He had listened.
That mattered in a professional sense. A player took direction. A player showed commitment. A player proved he could be trusted with more than talent.
It also mattered somewhere lower and more dangerous, where I had no business giving it a name.
At 6:55, I walked down to the video room.
Jace was already inside.
He had not sat in my chair. I noticed that first. He sat in the second row, not the back where he could sprawl and pretend he did not care, not the front like he was trying to make a point. His coffee sat untouched beside him. His pen moved between his fingers in tight, quick rotations.
He looked up when I entered.
“Morning,” he said.
“You’re early.”
“Wasn’t sure about traffic.”
“There was no traffic.”
“I prepared for imaginary traffic.”
I put my laptop on the table and connected it to the screen. “That’s still preparation.”
He blinked once, like he had expected a correction and the absence of it threw him off balance.
Good.
Not good.
I started the clips before either of us could step into the silence.
“Your question last night,” I said. “Low support drill. Weak-side D cheating up.”
He leaned forward immediately, pen stilling. The change in him was almost physical. Restlessness narrowed into attention. His shoulders dropped a fraction. His eyes locked on the screen.
I played the first clip.
He watched. Really watched. Not the way some players watched video, waiting for their turn to explain why the camera was wrong. Jace tracked movement two passes ahead, lips parting slightly, one foot braced under the chair like his body wanted to skate the read.
“Pause,” he said, then caught himself. His gaze cut to me. “Sorry.”
I paused it.
“Talk.”
He pointed with the pen. “If Lowell secures there, I can come across. But if I go before he has body position, I drag their center into his hands and kill his outlet. So I have to stay low until Lowell gets the angle, then I become the second layer.”
“Correct.”
He wrote something down too fast to be legible.
I went to the next clip. “What if Milo curls early?”
“Milo curls early if he gets bored, offended, or sees a camera.”
Despite myself, my mouth threatened to move. “Hockey answer.”
