Page 20 of The Tryout

He nods, eyes going wide.

“Awesome, I’m Avery Lawson. Jamie’s friend?”

He smiles and nods, not unkind but maybe a little…bewildered?

“I just wanted to thank you for how nice you were to him during camp last year. I don’t know if he ever told you, but I think it made a big difference for him.”

He gives me a small smile at this.

“My pleasure, man. He’s a nice guy, anyone would have.”

You’d think that, but that wasn’t the case. Plenty of guys on that team waited to be told it was okay to like Jamie, to be nice to him. But not this shy, sandy-haired kid.

“No, they wouldn’t have. They didn’t. But you did. Thanks.”

He blushes, biting his lip and nodding at me, and I head out to the ice with a little wave, putting him out of his misery.

On the ice, I try to keep my head down and do what I’m told. I know that as someone who had to beg an invitation to be here, I don’t have the room to be a joker or distract others. My entire job for the next five days is to make the coaches think of me as someone who makes every practice a little better, a little easier.

They start us with bag skates, as I expected. During my surgical recovery, I had lost a lot of my cardiovascular endurance. This has been one of my top points of focus over the summer. Before my injury, I’m not sure I ever really focused on how I could best work on my own to improve my game – I practiced how my coaches wanted me to, lifted when they said, and generally trusted it would all work out.

Look where that got me.

This summer, though, I really dialled in. Did some testing at the University to see where my strength, cardio fitness, and flexibility were, and spent every day trying to improve them. Because if I wasn’t willing to do that – why even bother with this tryout?

As a result, my cardio fitness is now better than at any other point in my hockey career, my skating efficient and, dare I say, fast. As a defenseman, I’d always relied on strength and positioning. But to play with another level of player, I need to be a another level of player.

When the coach blows his whistle, I take off with the rest of the team, eyes down, telling myself to just not be last. I don’t let myself look up, knowing that the comparison will trip me up, make me start asking if I’ve still got what it takes. Lap after lap, I keep my head down, focusing on the feeling of my muscles, the rhythmic push and pull of skating.

When the moaning and groaning starts around me, I dare to look up. I am thrilled to see that I’m right with the second and third line forwards, although they seem to be flagging. The entire defensive corps is behind me, which I can’t help but feel a little thrilled at.

Another exciting development is Finn Murphy. It turns out Jamie’s friend can skate. He’s half a lap ahead of me, lapping the backup goalie. Seems like he hasn’t been slacking on his cardio, either.

Finally, after skaters start to drop out, gasping for air with their hands on their knees, Coach blows his whistle again. Most of the team stops immediately, a few even dropping to the ice. While I’m happy to slow down and take a deep breath, I’m definitely not hurting in the way some of these guys are. I catch Banks looking my way, and he gives me a brief nod.

Maybe I won’t be booking a flight today.

Behind me, I hear the scrape of skates on ice and look over my shoulder to see Murphy approaching.

“Nice job,” I say holding out a fist.

He bumps it gently with his own.

“Thanks. You keep that up, they’re gonna try to turn you into a center.”

I laugh as we coast over to where the rest of the team is assembling around the coaching staff. Remy Porter, the head coach for the team, has a clipboard in his hand, making notes as our heartrates return to normal. Frankly, it’s a little hard to do that when it feels like every movement is being observed.

“Alright. Welcome back to those who were with us last year. Welcome to those who are new. We had a good run of it last year, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to keep up that momentum this season, even though we’ve had some turnover.”

I’d spent more than one evening this summer looking over the roster, finding old video clips from last season and analyzing the changes during summer contract negotiations. The defense last year had been pretty solid, something to be expected of the Huskies’ affiliate. Still, they’d lost a few to retirement and other teams, and their draft picks lately have been heavy on forwards. The spots are there, I just need to get one.

“We’ll start doing some positional drills now. I may call you over for a conversation while we do. Keep your focus on the ice. Let’s go.”

With that, the assistant coaches start grabbing their players; the goalies stake out the near goal, probably too exhausted to make it across the ice to the other goal. The forwards get no such consideration, with their coach blowing a whistle and making it clear they need to get a move on.

My fellow defensemen and I end up at center ice. We run through a wide variety of drills – passes, blind passes, footwork, zone entries. And the whole time, I can feel the eyes on me – not just Banks’, but the other players’, too.

As we work, I can see Porter pulling people to the side for one on one conversations, just as he promised. I try not to read too much into who he does and doesn’t talk to. I know at least a few of the conversations aren’t good. A younger defenseman named Briggs comes back from his bitching about how Coach told him he looked out of shape. It’s not a lie – he did.