Our injured winger is already getting scans done somewhere across town.
“And we’re just… inviting random people?” I ask.
“Open call.”
I let out a short laugh. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
Apparently, the plan is simple.
Let a few people come skate with us. Run them through drills. Maybe a short scrimmage.
If someone somehow manages to keep up, they get the spot as a temporary stand-in until our guy heals.
Desperate times.
I sit back against my locker. “That’s not going to work.”
Russo finishes tying one skate and shrugs. “Probably not.”
The problem isn’t that people won’t show up.
The problem is that anyone good enough to play at this level is already playing somewhere. College hockey isn’t the kind of thing you accidentally wander into because you saw a flyer on campus.
You spend years chasing it, and even then, half the time you don’t make it.
Across the room Coach Calloway walks past the lockers,talking quietly with one of the assistants.
He looks calm, like always.
But I can see the calculation in the way his eyes move across the room.
He knows the same thing we do.
We’re running out of options.
Russo stands up and taps his stick against the floor.
“Could get lucky.”
I snort.
“With a campus-wide try-out?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Name one.”
He smiles slightly but doesn’t answer.
Practice starts a few minutes later.
The ice is bright under the arena lights. The familiar rhythm kicks in quickly - skates cutting hard across the surface, pucks snapping against sticks, Calloway’s voice calling instructions across the rink.
For a little while the problems fade.
But when practice ends and the conversation drifts back to the upcoming try-out, the same thought creeps back in.
