Page 49 of Bro Code

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“Does the league know about that?”

“Rodriguez says Tampa’s onto him. I think they’ve benched him a couple times. They may be trying to pawn him off somewhere else.” Riley stood, stamping his skates and swinging his arms, the helmet in one hand.

“How did that make you feel?”

Riley scoffed. “I don’t know; pissed?”

“Mhm.” Louis nodded, watching him.

“Surprised, I guess,” said Riley.

“Yeah.” Louis hesitated. He squinted. “...Scared? Maybe?”

Riley looked down at the helmet, then put it on and started buckling it. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He jostled his shoulders again, looking down. “He also — never mind.”

“What?” said Louis.

Riley sighed. “He called me Little Man, which is…ugh, never mind, it’s stupid.” Louis watched him tilt his head from side to side to crack his neck. Eventually, he said. “I am little. You know? I’ve always been the smallest guy on the team. And I think, maybe…” He sighed. “You’re right: I’m not the only guy in the league who’s out. I know that. But I think I’m the smallest.”

Ah. There it was. Louis nodded. “Right.”

“And small guys get picked on,” said Riley. He shrugged and skated out to center ice.

Louis watched him go with his chest aching. Maybe it was just that they were near where Riley had grown up, but he couldn’t stop seeing a little kid, putting on his armor, skating out into a rink full of guys that were bigger than him. How anyone did that was beyond Louis.

Having no idea how to fix Riley’s fear, Louis did what any good software engineer would do: he started squashing bugs.

If Riley was a machine, then he could be programmed. His body was stuck running suboptimal paths. The paths were subconscious, which meant Riley couldn’t just talk himself out of them. They had to program new ones.

How would they do that? Louis had some ideas. He was calling them “behavioral overrides”.

For example:

When Riley was chasing down the puck, he sometimes overshot it and failed to stop in time. Louis figured out this was because he was momentarily freezing from the panic of colliding with an oncoming defender, and his stride was getting out of whack. The fix? Chanting something under his breath with every stride might keep his rhythm together, and would give his lizard brain something to focus on other than, Big guy is coming toward me.

So he started telling Riley to chant, Track, track track, under his breath on every step.

Next: If Riley lost the face-off, it was usually because his grip was so tight the puck bounced off his stick. But Louis noticed it was only happening when his opponent was bigger than him. The fix there?

“Before you step into the circle tonight for the face-off, I want you to slam your stick on the ice,” Louis called from the bench. They were alone in the Burbank arena, before the game against the Kings that night. “Then when you get into position for the drop, lean on your stick, hard, then back off.”

Riley looked up and frowned. “What is that gonna do?”

“Hopefully it’s gonna remind you to loosen your grip, so you don’t get stone hands.”

He looked unconvinced. “Hm. I figured maybe it was an intimidation thing.”

Louis shrugged. “Could be that, too. Does it make you feel intimidating?”

Riley lifted his stick and slammed it hard into the ice, then dropped into his face-off position. The sound cracked like a gunshot through the empty arena.

He straightened up, shrugging. “I mean…kinda.”

“Great!” said Louis. “Even better. Just don’t break your stick.”