so the rookie wouldn't feel cornered.
That was Hayes. He never made you feel cornered.
"Hey, Mikkola." Jamie pulled up beside the kid at center ice, close enough to talk without shouting. "You're loading your top hand too early on that release. Watch." He demonstrated in one fluid motion. His weight transferred through his hips and the puck snapped off his blade. "Feel the difference? Load late, release fast."
Mikkola tried it. It was better—not quite right yet, but better. Hayes tapped his shin pad with his stick and skated off, alreadyscanning the drill pattern for the next thing that needed his attention.
I stood in the backup net at the far end and watched him. I'd stopped fighting it somewhere around year two.
My blocker rested on top of the net. The ice was fresh. The clean Zamboni lines were still visible in the neutral zone, and the overhead compressors hummed their constant low drone. It was pre-season skate. Everyone was finding their legs again after summer.
Hayes worked the far end like he owned it. It wasn't the way Luca owned a room. Luca commanded space through sheer gravity. Hayes just made it warmer. He had his helmet off, shoved up on his forehead. His hair was damp at the temples.
He said something to Eriksson that made the Swede laugh. Then he hip-checked Volkov for no apparent reason. Volkov swore at him in Russian.
Hayes's laugh bounced off the boards, too big for the space.
He moved between the different groups—never rushing, never hovering. A hand on a rookie's shoulder to steer him into the right position. A word to Bishop that turned the big defenseman's scowl into an almost grin. He circled back to Mikkola twice without making it obvious, checking the release and adjusting the timing. By the third rep, the kid's shot was noticeably cleaner.
I watched him without thinking about it. The way his laugh carried was different when it was real; it was louder and less controlled. It started in his chest. He laughed like that more than most people. He just found such joy in life.
He turned and looked at me across the ice. He wasn't checking on me; he wasn't scanning the drill. For two full seconds, he looked at me. Then he lifted his stick in a half-wave, gave me a nod, and turned back to the pattern.
Two seconds. I couldn't tell you what color the rookie's helmet was, but I could tell you the exact angle of Jamie Hayes's chin when he acknowledged me from a hundred and eighty feet away.
That was the problem.
The drill shifted. Luca ran the next sequence. It was his line, Hayes on his wing, with Eriksson rotating in. They ran a cycle play that was so clean it looked choreographed. Hayes anticipated the pass before Luca released it, already cutting to the far post, and when the puck hit his tape he redirected it without even looking. It went directly to Volkov, who buried it. Kieran hadn't even moved.
I would have moved. I would have read Hayes's hips a half-second earlier and cheated to that side. I'd spent enough hours studying him to know exactly how his weight shifted before a redirect. But Kieran didn't watch Hayes the way I did.
Nobody watched Hayes the way I did.
Kieran took the starter's net for the shooting drill, and I skated to the bench for water. From here I could see the full surface.
Goalies watch everything—it's how we're wired. You see the whole ice. You track trajectories. You read intentions before they become actions. It's useful in net. It's less useful when you apply it to a man across a hundred and eighty feet of frozen water and can identify the exact moment his easy expression shifts because someone new walked into the building.
Park—the GM. Hayes clocked him immediately. His smile didn't change but his shoulders squared a fraction, the way a veteran's always did when management appeared at a non-mandatory skate.
The Zamboni door opened for the ice cut and players drifted off in clusters. I was pulling my chest protector straps loose in the tunnel when my phone buzzed.
It was Marty, my agent.
"Clay." His voice was warm, the tone that meant he was about to tell me something I didn't want to hear. "Quick one. Got an inquiry from Sacramento. They're rebuilding, looking for a starter. Nothing formal. Just a feeler."
Sacramento. Starter position. It was all the way across the country.
"Okay," I said.
"It's the last year of your deal with the Storm. This is how it goes, you know that. I'm not giving advice, I'm just saying they called."
