Page 73 of Home Ice Advantage
Chapter Thirteen
March
By the time March rolled around, Ryan really felt like he was hitting his stride as a head coach. There wasn’t much he could do about the fact that the team wasn’t going to finish particularly high in the standings. Injuries had ravaged the regular lineup: Travis Sinclair was out for the rest of the season after a shoulder surgery that couldn’t have been put off any longer; Davey had to sit a few weeks with a sprained MCL; and Laurent Martel had gotten a nasty concussion in a stupid and useless fight. He was still dealing with post-concussion symptoms. Ryan had had to call up some guys from Providence, which wouldn’t be a bad thing on a rebuilding team normally, but it wasn’t the ideal time of the season to be trying to integrate new players into the system.
It was easier to deal with the media, too. They were still asking, especially after hard losses, how he felt about the team’s record and where they were at this point in the season. They weren’t mathematically eliminated from the playoffs just yet, but they would have to win almost all of their remaining games to make it.
The same way that he had for months now, Ryan answered patiently, “The way this season is going, I’m not looking at the standings, I’m really not. What I’ve been trying to do is to build a culture, which is one where we are playing the right way and doing the right things on the ice, a culture where anyone who’s called up knows what we’re looking for from them and the system we want to play. In that sense I’m very satisfied with the way that the team is playing. I can’t do much about the injuries, and I can’t do much about the fact that the roster is where it is at this point in the season.”
On the bench it was easier, too. While Ryan still got caught up in the flow of the game, he didn’t feel like he was missing as much as he had been at the beginning of the season. It was easier to manage line changes, easier to keep track of who was going where, and although they still took the occasional sloppy bench minors, overall, he felt like he had it handled.
He felt satisfied with the way that Heidi was handling the skills aspect of the practices: the younger players had all taken the strides that he’d hoped they would, and even some of the older players had improved their underlying numbers. Emil Härmälä actually had a positive Corsi for percent, which had never happened in his entire career; Cook had gotten him a cake that said “69% CF (nice)” and had smashed a piece of it in Härmälä’s face like they were at a wedding. Petey had gotten the PK under control and even though there was still the occasional sloppy in-zone coverage, overall, they were taking care of the zone.
Since Keen had been sent down to Providence, he’d been playing with a chip on his shoulder, but he was a point-per-game player, and even better, Ryan didn’t have to worry about him grumbling in the locker room about his usage or upsetting Eric.
Everything was going well, for the most part. So why did he still feel so unsettled and anxious? Ryan had never been an anxious person as a player. He’d had a clear goal to work toward and the stubborn drive to get there, no matter what. There wasn’t any reason it shouldn’t have been the same as a head coach.
“What’s going on, Coach?” Heidi asked, during a lull in the practice, while the boys were stretching it out, or goofing off in the distance, firing shots at a protesting Davey. He wasn’t a particularly big goalie, but when even a baby in forty pounds of pads stopped you in your tracks on a breakaway, it was going to hurt like hell. “You seem a bit out of sorts.”
“Joe Conroy offered me an extension last week,” Ryan said slowly. He kept his voice down so Eric wouldn’t hear. That was another thing he didn’t completely understand yet, either. Why he felt so weird about telling him.
“But that’s amazing!” Heidi exclaimed, then dropped her voice when Ryan shushed her. “What? Why? Aren’t you happy? Would’ve thought you’d be thrilled to stay.”
“Sometimes I wonder why I ever left coaching peewee hockey, to be honest.”
Heidi laughed and rolled her shoulders. “I’m sure those are the days when we get blown out 7-2.”
“Thankfully, those days aren’t happening so often anymore,” Ryan said. “But... I don’t know. All of you have the one-year contracts too, so I know I should take it so I can give you all some job security if I can, but I don’t know if it’s the right choice for me.”
Heidi stared at him, uncomprehending. “Why not?”
“Am I really the best person to coach this team? Or should I be giving someone with more experience the chance? Would it be better to try to get further away from—from home, you know? There’s just a lot of variables. Don’t get me wrong, Heids. I love coaching, and I love this team. I just took the job kind of impulsively, and now that things have calmed down, I just want to make sure I’m doing the right thing for everyone else.”
“I can’t speak for Petey and Roney, obviously,” Heidi said, a small, concerned frown twisting her mouth down. “But Sully, as far as my experience? You’ve been the best coach I could’ve hoped for. You gave me the opportunity and I, for one, am gonna be fighting to hold on to it. I’d understand if you didn’t sign the extension, but I’m pretty sure I speak for all of us when I say we’d like you to stay.”
Ryan wanted to tell her thank you, but all he could think about was his father showing up at practice, the stupid distraction that it had become; his own inability to stand up and sayget the hell out of my practice facility. Mark Sullivan was the kind of guy who was going to die at age 102 out of sheer spite, so it wasn’t like that was going to get any better in the meantime. It was one thing to worry vaguely about it before accepting the job, another entirely to know exactly what he was in for if he couldn’t figure out how to grow a pair.
“It has been really rewarding,” Ryan admitted. That was an understatement; he didn’t have the words to describe what coaching the team had meant to him, what seeing Cook and Williams grow into players he could be proud of had meant to him, what meeting Eric had meant to him. If he didn’t sign the contract, he’d have to give all of that up. “I don’t reallywantto go.”
“So stay,” Heidi said, like it was simple.
Maybe it was.
Eric wasn’t expecting the call when it came. It was a day just like any other day. He woke up with Ryan’s stubbly cheek pressed up against his back, pushed him away without rancor and sat up in bed. They showered together and Ryan complained again about Eric’s undrinkable coffee, although by now, Eric had made concessions and started keeping hazelnut creamer in the fridge, even though he shuddered reflexively every time he saw it. They left the apartment together, and Ryan vibrated in place for a second like he was half-ready to go up on his toes and try to kiss Eric right there, in public.
“See you at the rink, Coach,” Eric said dryly, the same way he always did.
On the drive to the practice facility for morning skate, Eric’s phone rang. It wasn’t a familiar number or area code, but for some reason he answered it anyway instead of ignoring it. “Hello?”
“Is this Eric Aronson?”
“Yes,” he said, half-suspicious and half-terrified that something had happened to Maman, even though it wasn’t a Montreal number. He considered whether he should pull over to the side of the road to continue the conversation.
“Eric, I’m very happy to have reached you. This is Paul Clifton.”
At that point, Eric did pull over to the side of the road.
Paul Clifton had recently been hired as the new general manager of the Long Island Railers, after the dust had settled from the initial bloodbath. He was another longtime hockey man, although he had spent most of his career playing in Edmonton. The kind of old-school enforcer that you never saw in the league these days. The end of his career had overlapped the beginning of Eric’s, although Eric couldn’t remember anything particularly memorable about playing him. He’d been an assistant GM in Tampa before the Railers had poached him, so he had experience—he wasn’t all brawn.