Line Change

by W. C. Mack

  * * *

  When we got out on the rink, Dad was standing at centre ice.

  “I think you all know I’m Nugget’s dad and I’m filling in for Coach O’Neal.” He held a whistle between his teeth while he was talking, which made him kind of hard to understand.

  “When’s he coming back?” Kenny asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Dad told him, letting the whistle drop out of his mouth. “I know he’s in the hospital and they’re figuring out how bad his back is.”

  “Will he be here for Saturday’s game?” Kenny asked.

  “He just said he didn’t know,” I whispered to him, and Kenny nodded.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Dad told him. “If he isn’t able to make the game, I’ll coach.”

  “Cool,” Jeff said. “Were you really one of the Flames, Mr. McDonald?”

  “No,” Dad said, raising his eyebrows when he looked at me.

  “I didn’t say that,” I told him.

  “I was scouted by the Flames, then had an accident and lost some vision.”

  “What kind of an accident?” Patrick asked.

  “Can we just play?” I muttered to Kenny.

  “I got hit with a puck and I wasn’t wearing a helmet.”

  “What?” all the guys gasped at once.

  “I wasn’t playing when it happened,” Dad explained. “I was taking a break on the ice.”

  “Did somebody do it on purpose?” Kenny asked.

  Oh, brother.

  “No,” Dad sighed, and I could tell he was getting as tired of the questions as I was. “It was an accident. That’s why it’s always important to gear up and be aware of your surroundings.”

  “So if —” Kenny started, but I elbowed him.

  “Now let’s get down to business,” Dad said.

  He told us to skate a bunch of warm-up laps, which was exactly how Coach O’Neal always started practice.

  Kenny looked relieved.

  The team took off in one big herd, but some of us (like me) were faster skaters and pulled out ahead right away. Me and Bosko usually kept the same pace, and I’d gotten used to doing laps with him. He never said much, but that was okay. I needed to save my breath for more important things, like … breathing.

  It was hard work, but it felt good to be pushing myself. Nothing sounded better than blades against the ice and a whole team of guys panting behind me. I counted off the laps as we went, hoping Dad wasn’t going to go overboard.

  “Let’s pick it up!” he shouted, after a few minutes. “One more lap to go!”

  Bosko and I both started gunning it, and I could feel the cold air freezing my lungs as I gasped for breath. Sometimes he beat me on the last lap, sometimes I beat him, but it was always a close finish.

  “Nice work!” Dad called.

  I gritted my teeth and skated even faster, because I wanted Dad to see me beat all the other guys. Especially Bosko.

  I wanted to be the best, even if it was only a drill.

  And, with a burst of energy and determination, I was.

  “Yes,” I whispered, wanting to pump a victory fist in the air.

  Instead, I bent to rest my hands on my knees and coasted for a few seconds, letting my heart slow down to normal.

  “Nice speed,” Eddie said, doing the same thing next to me. “Somebody had their Wheaties this morning.”

  “Thanks,” I said, thinking of the oatmeal glued to my stomach.

  When the rest of the guys finished the final lap, Dad started dividing us up into groups of three.

  “Where are the cones?” Kenny whispered. “Coach usually puts cones out next.”

  “Relax,” I told him.

  “Each group get into a circle,” Dad said.

  “A circle?” Kenny whispered, like he didn’t know what it was.

  “Do you mean a triangle?” Jeff asked. “I mean, since there’s three of us?”

  “Sure,” Dad nodded. “Circle, triangle, whatever you want to call it, just spread yourselves apart.”

  I was with Colin and McCafferty, who actually looked awake for a change.

  Dad passed each group a puck. “We’re going to work on cycling.”

  “Huh?” I heard Kenny ask.

  “Cycling,” Dad repeated. “I want one guy in each group to take the puck.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, I’d snagged ours.

  “Now everybody start skating in a slow circle.”

  My group started skating and I heard Kenny say, “Coach doesn’t do this.”

  Everybody ignored him and concentrated on what they were doing.

  “When I blow the whistle, whoever has the puck needs to pass back to the guy behind him.”

  Before anyone could bug him with questions, he blew the whistle.

  It was kind of a funny angle for passing, but I shot the puck back to Colin and we kept skating.

  In a few seconds, Dad blew the whistle again, and Colin passed to Bedhead.

  I saw that some of the groups had lost their pucks already. Dad waited until everyone was back on track before blowing the whistle again.

  And again.

  Faster.

  And faster.

  As we were running the drill, my group got better at handling those weird angles, and all of our passes were good.

  “Nice,” Bedhead said, when Colin slipped him the puck.

  “The reason we’re doing this is to get in the habit of passing when we don’t have a good shot ourselves,” Dad said. “Sharing the puck is a crucial part of winning.”

  He was right, of course. Everyone liked to be the guy who scored, but sometimes it was impossible to get a clean shot. I’d always looked for someone in front or to the side to pass to, but passing backward made way more sense.

  I could tell that the other guys were liking it too.

  Awesome.

  When Dad blew the whistle in two short blasts to end the drill, he combined our groups, so we were two sets of six.

  I checked Kenny out and he still looked a little worried.

  Dad told us to make bigger circles and start passing the puck between us.

  “It’s just as important to be able to pass from a stationary position,” he said.

  “A what?” Jeff asked.

  “Standing still,” Bosko told him.

  “Do we have to pass clockwise?” Patrick asked.

  “No, you can pass to anyone at any time.”

  Dad blew the whistle and Jeff passed to Colin. On the next whistle, Colin passed to me, then me to Bosko, Bosko to Patrick, and we kept going for what seemed like forever.

  “Nice stickhandling, Kenny,” Dad said. “You too, McCafferty.”

  I waited for him to say my name, but he didn’t.

  Hmm.

  Maybe he didn’t want to be accused of playing favourites.

  That was probably a good idea.

  “Now, I want one of you to get in the middle of the circle and try to steal the puck.”

  “Keep-away,” Jeff said, nodding.

  “Passing under pressure,” Dad corrected.

  Nice one. “Passing under pressure” sounded way cooler.

  “Bring it on,” Colin said, moving into the middle of our circle.

  Dad got us all started with the whistle, then it was fast and furious passing. We managed to keep the puck for Colin’s whole turn, then Dad called for us to trade guys. Jeff stole the puck from Patrick in about two seconds flat when he was in the middle.

  My circle was pretty intense and I could hear the guys in the other group getting into it, too.

  When it was my turn, I lunged at every guy who had the puck, but couldn’t steal it away. It was driving me nuts! Dad blew his whistle and I was pretty disappointed in myself, especially when Bosko was up next. He snagged the puck as soon as Colin passed it to Kenny, then twice more during his turn.

  Nuts!

  To Kenny’s obvious relief, when the pressure passing was over, Dad brought out the orange cones. He
lined them up toward each goal, and since this was one of Coach’s normal drills, we all knew what to do.

  One after the other, we skated back and forth between the cones, and when we reached the end of the line, we took a shot on an empty net.

  I made every shot but one.

  Bosko never missed.

  Of course, the guy had kind of become my friend, and he was still helping me a ton with Math, but that only made it more important for me to beat him on the ice.

  After all, he seemed to be able to beat me everywhere else.

  By the time we got through a set of line drills, skating as fast as we could to a cone marker, then back to the goal line, then out to a farther cone and back, and then even farther and back, I was dripping with sweat.

  Line drills were one of the toughest things to do, and practically killed me every time, but I knew how much they helped my speed.

  Dad blew the whistle and we met him at centre ice.

  “Nice work, guys,” he said, smiling. “We’ll see you Wednesday morning.”

  Everybody froze, dead quiet.

  What was he doing?

  I glanced at the clock and when I saw that our time was up, my jaw dropped along with everyone else’s.

  “What about the scrimmage?” Kenny asked.

  That was all it took for at least five other guys to start asking.

  “We should be able to fit one in at Wednesday’s practice,” Dad said, as if that was totally acceptable.

  He started scooping up orange cones.

  “Should?” Patrick asked.

  “Provided we get through everything else,” Dad said, nodding.

  “But —”

  “Anyway, you really did a great job today and I’m already looking forward to next practice. See you then.” He blew the whistle one last time and skated off the ice.

  “What?” Kenny asked the rest of us. “What about the scrimmage? We always end with the scrimmage. It’s the best part of practice!”

  He was right, of course, but none of the other guys said a word.

  I had the sinking feeling they were saving it for the locker room.

  Chapter Four

  I hung around on the ice for a couple of minutes, wondering what my teammates were going to say. I was as shocked about skipping the scrimmage as everyone else and I wished Dad had done things differently.

  Of course, I couldn’t avoid talking to the guys forever, so I took a deep breath and headed for the hallway. I could hear a bunch of voices in the locker room, and let out the breath before walking in.

  Colin was in the middle of saying something, but he stopped when he saw me. In fact, all the guys turned and stared (except Bosko, who was doing his own thing, as usual).

  I pulled my bag onto the bench and dug out my jeans and stuff for school, waiting for someone to say something.

  Anything.

  “What’s the deal with your dad?”

  Except that.

  I looked at Colin and tried to figure out the best way to handle the situation.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, hoping that playing dumb might work.

  “Why didn’t we get to scrimmage?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I guess the other stuff just took up all our time.”

  “But we’re here to play hockey, not do stupid drills,” Jeff said.

  Nuts. I thought he’d be on my side.

  But was I even on my side?

  I was just as disappointed as everybody else about how practice ended. But saying so would be going against Dad, and I didn’t want to do that.

  “I know —” I started to say, but Bosko cut me off.

  “Drills aren’t stupid,” he said quietly.

  He could have whispered and the rest of the guys would have stopped to listen. After all, everybody respected Bosko, and not just because he was a giant.

  “But we can’t spend all our time on them,” Colin argued.

  “If they help our game, we can,” Bosko said, then lifted his bag onto his shoulder and walked out of the locker room.

  The guys all stood there for a second or two, probably trying to decide whether they should say Bosko was wrong.

  Kenny glanced at me, then back at Colin, waiting to see who would say something.

  Nobody did. Instead, we all just changed for school and packed our bags, like normal.

  Whew.

  That is, until I walked out of the locker room and stopped in the hallway to listen.

  The first thing I heard was Colin saying, “Those drills were a joke.”

  “I thought they kind of helped,” Kenny said, and I secretly thanked him.

  “I don’t think Nugget’s dad knows what he’s doing,” Colin said.

  I almost went back in there, but waited instead.

  “Let’s see how things go on Wednesday,” Patrick said. “This was only his first practice. How was he supposed to know our routine?”

  I smiled, thinking that was a cool thing to say. So, I had Patrick and Kenny on my side. That was good.

  “All I’m saying is I hope Coach is back soon,” Colin told them.

  The rest of the guys kind of agreed, but that was okay. We all wanted Coach back. And Dad didn’t want to take over the team, he was just helping out in a pinch.

  Luckily, I had some time to set him straight before the next practice.

  * * *

  School went okay for me, but just like every Monday, it felt long. I had a quiz in Science, which wasn’t too hard, but then I had Math class with Mr. Holloway.

  I’d almost lost my chance to play hockey because of my Math grades, but thanks to Eddie Bosko and lots of studying, I’d managed to save my season.

  The weird thing about Math was I’d thought once Eddie got me up to speed on the stuff that had been hard for me, I wouldn’t have any more problems. I thought I’d be able to keep up with everybody else and never have Math trouble again.

  But Mr. Holloway had moved onto new material.

  Statistics.

  At first I’d been all excited, because I thought he was talking about the kind of statistics I loved. Sports statistics. And I was sure I’d ace the section.

  But he wasn’t talking about career goals or number of assists.

  Instead, I was stuck trying to understand medians, means and modes, which made no sense at all.

  When I sat in his class, I tried to concentrate and do my best, but always ended up wondering if Math was going to be just as hard or even harder for me all the way through school.

  I had a long way to go, and even with Bosko’s help, I worried that I wouldn’t make it.

  I glanced over my homework assignment as Carrie Tanaka walked from row to row, collecting papers for Mr. Holloway. When she came toward me, I saw her turn to smile at Bosko, but I couldn’t see if he smiled back.

  He had a huge crush on my sister, which was totally gross and weird, and I was hoping the fact that Carrie seemed to like him would make him forget about Wendy.

  The yuck factor of girls couldn’t even be measured.

  I handed Carrie my homework and waited for Mr. Holloway to get started, hoping my brain wasn’t about to get fried.

  * * *

  When I got home from school that afternoon, I had some of Mum’s awesome banana bread and milk, then dumped my backpack in my room. I wasn’t ready to do homework yet, since my brain was still sizzling from statistics, so I grabbed my stick and headed outside.

  Nothing cleared my head like hockey.

  There were wet leaves all over the ground, so I stuck a few of them to the side of the garage, to use as targets. Once I found a tennis ball in the backyard, I got right to work, shooting at the leaves and waiting for Dad to get home.

  He and I really needed to talk.

  There was no way the guys would tolerate another practice without a scrimmage. No way.

  After a few minutes, I’d warmed up nicely, and my shots were deadly. I seriously couldn’t miss.

  When Wendy came home, sh
e rolled her eyes at me and went inside without even saying hello. As usual.

  I kept shooting, even when she came outside again, holding the car keys.

  “Mum said I can take you to the mall.”

  I shot the ball again and knocked a leaf to the ground.

  Perfect hit!

  “Nugget,” she said.

  “I don’t want to go to the mall.”

  She sighed. “Why not?”

  “I’m practising.”

  “What for?” she asked, with her hands on her hips, starting to look mad. “You could hit those leaves in your sleep.”

  “Thank you.” It was nice of her to notice.

  “It wasn’t a compliment, weirdo. You’re totally obsessed.”

  “So?”

  “So, I can’t take the van unless you go with me.”

  “Why not?”

  She rolled her eyes again. “Because Mum thinks if I’m driving alone, I’ll use my phone.”

  They’d finally given up the fight and gotten her a cell phone for her birthday. And regretted it almost instantly.

  I’d even heard them talking about cancelling her service if her grades slipped.

  I never used the phone (unless I was winning the ultimate hockey trivia contest) and I couldn’t imagine anyone having as much to talk about as Wendy did.

  Seriously, her boyfriend Shane (Eddie Bosko’s big brother) would drop her off at home and two seconds later she’d be calling him. Like she’d even had a chance to blink since they’d seen each other.

  They slobbered all over each other, all the time. I didn’t even want to think about it. Way too gross for me.

  “I don’t want to go,” I told her.

  “It’ll take half an hour. I just want some lip gloss.”

  “You’re going to drive all the way to the mall for lip gloss?”

  Ever since she got her license, she’d been coming up with the dumbest excuses to drive. She even offered to pick up groceries for Mum or drop me off at school, just to get behind the wheel.

  “Nugget,” she warned.

  “I’m waiting for Dad. Just leave your phone with Mum, so she knows you won’t use it.”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “Just —”