Pee Wees

by Rich Cohen

  Since the rush was too fast for Broadway Jenny, Coach Hendrix slowed it down. That’s what was happening at practice; he was gumming up the works with plays and rules that would downshift the offense to a speed that better suited his daughter. The wings were no longer allowed to head up ice the moment the defense took possession of the puck. They now had to wait at the blue line so that Tommy or Jenny could lead the way. Of course, this is not what Hendrix told the parents. He told us that the hockey we’d been playing, the style that resulted in our gaudy win-loss record, was selfish and unsound.

  “Flawed,” he’d say. “Not good team hockey.”

  Several dispiriting snoozefests resulted, the sort of games even a loving parent can’t stand to watch. When Duffy insisted on playing full speed, taking off with the puck alone, leaving Broadway Jenny behind, Coach Hendrix benched him.

  “Until when?” asked Duffy.

  “Until you learn to play team hockey,” said Coach Hendrix.

  We never scored more than twice a night. When we did win, it was always by a single goal. It was as if we’d forgotten how to create plays, which, for a hockey player, is like losing the joy of life. We could succeed only by making the other team fail, pulling them into the swamp. Our parents, at first confused, became irritated, then angry. Losing was bad enough, but losing like this turned the games into a slog. All the style and fun had gone out of it. Nor could they help noticing that, while some of our team’s flashiest players—Duffy, Leo, Patrick—spent most of their time watching from the bench, Brian and Jenny never seemed to get off the ice. I noticed increased phone usage in the bleachers. At first I thought it was bored parents checking email, but when I got close, I saw that these people had in fact opened their Stopwatch apps and were timing the shifts, figuring out just how badly their kid was getting screwed. This can’t be determined by the naked eye. It follows the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: your presence makes it impossible to take an accurate measurement. Or maybe it’s more like Einstein’s theory of relativity: whereas your child’s minute on the ice flies, sixty seconds of Broadway Jenny feels endless.

  From Rich Cohen to Jerry Sherman, January 8, 9:33 p.m.:

  RC: It’s fascinating to watch two people impose their will on an entire team.

  JS. Yup. Sour atmosphere. They’re playing a different, tighter, more conservative game than before Christmas. It’s a bit like watching adult hockey. They need to play hard for 1 minute then get off. No 3-minute shifts for anyone. They need to pass the puck and do it as hard as they shoot. And skate fast! They need to keep their sticks on the ice.

  A player shouldn’t spend more than a minute or so on the ice at a stretch—that’s a shift. Beyond that, he slows and loses effectiveness. Hockey is a game of sprints. As a game intensifies—in the third period, say—the shifts should be shorter still. In the NHL playoffs, a skater might exit after twenty-five seconds of all-out effort. Most youth hockey teams run three forward lines. (In the pros, where games are longer and faster and more intense, they run four.) For every minute on, you get two minutes off—that is, two minutes of rest. With Brian and Jenny, the equation had been reversed. For every minute on the bench, they had two minutes on the ice. It was not hard for a parent to calculate the cold truth: though they were paying the same money and spending the same amount of time, Brian and Broadway Jenny were getting fifteen more minutes of ice time per game. And we were losing! Trapped in a spiral, which explained the mood on the Ridgefield side of the bleachers. (The benches were cold and so were our hearts.) It seemed stupid as well as unfair. But if you complained to Coach Hendrix, he’d blame your kid, saying, “Have you considered private skating lessons?” If you complained to Coach Rizzo, he’d say, “Look, we want to get all the kids into a game, but we also want to win.” If you called Coach Pete, you’d get his machine.

  I pulled Coach Hendrix aside after a 5–0 loss to New Canaan.

  I told him that what he was doing was wrong.

  “What am I doing?”

  “Jenny should not be getting triple Duffy’s ice time.”

  “This lineup is our best chance to make it to the state tournament,” he said. “Once we get there, if we get there, it’s going to be because we played good team hockey.”

  “Why not let Duffy center the third line?”

  “Jenny gives us a better chance.”

  “You can’t accurately appraise your own kid,” I said. “No one can.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we need to get production from the entire team to win.”

  “Jenny gives us the best shot moving forward,” he said coldly. “She’s the better player.”

  “You know who else thought his kid represented the best shot moving forward?”

  “Who?”

  “Saddam Hussein.”

  * * *

  Flu season lingered. At each practice, another player was missing, another family had succumbed. My wife got it, then I got it, then we all got it. Micah refused to drink Tamiflu. It was the taste. He said he’d rather have the flu than drink the medicine. We tried to disguise it in juice and in a milkshake, but he sniffed it out. I finally said, “Enough! Drink it!”

  “If you make me drink it,” he said, “I will vomit on the kitchen table.”

  I made him drink it, and he vomited on the kitchen table.

  After a week, he said he felt strong enough to get back on skates.

  I talked to Coach Hendrix before practice.

  “Micah is still not a hundred percent,” I said. “Please take it easy on him.”

  I usually skipped practices—they do not make good viewing—but I stuck around this time in case Micah needed me. It was depressing, not just the joyless drills but the overall mood. The kids worked without pucks. They just skated. Inside edge, outside edge. Down and back. Not only did Coach Hendrix not take it easy on Micah, but he seemed to push him harder than he did the others, as if sensing weakness. He had him skate extra laps for “dragging,” made him sprint, made him do push-ups at center ice as the other kids counted, like something from a prison movie. I could see Micah’s face through his mask. He looked bad. He fell near the end of a drill. Coach Hendrix stood over him, shouting, “Would you go down like that in a game?”

  I banged on the glass to get Coach Hendrix’s attention. He looked up myopically, as if he could neither see nor understand me. I signaled Micah, calling him off the ice. He ignored me. It was a Cool Hand Luke moment. He was not going to let Coach Hendrix break him.

  Micah stumbled over after practice. His helmet was off, his face was flushed, and he was soaked with sweat. He looked wan in the dim rink light. He looked like one of those El Greco saints who, having died and been buried, suddenly stands up in the grave, clumps of earth falling from his hair. Once again, I asked myself, “What am I doing?” I remember Micah in his sonogram photo. He looked exactly the same.

  I apologized to him. “I messed up,” I said. “You shouldn’t have been out there today. Get changed and we’ll go home. And drink water. Drink as much water as you can stand.”

  Coach Hendrix had switched from sweats and skates to Dockers and Keds. I stopped him before he made it through the doors.

  I said, “We need to talk.”

  We stood beside the Plexiglas that enclosed the rink. It was Thursday afternoon. The Bantams had taken the ice and were warming up for a game. The lobby was filled with kids and parents.

  “What’s up?”

  “I told you that Micah’s been sick. I asked you to take it easy on him. It seemed like you went after him even harder than normal. It’s like you were trying to kill him out there.”

  “If he can’t take it, he shouldn’t be at practice,” said Coach Hendrix. “It’s one-size-fits-all. I don’t treat anyone different than anyone else.”

  Looking into his eyes, I suddenly realized that Coach Hendrix hated me. It was in his look but also in his tone and between his words. At some point, I must have done or said something, and
now he hated me, which meant he hated Micah.

  “Some parents just can’t stand it when someone coaches their kid,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You think your kid is perfect and no one is allowed to say a goddamn thing or precious sonny boy’s feelings will get hurt.”

  “He had the flu.”

  “It’s not the flu. It’s him.”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “Your kid’s my problem. I tell him what to do and he doesn’t do it. Is he stupid, or what? He’s always out of position. How can we play good team hockey when one of our wings is always out of position?”

  “Tell me what you want him to do,” I said, “and I will make sure he does it.”

  Coach Hendrix grunted, said, “Fine,” got out a rub-off marker and drew on the Plexiglas. It was more of the same: dots and dashes, lines going every which way. I could make no sense of it. Then I suddenly understood and said, “You didn’t play hockey growing up.”

  It was like an epiphany. It made sense of everything. No one who’d played the game as a kid would diagram a play this way. It was the sort of drawing done by a person who’d watched a lot of hockey on ESPN. Some of the other odd things Coach Hendrix had said made sense now, too. Like when he told Barry to never slow down in the neutral zone, because “once you slow down, it’s hard to get going.” That makes no sense to a twelve-year-old, but a lot of sense to a fiftysomething man who’s just taken up adult hockey. Or the time he argued against scheduling two games in one day, because “it’s just too damn hard on the body.”

  I must have touched a sensitive spot, because he went wild when I said that.

  “So what if I didn’t play?” he shouted. “You think you’re better than me because you played when you were a kid? I’m the one giving my time! I’m the one out there with the kids! I’m the one doing the schedule and scouting the competition and figuring out the algorithm! What are you doing? Nothing! Sitting on your ass in the stands bitching, like every other know-nothing hockey parent! I’ve spent hours! I was certified by USA Hockey. Were you certified? I sat through seminars. Did you sit through seminars? I learned about good team hockey. Did you learn about good team hockey? And now what? You want me to quit? Fine. I’ll quit! I’ll walk away right now.”

  The lobby had gotten quiet. People were staring.

  I spoke in a whisper: “That’s not what I meant.”

  I’d been caught off guard by his anger.

  “I’d rather have a coach who never played but can teach than an NHL All-Star who can’t talk to kids,” I said. “It’s just that, watching you draw that play, I realized you hadn’t played when you were a kid, and it explains a lot. You can’t remember what it was like to be eleven years old out there. A grown-up draws a bunch of arrows and lines, and your head swims, so you just skate away.”

  He stared at me.

  “Don’t you see what’s happening?” I went on. “You draw these plays for the kids. They don’t understand them but are afraid to tell you. So they pretend to understand and do their best, but it’s wrong, and you get mad because you think they’re not listening. They are listening. They just don’t get it. I don’t get it,” I said, pointing at the play, which was already fading, “and I’ve been involved with hockey my entire life.

  “Maybe you should encourage them a little more,” I added. “You know, ‘You get more flies with honey…’”

  “I knew it!” he shouted. “You want me to kiss Micah’s ass! Tell him he’s great and give him a participation trophy.”

  “No,” I said. “I just think it would be good to encourage as well as criticize. Maybe, for every three negative things, you can say one positive.”

  “What if there’s nothing positive to say?”

  “Make something up,” I said. “Tell ’em you’re glad they showed up on time.”

  “I won’t do that,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not a hugger.”

  “Here’s the problem,” I said, getting angry myself. “Micah thinks you don’t want him on this team. It’s hard to work five days a week for a coach you think doesn’t want you.”

  “He’s right,” said Coach Hendrix. “I don’t want him.”

  “Try to hide it,” I said.

  “You think he’s good, don’t you?”

  “I think he’s one of our best players.”

  “Well, he’s not,” said Coach Hendrix. “He’s not fast enough.”

  “He’s faster than Jenny.”

  “He’s not half as fast as Jenny.”

  “Let them race,” I said. “Before the next practice, let them race. I’ll bet you a thousand dollars Micah wins.”

  At this point, Coach Hendrix lost what remained of his self-control. He turned red and started waving his arms and shouting. He poured all his anger and disappointment on me—the fact that he’d not been able to play hockey as a kid, the fact that his older daughter had quit and his younger daughter had not made Double A, the fact that Jenny was now being swamped by kids like Micah and Duffy, the fact that he knew she’d quit, if not next year, then soon, and what was he supposed to do then? At that moment, I glimpsed the emptiness that awaits every hockey-loving hockey parent.

  I shouted back, but can’t remember what I said. I do remember wanting to punch him more than I have wanted to punch anyone since high school. I thought of how satisfying it would be. And he knew what I was thinking. I could see it in his eyes. Barry’s mom, Gail, stepped between us and said, “Guys, you can’t do this here.”

  He stormed out. I went to the bleachers and watched the Bantams play. This was a low point for me. I hated how I was acting but couldn’t stop myself.

  Micah was moved to the third line before the next game. Payback. Whenever a kid had to sit—because there was a two-and-ten penalty, say—it was Micah. He was in the penalty box literally and metaphorically, all because of me. Coach Hendrix took the occasion of Micah’s demotion to reshuffle the lines yet again, freezing out all the kids he considered “uncoachable.” These tended to be rambunctious boys. If they got serious ice time, it meant the game was already lost.

  By the end of January, we’d just about played ourselves out of the state tournament. At Christmas, we’d been 19–11 and seemed to be a lock for the postseason. A month later, we were 19–20 and on the edge of elimination. It was not just the defeats. It was the scores of those defeats. We’d lost several games by more than five goals, which was death by algorithm. The parents talked about it constantly: how far we’d fallen, how much we’d have to win to get back into the race.

  On January 29, we were five spots out of the state tournament. We played the Danbury Westerners at the Danbury Ice Arena on Independence Way. The Ice Arena is the most storied youth rink in Connecticut. It’s our Boston Garden. This has to do with history. The rink, a boxy building in the center of town, was once home of the Danbury Trashers of the Federal Hockey League. The Trashers, who played at the lowest level of pro hockey—players made a few hundred bucks a game—had been acquired by a Genovese crime-family associate named Jimmy Galante. Galante worked in waste management, hence “Trashers.” He bought the club for his son AJ’s seventeenth birthday. As general manager, AJ negotiated deals by cell phone from his high school hallway, amassing the roster of skill players and goons that won Danbury’s heart. To skirt the league’s salary cap, Jimmy put the best players on the payroll of his company, Automated Waste Disposal Inc., where some made six figures as advisers or consultants. He then rebuilt the Ice Arena, which had been a neighborhood rink, into a first-rate facility, with banked seating, a high-tech scoreboard, concession stands, and plush locker rooms. The bleachers behind the home bench—Section 102—became the hangout of drunken bloodthirsty superfans, many of whom can still be identified by their Trasher tattoos. The team played two seasons before the Feds swooped in, arrested everyone, seized everything, and sent Jimmy Galante to prison.

  I think of tho
se delirious games whenever I step inside the Ice Arena. Jon “Nasty” Mirasty, the most feared fighter in the Federal League, battling at center ice. Brad “the Wingnut” Wingfield howling as his tibia, fibia, and ankle snapped, swearing revenge, which he took the next season. Wayne Gretzky’s kid brother Brent—he scored thirteen goals for Danbury—leading the rush. Mobsters, having driven from New York, crowded into Jimmy’s box. FBI agents gobbled frosty malts as they watched games and gathered evidence. Even the kids know something meaningful had happened here. This rink had once been an important place in the violent nether regions of pro hockey. If Madison Square Garden is Broadway, the Danbury Ice Arena is a roadhouse out on Highway 61. It’s where hockey was worshipped by those who love it most. Anyone would want to be Mark Messier. You have to truly love this game to live like Nasty Mirasty.

  The Bears changed, then stood along the Plexiglas. They should have been tense. We needed to win this game, but they seemed happy. All that losing had lowered expectations, setting them free. They goofed around in warm-ups, ignoring Coach Hendrix’s demands to “knock it off.” The game started. Micah played left wing on the third line. He played well when he got in the game, which was not often. He’d skate twenty or thirty seconds, then Coach Hendrix would wave him off. It was as if every time he saw Micah he remembered our fight and became enraged. He actually yanked Micah from a two-on-one, a good scoring chance. Micah smashed his stick in frustration. This bugged me—a good stick can cost two hundred bucks. The teams were so well matched it felt as if they were playing before a mirror. In fact, many of the Danbury kids lived in Ridgefield—they were youth hockey refugees, having fled the complications of our program. This gave the contest an internecine feel.