“Yes.”
Morgan said hello to her with his eyes. Courtney said hello to her with her whole face. Dane smiled at Sable as he stood with his hand on the back of the seat in front of his own, watching me. Sully smiled as well, and Tim huffed.
“You’re not sitting with us, Chip?” Dane asked with a frown.
“I’m with the coaches tonight. I help with stats during games when I’m not on the ice.”
“You help with stats.”
“In real time. Coach Ronan has a tablet. I have a brain.” That came out wrong. I felt it come out wrong, then Sable nudged my hand, which meant she’d felt it come out wrong too. “I mean, I see things on the ice, and I tell him what I see. He pays the rest of the staff to make graphs. I’m faster than the graphs.”
“He’s faster than the graphs,” Courtney said, deadpan, settling into seat 2.
“I’ll see you after,” Dane said. Quietly. To just me. Then, louder, normal, “Thanks for the tickets, man.”
“You’re welcome.” I made myself stop looking at his Henley and step back into the aisle. “Enjoy the game. Albany’s third on the penalty kill, but their goalie’s career numbers against us are below his career averages, so if we get a power play, we have a chance to get the biscuit in the basket.”
“Is that a sentence?” Tim asked, and he was sneering ever so slightly. Was he teasing me with affection? Or was that bullying? I had no idea until Courteney slapped him upside the head and I assumed he was being rude.
“In hockey, yes. The biscuit is the puck. The basket is the net.” I tapped my crutch once on the concrete and turned away because if I didn’t, I was going to keep talking. Sable led me back down the aisle.
I found Coach Ronan at the bench tunnel with a folded printout in his hand and his reading glasses pushed up onto his forehead. When he saw me, the glasses came down.
“Are your friends in?”
“Yeah, Section 114, Row C.”
Coach made a humming noise, not a comment, handed me the printout, then said, “Go,” and we went.
I’ve watched almost every Copperheads home game from my place on the bench for six seasons—the same arena, the same goal horn, the same distance between blue lines. Hockey was one of the few things in my life that stayed the same dimensions every single time.
I’d only watched maybe a dozen frombehindthe bench. The angle was different. From behind the bench, you could see what the guys waiting to go over were watching rather than what was happening on the ice, and in some ways that was more informative. Anyone watching would learn where Cap was looking before the play developed or see who tapped whoseshoulder before a line change. It was easy to see which player on the other team was going to take a dumb penalty in the third period because his shoulders were already up around his ears in the first.
Albany number 14, I’m looking at you. I made a note.
First period, four minutes in. Orly won a faceoff clean back to Taft. Taft drove the wall, then fed the slot, and Shawsy, our second-line right winger, leading the team in shots-per-sixty and working my spot, buried it top shelf. One-nothing. Albany answered three minutes later off a bad change, and I peered over Coach’s shoulder.
“They got us on a long shift. Olsen’s been out fifty-three seconds. Their fourth line’s coming, watch their right side, their winger cheats high on entries when he’s the F1 on the forecheck.”
“Got it.” Coach then said something to Cap on the bench. Cap nodded once and didn’t glance back.
During the next shift, our fourth line went out. Our third line right defenseman, a kid named Sean, who’s up on a tryout, read the cheat and stepped up at our blue line, stripping the puck before it even crossed. Orly’s line was already over the boards, and Taft was breaking. The goal came off Orly’s stick eleven seconds later. Two-one. The arena got loud. Sable, in the tunnel behind me where Coach Ronan had cleared a spot for her, didn’t flinch. We had been doing scheduled exposure to the goal horn for three weeks.
I glanced up at Section 114. Courtney was on her feet. Morgan was clapping. Tim was eating a pretzel, and Sully was watching the bench, not the celebration. Dane gave me a small wave, and I turned back to the ice, and my face felt hot.
Second period, Albany scored on a power play I hadn’t predicted because, in general, Albany’s power play wasn’t good. I felt that was a personal failure for about eleven seconds beforeI let it go because letting it go was something I was working on. The Copperheads answered five minutes later with a tip from Owens off a Cap shot from the point. Three-two. Then Shawsy, again, on a rebound. Four-two. Coach Ronan said, “Atta boy,” which meant he was happy.
Between periods, in the tunnel, with the team gone to the room and the bench cleared, I sat on a folding chair with Sable across my feet and reviewed the line-time chart on Coach’s tablet. Albany’s number 14 had taken zero penalties through forty minutes. He was due. His shoulders were up around his ears.
“You good?” Coach asked.
“Yes.”
“Knee good?”
“Knee is good.”
“Friends still up there?”
