I’ve met this kind of person before. Men in sport who’ve got to a certain level and concluded that they therefore understand everything, that their way is the only way, that someone arriving with a different set of tools is an inconvenience at best and an insult at worst.
I spent years being told what I was capable of by someone like that.
But here’s the thing - he’s the captain of a college hockey team. I’m a figure skating champion.
So, no - I don’t hate him, and I don’t want to embarrass him. That’s not what this is. But am I especially looking forward to the moment he has to admit that a figure skater from Sweden has something worth listening to?
I write one more note and close the notebook.
Yes. A little.
Calloway and I speak quietly for a few minutes. He’s pragmatic and he doesn’t waste words. I appreciate that. He tells me the team has been briefed, that my authority in these sessions is equal to his, and that if anyone gives me trouble I should come to him directly.
“Will anyone give me trouble?” I ask.
He considers this with the seriousness it deserves. “Probably not openly.”
“But.”
“But Russo sets the tone. If he buys in, they buy in.”
I glance out at the ice. Russo is near the crease, alone, working through a technique with a determination that’s almost aggressive.
“And if he doesn’t?”
Calloway’s expression doesn’t change. “That’s why I hired someone good.” He raises his voice. “Russo. Bring them in.”
I watch him round them up. Even this - the way he moves through the team and brings the stragglers in without having to raise his voice - it’s good leadership. I’m not here to take that apart. I have no interest in diminishing what he is.
I’m here to make him better.
They gather at the boards again, loose and watching me with varying degrees of curiosity and skepticism. But I’ve performed in front of crowds. I’ve stood on ice in complete silence whilefour judges decided what I was worth. Twenty hockey players with their arms crossed is not a difficult room.
I let the moment sit for a second longer than is comfortable.
“I’m going to ask you to skate without the puck first,” I say. “No sticks. I know that sounds-” I pause, watching their faces, the slight collective wince. “Yes, exactly like that. Bear with me.”
A few of them exchange looks. Someone near the back - the one who muttered something earlier - shifts his weight.
Russo is looking at the ice. Not at me. His expression is neutral and he’s doing a very good impression of a man who is present and cooperative while making absolutely clear he is here under protest.
“We’re going to start with crossovers,” I say. “Full rink, both directions, your normal pace. I want to see you move.” I let my eyes move across the group. “Don’t perform it. Don’t show me your best version. Skate the way you skate when you’re not thinking about it.”
I step back and gesture to the ice.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
MATEO
No sticks.
I pick mine up anyway, out of habit, and then remember and set it back down against the boards and feel immediately like I’ve had a limb amputated.
We run the crossovers. Full rink, both directions, and I’ll give her this - she doesn’t hover, doesn’t bark instructions every ten seconds, just watches from the center with her arms folded and lets us go. I settle into the rhythm of it, and after the first lap it’s almost - fine. Normal. It’s skating without the point of skating, which is annoying but survivable.
Then she starts giving feedback.
She says something to Chen, touches his shoulder lightly to adjust him, and he does it and stumbles slightly and then it clicks, and whatever she said I can see the difference even from here. Ward gets a word. Grant, now fully back from his injury. A freshman whose name I still mix up. She moves through the group unhurriedly. Every time she speaks it’s a few words, nothing elaborate, and then she moves on.
