“Alright,” he calls out, and the low buzz of conversation dies. “Gather in.”
The whole team gathers quickly, loose and sweaty and looking at Calloway wondering what’s going on.
She’s standing a little behind him and to the side, giving Calloway his moment. Her eyes move across the group and they land on me. There’s nothing in them except clinical attention.
She’s assessing us.
All of us. But she’s starting with me.
I hold eye contact for a long moment to make it clear I’m not intimidated.
“Boys,” Calloway says, “this is Elida Eriksson. She’s joining our staff as a consultant. She’ll be working primarily with the women’s program, but she’ll also be running skating sessions with this group going forward, and I expect you to treat those sessions the same way you treat every other hour of practice. Which is to say professionally. Any questions?”
Silence. I know these guys. They’re brimming with questions, only no one wants to be the one to ask them.
She doesn’t say anything. Not yet. She stands there absolutely composed and looks at the team like she’s already seen everything she needed to see.
But all I’m worried about are the scouts who may or may not come back. I have a season that has to matter and a team that needs to be better than it was last year.
A figure skater from Sweden is not the answer to any of that. I’m feeling annoyed we have to waste our time with this.
I push off back toward the net before Calloway has officially dismissed us, which is probably rude, but there’s a puck near the crease, and I’d rather do something with my hands than stand there and wait to be assessed again.
Behind me, I hear Mercer mutter something.
And then, barely, I hear her voice for the first time - accented and calm - saying something back to him that I can’t catch.
Whatever it is, Mercer goes silent immediately.
ELIDA
I watch them run through their normal drills first. Coach Calloway understood that when I asked to observe what they normally do before introducing my own drills - he just nodded once and called out instructions to get them started, which told me most of what I needed to know about him.
They’re good. That’s the first thing - they’re skilled, competitive, and they work hard. The drills are sharp. The communication is decent.
But.
The skating is functional. It gets them where they need to go, most of the time, and at this level functional is enough to survive. But functional is a ceiling, and they are bumping against it in ways that are so habitual they’ve stopped noticing. Weight distribution on crossovers that bleeds speed without them feeling it. Edge changes that are a fraction late, over and over, in exactly the ways that cost you the play when the play matters most. Transitions where they’re working twice as hard as they need to because the technique underneath has never been properly addressed.
And then there’s him.
I notice him first because he’s impossible not to notice - he’s the one the others orient around, even when they don’t seem to be paying attention to him. When he calls something out, the response is immediate. Calloway already pointed him out as the captain. Mateo Russo.
My second thought - and I’ll allow myself this one - is that he is extremely good-looking in a way that seems almost inconsiderate. Dark, tall, built for the sport in the way that somepeople are, like their body was designed with a specific purpose and then handed to them fully formed. He moves with a natural confidence that seems perfect even if the technical bits aren’t necessarily the best.
But there it is.
The crossovers are competent but not more than that. The weight transfer is slightly too heavy on the outside edge, which at his speed isn’t catastrophic but it’s inefficient - he’s losing a fraction of power on every stride, which over the course of a game compounds. His backward skating is actually strong, better than most of the team, and his reading of the ice is excellent - that part’s instinct, and it’s the bit that’s hard to teach. But the technical foundation underneath all that instinct and drive and sheer physical force?
It’s fine.
For a captain whose team needs to get better, fine is not enough.
I open my notebook again and finally write a few points. Not much. A few observations, some drill ideas, and a starred note about the crossover pattern I want to address.
I’m aware, as I’m writing it, of a thought I probably shouldn’t enjoy as much as I do.
He skated straight back toward the net the moment Calloway introduced me. Didn’t wait, didn’t pretend to. Just - turned and left. He’s already decided what I am and what I can offer and he’s not particularly interested in being diplomatic about it.
