Page 48 of Home Ice

I turned toward the door and saw a reflection of Max’s face in the glass for half-a-second. His mouth was open, but he wasn’t saying anything.

“Okay,” he said.

Chapter eleven

Rafe

The bump-back was dead, and Coach Markel wanted us to know who killed it.

“St. Louis,” he said, tapping his tablet against the boards until we circled in. “Watch.”

He ran a clip for us. It was our bump-back, run by Colorado against St. Louis two nights ago, and it went nowhere. The weak-side defenseman didn’t chase the puck carrier at the line. He sat in the bump lane, waited, picked off the pass, and sent it the other way.

“They’ve seen it,” Coach Markel said. “Everybody’s seen it. It’s on film, it works, and so now it’s scouted. That’s the life cycle.” He pulled up a frozen frame. “Here’s the good news. To take away the bump, he has to leave the middle early. Look where he’s standing. Look at all that ice behind him.”

“That’s my ice,” Varga said.

“It’s whoever gets there first’s ice.”

“It’s going to be my ice.”

“So tonight the bump is bait,” Coach Markel said, over him. “You carry the wall like always. If their guy stays home, bump it back; business as usual. If he jumps the lane, and he will, because they’re proud of breaking it up, you keep the puck and cut behind him. Don’t wait for the coaches to tell you. You’ll know before we do.” He looked at me for a moment. “Twice through, both units. Go.”

On my second rush, Rook was the defenseman, holding a stick and a grudge, jumping the bump lane just like St. Louis would. The door behind him stood wide open, exactly where the freeze frame said it would be. I went through it. The next time Rook stayed home, and I bumped it to Heath without looking.

“Better,” Coach Markel said, and moved his cones.

At the bench, Trier glided in beside me. “Big game tonight,” he said.

“They’re all big.”

“This one’s bigger. My sister-in-law is driving up from Springfield, Missouri.” He grabbed a water bottle. “She’s a St. Louis fan. She married into this family knowing what I do for a living, and she wears a Steamers jersey into my building anyway. There’s a word for that.”

“Loyalty?”

“I was going to say something else.” He drank from the bottle. “You’re going to score tonight, and when you do, I need you to look at section 114. Don’t wave. Just look. She’ll know.”

“I can’t promise a goal.”

“I didn’t ask for a promise. I asked for a look.” He pushed off the boards. “Peaches will watch from home. No pressure from her side. She’s a Steamers fan too, but she’s fourteen, and she doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

Varga spent the last drill complaining about a playoff series that happened before I was drafted.

“Game four,” he said to Heath. “Overtime. Kollberg played with a broken stick. He was holding half a stick, and they let the play go.”

“You’ve mentioned that,” Heath said.

“For forty seconds they let the play go. I counted. I have watched it one hundred times, and I count every time.” He looked around for a wider audience and found me. “Rafe. You were twelve. You don’t remember. It was the worst officiated series in the sport’s history, and I include the ones from before there were rules.”

“There were always rules,” Rook said, skating past.

“Not for St. Louis,” Varga said, and by the time Coach Markel sent us off, half the team had heard the entire series and the other half was skating away from it at full speed.

The horn sounded, and we filed toward the gate. Varga was still going about game four in the hallway, in the room, and in the showers. His voice carried over the water while Heath pretended to listen. By the time I got to the garage, I knew the old playoff series better than I knew our own power play.

He caught up with me across the parked trucks while I was loading my bag, and I braced for more Kollberg.

“Tomorrow,” he said instead. “Off day. A Hungarian church on the northwest side is having its winter fundraiser. Not my church. They adopted me my first season, and now I belong to them. It’s done; there’s no paperwork for undoing it. There’s a hall and a folk ensemble, and after the ensemble, everybody dances. Everybody. This is not a figure of speech. A woman named Marta will teach you the steps whether or not you ask her to. Two hours. Do you want to come with me?”