Overtime

Kevin was hoping that he’d be the first one to get to the captain’s meeting. He valued punctuality, sure, but he more so wanted some time to decompress and prepare himself before the room filled with people. His fantasies of solitude were however thwarted when he saw Dan Wilds, the captain of the women’s team with her chair scooched back and her feet up on the table. She nodded at Kevin when he came in.

“Day! Good to see you!”

“Hi Dan.” Kevin sheepishly took the seat as far away as possible from Dan.

“Did you see Matt on your way?” He shook his head.

“Goddamnit I told him to set an alarm! Well, if he’s late it’s his own damn fault. Anyway, How’s the hand?” She gestured to his still braced left hand. She didn’t know the full extent of his injury or what exactly happened– no one did, but she had an idea. She knew it was serious enough for him to have to redshirt his junior year but that was about it.

“Ah you know, getting there! Abby cleared me to play, which is most important.”

“Hell yeah” She rolled her chair over to him and fist bumped his good hand. “You’re gonna have a heck of a season. I mean with you back and the energy from Minyard and Josten?”

Kevin was confused. “What do you mean? About Neil and Andrew?” He knew they both went to the World Juniors and that they secured gold for the US but when he heard those two names he didn’t exactly think energy.

Dan took out her phone. “God, I forget how chronically offline you are.” She pulled up a video on Twitter and handed her phone to Kevin. “Here.”

The video showed team USA standing in a circle in their locker room. Gold medals around all of their necks, baseball hats on each of their heads. Backwards. Of course. Neil was not hard to find. Sweaty, auburn hair sticking to his forehead, his face sporting a post game reddish glow. He, strikingly, was smiling. Although his scar-tightened skin made the smile lopsided. He tapped the USA crest and the letter C on his jersey and launched into a cheer, the team repeating each line after him:

Oh mama don’t you cry (oh mama don’t you cry)

USA hockey is do or die (USA hockey is do or die)

Take a hockey stick in my hand (take a hockey stick in my hand)

Go on off to a foreign land (go on off to a foreign land)

Rhemann said I’d be a star (Rhemann said I’d be a star)

USA hockey will go very far (USA hockey will go very far)

Take the Gatorade in your glass (take the Gatorade in your glass)

BECAUSE WE JUST KICKED YOUR FUCKING ASS (BECAUSE JUST KICKED YOUR FUCKING ASS)

Just as the video ended, all the players swarmed Andrew. He wasn’t hard to find either. Especially considering he was about a head shorter than everyone in the room barring Neil. Andrew typically wasn’t fond of touch but he did allow the occasional appreciative goalie tap. Something definitely warranted after his near shut-out tournament. Dan was right. If they could keep this momentum through the college season, they could be in for something really special. Kevin would’ve killed to be on that team, Especially with James Rhemann from USC coaching the team. He was out of age eligibility for the juniors now. Wasted his last few years being sequestered in The Ravens, no longer allowed to represent the USA after his team lost when he was sixteen.

“Way to rub it in, guys, voyons.” Jean Moreau, alternate captain for the men’s team came in, no doubt hearing the commotion. He had a strange accent– unplaceable unless you knew him. He had an accent in English and in French, something that Kevin relentlessly teased him about. But, that’s what being from New Brunswick does to a person.

“Hey, you guys had a great tournament! Don’t sell yourself short. We all know that Canada has a goalie problem” Dan said, offering Jean a fist bump which he sadly returned. Canada had had a great tournament. They’ve been plagued with quarter-final eliminations in the past couple years but they made it to the finals this year, no doubt thanks in part to Jean’s defensive skills.

“Well it’s not my fault that everyone in my country grew up wanting to be Sidney Crosby and no one wanted to be Marc-André Fleury, okay?” Jean sunk into the chair beside Kevin.

“Well then who did you want to be?”

“I am my own man, Dan Wilds.” He replied reverently. Dan rolled her eyes so hard she almost fell out of her chair. She returned to her phone. 

Jean and Kevin proceeded to discuss the tournament in more detail in Japanese. French was usually their standard but they’ve drifted away from it when they started playing college hockey, a sport inundated with French Canadians. Plus, Jean’s New Brunswick Chiac had enough English words sprinkled in that it didn’t exactly grant them much privacy. They didn’t want to exclude people by speaking Japanese or French but it was a habit. You never knew who might be listening in The Nest. Dan didn’t seem to care either.

“Holy moly, are you two planning a crime or something?” The voice behind them, coming from Renée Walker, alternate captain and starting goalie for the women’s team, made them both jump.

“What makes you say that?” Kevin asked, spinning his chair around.

“The Kansai Japanese? The weird honorifics? You sound like you’re in the Yakuza!” Pleased with her own joke, Renée cackled and took her place next to Dan. 

“You speak Japanese?” Jean asked, dumbfounded.

“Yes. I was born in Okinawa." she responded, in Japanese. This shut Kevin and Jean up until the other two alternate captains, Catalina Alvarez and Matt Boyd, and the coaches, Abby Winfield and David Wymack filed in.

Wymack took the last chair and loudly clapped his hands.

“Alright kids, business time.”

- 

The men’s and women’s team will be sharing ice time in the mornings for the foreseeable future. Something about a scheduling issue was tossed around at the captains meeting but Wymack didn’t exactly try to solve the issue either. With such small rosters, it’d be good to mix the teams every now and again. 

Renée skated towards the center line to join Laila in her frog stretch. Hip mobility was vital for goalies. Laila naturally had lots, she essentially was a human pretzel, this trait coming back to bite her by being nearly constantly plagued by injuries. Renée, on the other hand, had to work much harder at it. She smacked Laila’s leg pads with her stick.

“Oooh! These are pretty!” They were. Nice and simple: bright orange with a white paw print that came together when she dropped into butterfly. She also had a matching orange glove and orange blocker. 

“Well, that Bauer NIL deal does have its perks!” Laila responded, smacking Renée’s pads back.

“They look like cheese!”

“Well now you just ruined it!”

“Hey they’re better than Minyard’s!” Renée jabbed her stick in Andrew’s direction as he was hammering the net pegs into the ice. His pads, glove, blocker, and helmet were all plain white, the only design on them being puck marks. He scowled back at her. “He did promise that he’d do something fun with them if he won the world juniors and I’m holding him to it.”

“I’ll let you know if I think of any design ideas!”

Nicky Hemmick skated a circle around Kevin.

“Wow! Don’t you look dapper!” Nicky drawled, no doubt referring to Kevin’s red “no contact” jersey and left glove, with its middle and ring fingers taped together.

“Stop.” Kevin rolled his eyes.

“I saw that Wymack made you do a quick change earlier!” Wymack did force Kevin to change his jersey just as he was about to step on the ice, citing that he “didn’t want to take any chances.” Before Kevin could think of a response, Abby’s whistle cut them off as they were summoned to center ice. 

“Alright, first practice!” Wymack boomed. “Before we really get into things, do we have any words from our fine captains?” Kevin wasn’t prepared for this. He turned to look at Dan, hoping she would rescue him. Thankfully, she took this in stride. 

“So, great to see you all. I’m really glad to properly get these teams off the ground and for the fact that we all get to practice together. I think we can all learn a lot from each other. I do, however, just want to chat to the men’s team really quick. I know that most of you have never played with or against women before. But, we have all played with men. There were no women’s hockey clubs in the Bay Area when I was growing up; and the same goes for all the girls on the team who grew up in smaller towns than me. I’m not targeting this against any of you, but I’ve seen what many hockey boys have been saying online and in person about female hockey players, be it NCAA or PWHL. A lot of it is baseless, hateful, and has no place in the sport. If I catch so much of a whiff of that rhetoric surrounding this team you will be hearing from me. That being said, we have a very exciting season ahead and I’m excited to work together. Go Foxes!” Dan was met with raucous stick taps, the loudest being none other than Matt Boyd.

“Alright thank you very much, Wilds! Definitely needed to be said. Anything from Day?” Abby asked.

“Um… I think Dan kind of said it all. Put team first, get pucks in deep, and take some good chances I guess? Go Foxes.” Kevin has never been much of a speech guy.

“Wow, you have such a way with words.” Aaron said.

“Thank you captains! Now, I know we’re all out of shape so we’re going to do some power skating.” Wymack shifted into coach mode. “Everyone on the line!” Collective groans rang out as the team made their way towards the goal line. Wymack skated behind each goalie, tapping all but Andrew on the pads “Let’s go! Goalies too!” More groans.

The shooting drill after the unexpected power skating session gave Andrew some respite. It was simple enough. Forwards got fed a puck from Kevin, and tried to score while being shut down by a defenseman. The goalies rotated in and out periodically. Andrew caught one of Seth Gordon’s shots in his glove for the third time in a row. Seth skated to the back of the forward line, grumbling. 

“Are we doing target practice, Gordon? Target should be the net, not the glove.” Neil jabbed. He never did know when to shut up.

“It’s not my fault Minyard’s a backwards freak. No one catches like that anymore! What is it? 1965?”

“Shane Reed from USC catches right! Worth learning!” Kevin eagerly piped in.

“Jesus Chirst why do you know these things?” Seth muttered under his breath. 

Neil was up next, he received Kevin’s pass without issue but Jean gave him a run for his money defensively. Andrew was so relieved to have some half decent D this season. Neil did eventually get around Jean, his strategy of tiring opposing players out seeming to have worked. He brought the puck around the back of the net. Andrew was familiar with these plays, dropping one pad parallel to the ice and the other layered on top of it, in RVH. This turned out to be a mistake as Neil scooped his stick under the puck, picking it up and flinging it into the near corner, above Andrew’s head. Neil and his fucking trickshots. Andrew angrily fished the puck out of the net.

“Way to go Josten!” Wymack kicked the boards behind the bench in excitement. “A fucking Michigan in practice? You better do that in a game!”

Neil picked up the puck from Andrew.

“You have a tic you know,” Neil muttered into his ear.

“Do not.”

“Yes you do. You hit the left post with your blocker, right with your glove, and shake out your left leg every time someone scores on you. Is it a reset or what?”

“Fuck you.” Andrew grumbled as he set up for the next shot, catching himself in that same routine Neil mentioned. Allison Reynolds came at him with the puck. Her stick handling was unreal but he managed to knock the puck away with a poke check.

“You also smack the post with your stick every time you go out for a poke check.” Neil muttered again. “You have to stop doing that. People are going to catch on.” Josten’s keen eye was not so helpful when he was shooting against Andrew. That boy was going to be the death of him.