Page 10 of Home Ice Advantage
“Jesus fucking Christ. Can’t think of a better way to spendmyfucking Wednesday.”
Petey’s eyebrows went up again, but all he had to offer was an exceptionally mild “’Kay.”
Eric got his shit together and went out onto the ice to do his goddamn job.
Ryan hadn’t had the usual amount of training camps that guys generally did, because once it was clear he wasn’t going to make it very far in the top junior hockey leagues in the States, and he definitely wasn’t going to be drafted by any of the Canadian juniors teams, and then when he wasn’t going to get drafted, period, he focused on going through the NCAA. And that meant that after his handful of development camp invites, he had to go back to school, if he wasn’t going to play his way into a pro contract. He certainly couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket at the rest of the training camp.
Even then, he had always been one of the first ones cut, and it wasn’t due to his effort or talent, it was solely because he wassmall. He remembered the coaches and general managers who’d said shit likecome back a little stronger, put on some more muscle, and then we’ll see how ready you are.Ryan had always known that despite his size, he was more than tough enough to stick it out in a full major league season, but no one had given him the chance.
He knew where the guys were coming from. He knew how frustrating it felt, even when you knew that it was in your best developmental interests. He knew how frustrating it felt when you knew that it wasn’t. And now that the camp was winding down, he had to sit down with most of the juniors players to let them know they would be headed back to their teams. It was tough, especially when he would have made a different decision than the front office but had his hands tied. He tried to offer some encouragement and specific advice about things they could do to get ready and his phone number if they ever had questions.
In at least a few cases he talked to the kid about his own experience: the Beacons had drafted a few undersized but highly skilled wingers, and he’d had to saylook, at least you were drafted. That’s a huge vote of confidence. Now you just have to prove them right for taking that risk, and a rebuild year is probably not the best time.
“Never gets easier,” McCaskill said, turning his sleepy-eyed gaze on the kids who were packing up their lockers. He’d told Ryan to call him Petey almost immediately (“everyone does”) but Ryan still didn’t feel like they were there yet.
“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. “Feels worse the younger the kids are, though. You try telling a ten-year-old there’s not a roster spot for him and see how much of a monsteryouare.”
“Couldn’t pay me to do it,” McCaskill said, and laughed. “Glad I never went that route myself.”
“Oh, great,” Aronson muttered from the corner, where he’d been flipping through iPad tape, “are we going to get regaled with tales from the peewee trenches now?”
Stung, Ryan turned to look at him. Sometimes he thought that he was probably looking at Aronson too often. He’d catch himself doing it and have to stop. It wasn’t his fault Aronson’s face was so expressive, like a puzzle Ryan was always one step away from solving.
Aronson looked back, the same way he always did, eyebrows raised over the wire rims of his glasses in a challenge. He’d wait for Ryan to get embarrassed and look away first.
Ryan thought about asking him what the fuck his problem was, but aggressiveness wasn’t the way to build bridges, not when he knew that Aronson was probably still stung by not having been offered the job. He couldn’t blame the guy for being pissed. But that didn’t make it any easier to put up with withering sarcasm every time Ryan did literally anything.
It didn’t make it any easier when Aronson looked at him like that and Ryan felt like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin, which was something Ryan had never really felt before.
Instead of saying what he actually wanted to say, Ryan said, “We don’t have time for reminiscing. Now that we’re cutting through the chaff, I want to start really focusing on getting the guys used to the way I want to hold practices going forward. I’ve sent you both my general outlines, but I’m interested in hearing what you all have to say.”
“It’ll be different, but I think it could be fun to implement.” McCaskill chewed on the end of his pen, the cap twisted and bent with the imprints of his teeth. “We have a lot of vets, Sully. I’m not sure how that’s gonna go over immediately.”
Ryan thought about asking Aronson whether he had any opinions, but one look at Aronson’s thundercloud of a face, the eyebrows drawn down again in a scowl, put him off of that idea pretty quickly. No sense in picking a fight this early. They would be doing the drills Ryan’s way whether Aronson liked it or not, although Ryan would take his concerns into consideration, of course.
“You’re the boss, Coach,” Aronson said, after a moment.
Aronson was still looking at Ryan in that particular piercing way that he had, and Ryan felt his hackles rise in the same way that they always had in games, when an opposing player thought he could try to intimidate him just because he wasn’t as big. Ryan shook it off. What the hell was his problem? This wasn’t a game. This was a collaborative working environment, and he couldn’t just battle Aronson in the corners if he didn’t like the way Aronson was looking at him.
On the ice, it was a different story.
Ryan split the still-oversize roster up into groups with mixed d-men and forwards, set them in drills against in a few different areas, took one for himself and assigned the assistant coaches to the others. Their new skills coach—Heidi Hughes, a USA Hockey women’s hockey legend, a former team captain married to her Canadian rival—worked with the remaining group.
The players took to it right away. They did high-intensity repetitions of each drill. That morning Ryan had them working on a variety: the 2v2 rush, a 4v4 in-zone, a high 3v2. Ryan wanted to see how they adapted, because the small-area work was a big change from the repetitious single-focus drills they’d been doing before.
Unsurprisingly, Cook and Williams were the two standouts: they had what Ryan was looking for in the team he’d like to mold. Not just a killer instinct but intelligence. Even in the drills, you could see them thinking two or three steps ahead, moving their bodies into a position in anticipation rather than reaction.
Somewhat surprisingly, Travis Sinclair also adjusted well. The book that Ryan had on him hadn’t been particularly impressive: he’d had a lot of injuries that he’d played through and a lot of injuries he couldn’t play through despite his best efforts; his point totals reflected the time he’d missed. But Ryan wondered whether this was a case of a guy not being given a chance to play to his strengths by a previous administration. Or a guy who was finally healthy and might have something to prove. He made a note to try Sinclair out as the other winger on what would inevitably become the Williams and Cook line.
After the practice ended and before the players left for their homes or hotels, Ryan pulled Cook aside for a talk in his office. A look flickered over Cook’s face. Worry or frustration, Ryan couldn’t tell. Cook’s expressive face showed everything, even if it was opaque. With his curly blond hair and huge brown eyes, he looked a little bit like a comical Renaissance cherub. One of the scowling ones shooting arrows at suffering saints. He was small, too. An inch taller than Ryan, and that wasn’t saying much.
Even before Cook had been drafted by the Beacons, Ryan kept a half an eye on his career. It was hard not to with a player with that much talent, who also reminded him so much of himself. Not only that, a sure sign that things were changing. Ryan had been undrafted, but Cook was a later first-round pick.
“Hey,” Ryan said, “don’t worry about it, bud. I’m not doing anything except checking in, because you had kind of a rough start to the camp.”
Cook looked at him warily. “It was okay.”
Ryan couldn’t help it—he laughed. Cook relaxed almost immediately, like he knew they were on the same page.