Hutch

9

Hutch

"Hutch!"

I wince when Coach screams my name. Everyone looks up, startled. The locker room has been loud and boisterous up until this point. What the fuck did I do? Is he going to switch me up to the second or third line? Panic hits fast and hard, but I do my best to school my expression so I don't show it.

"Mondoza, Wilson, get your asses in here too!"

The small intake of breath from Collin says it all. What the fuck is wrong?

The three of us trudge towards Coach's office where he's waiting with a glower on his face.

"Is that little spitfire of yours in the stands?" Coach asks, his voice dropping to a soft murmur.

"I don't know. She's sick. Got a fever. I took her meds, but I told her she didn't have to come if she's not feeling up to it. Why?"

"The owner of the Raptor's is here. He came by before earlier to get my take on you three. He'll be in the stands watching tonight's game. I wish that girl of yours were here."

Coach is just as superstitious as the rest of us so I don't understand why he told us the owner of the Raptors were in the stands tonight. It'll only put more pressure and stress on us.

"You three are starting tonight. Don't fuck this up."

We all nodded and wandered back to our lockers in a bit of a daze. I expected scouts, sure, but the owner? Owners rarely scouted players. They had other shit to do.

This is big.

"What do we do?" Noah whispered.

"We play like its our last game. We show up and put up. We make this our best game."

What if I'm not fast enough?

Nope. I'm not going there.

"We play for us, for our love of the game. We forget the fans, we forget the scouts, hell, we even forget the other team. We simply play for the sheer joy of being on the ice. It's the pressure and the stress that will make us fail. We just need to focus on what we love about the game and not think about the rest."

"Easier said than done," Collin muttered,

"I did it yesterday and I beat my best time."

They both stared at me shocked. I'd been fighting all month to get my time back and nothing worked.

"What the hell? How?"

"I brought Daisy here to show her why I love hockey. Why I love the ice. Girl can't skate for shit by the way. She called her skates weapons of mass destruction. She wasn't wrong."
They both laughed.

"But I put her on my back and showed her what it felt like to fly on the ice. Coach, the sneaky bastard, timed me. I beat my best time with her on my back. I wasn't thinking about the scouts, about making it into the NHL, about anything but how it felt to fly across the ice, the wind in my face, the cold, and the smell of the ice. I just skated for me. That's what we do. We skate for us. Or in your case, Noah, you block every puck. Don't think about anything but the game and why you love letting people throw pucks at your face at the speed of light. Why do you love that anyway?"

He shrugs, his messy blond hair falling into his face as he does. "My dad played goalie in high school. It's what he knew and what he taught me. I've tried other positions, but I always come back to this. I'm good at it."

"Family tradition, then." Collin nods and slaps him on the back. "Good enough."

We finish suiting up and then go to stand in line with the rest of the team waiting for them to announce us.