Pucker Up

Chapter Six: Bobby

Bobby Jackson's P.O.V

~~

The second practice was progressing even better than the first.

Having survived the first wave of cuts seemed to have given these boys an extra edge of confidence. They skated with more tenacity and spirit than yesterday. The hard and quick crunches under their skates were music to my ears; they were pushing themselves. Instead of starting with a scrimmage, like last time, I began setting up cones to try some of the new drills I thought up. I wanted to improve on some of the things I noticed yesterday and hopefully see the payoff in our scrimmage. I didn't want to have to sit through another match, watching them make the same mistakes.

As they skated through the drills, I briefly wondered where Baseball Cap was. Heck, I wondered who Baseball Cap really was-- besides the guy I nearly insulted from the gym earlier today and friend of Liam Mathers who witnessed the trainwreck of brief encounters yesterday outside the rink floor-- and whether these drills lived up to his expectations. I looked around at the boys pushing themselves. Was he someone skating laps as punishment? Was he stickhandling around the cones? Defenceman? Forward?

A stray puck hit the boards next to me, the load bang snapping me from my daze. I passed it back to the expectant player and skated over to the net. 

I didn't care who Baseball Cap was and now was especially not the time to be thinking about it.

We had one nice conversation—which was work-related—no big deal.

I focused back on the drill at hand and the number of boys skating their punishable laps. They were currently practicing stick handling, weaving the puck in between a tight line of cones, where each time they hit a cone they had to skate four laps around the perimeter of the ice.

What didn't go unnoticed, amongst my intense supervision, was that Hudson Winters was not one of those boys skating laps. Practically the only one left still standing, still stickhandling around the cones. At this rate, he was a shoo-in for the captain position. He had been occupying a small minuscule space in my mind, because of his performance on the ice and our conversation on the phone.

Again, I had to physically move to shake off these thoughts. I skated around the ice and forced myself to get my mind back on task as I collected stray pucks. It was the second day on the job and already I was thinking about two different guys on the team. I was disappointed in myself and pissed. This had never happened to me before. It was as though the universe was testing my commitment to the game when I have done nothing but work my ass off for this my entire life.

My dad watched Hudson for a second and then his eyes drifted to someone else. We must have had similar ideas... Hudson's spot on the team was already confirmed and we needed to use this time to evaluate the other, more uncertain, players.

While the rest of the team worked on their shots, I pulled Caleb aside and practiced charging him. I knew Caleb was good enough to be on the team, he had the right heart and spirit for it. I just needed my dad to see it too. The guy could be great if he got out of his head.

"Let's mimic the same head-to-head play... only this time don't blow a tire."

He snorted. "I didn't do it on purpose, Bobby."

"Well, this time," I taunted, trying to get him pissed off so that he'll give it all he has. He needs to fix this problem, or no one will take him seriously. "Don't do it at all."

I skated at him hard and began faking left and right. He tried to follow, but in doing so, his speed slowed to where he was simply skating next to me as though we were doing laps on a goddamn general free skate. I should have stopped the play and started again, but instead, I swerved to the right suddenly and bodychecked him off his feet. That wouldn't happen in a real game, not unless the guy wanted a penalty for an illegal hit, but Caleb needed to be ready for the unexpected.