Page 4 of Offside

Griffin walked in twenty minutes late, spotted me across the room, and pointed at me like he was personally offended.

“Lindy. You were here at six forty-five.”

“Six forty-five is when the ice opens.”

“The ice opens at seven.”

“The Zamboni leaves at six forty-five if you ask nicely.”

He dropped into the stall next to mine and shook his head slowly. “Every year. I roomed with you for three years and you still do this.”

“Every year you’re twenty minutes late.”

“I’m fashionably late. It’s different.” Griffin pulled gear from his bag, grinning. “How’s the heat?”

I’d learned not to ask about Griffin’s reasons for being late. They were never about traffic.

“Trying to kill me.”

“Give it two weeks. After that you become a person who lives in hell and thinks it’s normal.” He glanced over. “Your apartment good?”

“It’s got AC.”

“That’s all you need.” Griffin scanned the room, the careful, reading sweep he always ran, the one that took in the whole room before settling, and his expression settled. “Good group,” he said, quiet enough that it was just for me. “I can feel it.”

I could feel it too. I’d been in enough locker rooms to know the difference between a group of players who happened to share a jersey and a group that was going to become something. This one had the bones.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s not waste it.”

Coach Jack Calloway ran a tight first practice.

He was thirty-eight, younger than half the veteran roster, and he ran practice like he’d been doing it for twenty years. He hadn’t. This was his first head coaching job. He’d won a Cup as a player and spent four years as a highly regarded assistant, and none of that showed up as anything except confidence. The kind that didn’t need the room’s approval.

He and I had spoken twice before camp, long phone calls that had covered systems, culture, leadership philosophy, what the organization wanted to build and how. I’d come away from both calls with the clean feeling of being on the same page with someone, which was not as common as it should have been at this level.

Calloway ran us through structure for two hours. Defensive responsibility, quick transition, not necessarily hockey that would end up in highlight reels but won games in November when everyone else was still finding their legs. I knew the system. More importantly, I knew why it was the right system for this group.

After practice, as the room broke into the comfortable chaos of post-skate, Calloway caught my eye and tilted his head toward the hallway. I followed.

He leaned against the wall, coffee in hand. He’d brought it from his office, a real cup, not a paper one, which I filed away as information about the man.

“First read,” Calloway said.

“Kovac’s physical and Marquis is the smartest center I’ve been on the ice with in years. Opposing teams are going to hate both of them,” I said. “Westbrook’s better than he looks, and he looks like a lot. The young defensemen need time to find their legs, but they’re not scared, which matters more right now.” I paused. “The room wants to know what we are. They’re waiting to see it.”

Calloway nodded. “What are we?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “But I know what I want us to be, and I think you and I want the same thing, and that’s enough to start with.”

Calloway smiled, a quick one, real. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s enough.”

He held my gaze and sized me up, steady and in no rush, the same read I imagined he’d run on a lot of hockey players. “I know what they told you when they brought you here.” Not a question.

“They did.”

“That’s their want. This is mine.” He met my eyes. “You’ve got the C. Don’t make me regret it.”

I nodded. Resting my hands on my knees to keep still, the captaincy had just become real in a way it hadn’t been until this moment.