Page 16 of Edging Coach
DEVON
I’d never been on the losing end of a 9-1 rout. I’d been close…but never this bad.
As I sat on the bench in the locker room, waiting for Coach, I had way too much fucking time to get up in my head. Aside from feeling like I’d let the team down, which was bad enough, I let Coach down. He said the team had potential. That meant me as well. So I needed to show him what I was made of. What I was capable of. That the Grizzlies hadn’t made a mistake in acquiring me.
Lous dropped to sit beside me. “Coach’ll be here in a minute.”
“Yeah. About tonight?—”
He waved me off. “Those penalties were bullshit. Coach saw that. The fans saw that. Those refs?” He flailed his hands.
“Bullshit?” I offered a small smile.
“Yes.” He grinned. His dark skin gleamed under the crappy fluorescent lights. He’d talked about his Haitian heritage a bit at dinner last night. I’d come from multicultural Toronto and had been a little surprised to hear about Lousbeing raised in Alberta. The neighboring province to the east wasn’t exactly known for being a bastion of diversity. Lous made it clear things were better in Edmonton, where he’d grown up.
Beneath the surface, though, I caught…what? That he’d faced discrimination? That was pretty much a given. For all of Canada’s claims of acceptance, we still had a bevy of bigots, racists, and homophobes. I nudged Lous. “Thanks.”
His smile didn’t diminish. “This isn’t the worst loss we’ve had this season.
That doesn’t make me feel better. But nice try.
Coach breezed into the locker room.
A silence fell upon us.
He took a moment to meet the gaze of every player in the room.
Did he linger as he met mine? Hard to say. He certainly gave nothing away. Which I appreciated.
He blew out a long breath. “I’m not going to rehash the game. I think we know where we went wrong and what we did right.” He pointed to Lous. “I saw you guys dig deep and try—even when we were clearly going to lose the game. I saw grit and determination in the face of some awful calls?—”
“Bullshit calls,” Lous puffed out his chest. “Like they were in the Narwhals’ pocket or something.”
“Or something.” Saffron—with his Russian accent even heavier than usual. He met Coach’s gaze. “Yes, we can do better. What do you want from us?”
“That you give it your all. That you play your very best every time you hit the ice. That you play like we’re one win away from winning the Cup.”
Hairs snickered. The American was one of the youngest players—and also one of the mouthiest. Chirping at the opposite team was one thing. He’d gone a little too personal, to mymind. In return, the Narwhals hadn’t let him anywhere near the puck.
Coach stared at Hairs. “You have something to say?”
“Me?” He batted his eyes. “I’m innocent.”
This time, Rizz sniggered. He was the right winger on Hairs’s line and I hadn’t seen a lot of camaraderie between the two. They needed better chemistry, or they’d never score.
“Tomorrow morning we’re going to run drills. I want to see exactly what you’ve got?—”
“Or what we don’t have.” Arts, one of our veteran players, tapped his temple. “We have the wrong frame of mind. We don’t think we can win.”
Coach cocked his head, clearly uncertain of what he’d heard.
“Hey, take that back.” Hairs rose. “I wanna win. I wanna be called up. I wanna get the fuck out of this goddamn town.”
Well, okay. When you put it like that…Except he came across as always wanting the spotlight. The glory. A couple of times tonight he could’ve passed and we might’ve scored. But he’d held on to the puck too long, and his shots had either gone wide or, more often, the Narwhals had taken it away from him entirely.
Coach surveyed the room again. “Is Arts right? Do you think youcan’twin?”
I couldn’t conceive it. I went into every game believing if I did my best, then we were going to win.
