Rocket Blues

by David Skuy

  “Here’s the twenty-five dollars,” his mom said to him. “Can you register? I need a coffee.”

  He took the money. The line in front of the woman was shorter. He went behind a tall kid wearing a Dolphins jacket.

  The woman asked for the boy’s name.

  “Duane Martins,” he said.

  “Position?”

  “Right wing.”

  “Who’d you play for last year?”

  He pointed to his jacket. “The Dolphins — AA.”

  Rocket figured she’d have a heart attack when she heard who he’d played for.

  She gave Duane a red pinny and two sheets of paper with a number on each. He gave her the money and left.

  “I’m sorry,” the lady said to Rocket as he stepped forward. “This is the minor bantam tryout. The peewees tried out yesterday. I can give you the coach’s number, although I think the team is full.”

  He felt himself go red in the face. “I’m here for the—”

  “Phil, do you have Gord’s number?” she said to the man beside her. “This little fellow got the wrong time and I thought he could call.”

  “That team’s picked,” Phil said. “Stayed with the same group of kids.”

  “I’m sorry, dear,” she said to Rocket. “It’s a hectic time of year. Are your parents here? I can explain the situation to them.”

  “I’m thirteen,” he said. “I’m not out for peewee.”

  She gasped. “I’m sorry. Stupid of me. Some of the kids trying out are so big already, I just thought …” She leaned forward. “This is AAA, dear. It’s very rough. Maybe you should stick to house league or something.”

  Rocket squeezed his fist in his pocket. “I’m Bryan Rockwood,” he said between clenched teeth.

  She hesitated, gave him a look and then wrote his name down. “It’s twenty-five dollars for the tryout.” He gave her the money. “And did you play last year?”

  He’d been waiting for that. He took his time. “I did. I played for the AAA Oakmont Huskies.”

  She looked up from the paper. “Excuse me, Phil. This boy says he played for the Huskies last year.”

  “Did you play for Neilson?”

  Rocket nodded.

  “What did you say your name was?” Phil said.

  “His name is Bryan Rockwood,” the lady said.

  Phil raised an eyebrow. “Why aren’t you playing with the Huskies this year? I figured they’d be set.”

  Rocket’s mind whirled. He should’ve figured out an answer for this. Of course, they’d ask. He couldn’t tell the truth, and it wouldn’t sound good if he bad-mouthed Barker.

  “It was hard to get to the games — and they switched the practice rink. This would be more convenient.” Dumbest reason ever. His mom would talk to the coach and he’d sound like an idiot.

  It seemed to satisfy Phil, though. “Put him on Red. Have a good skate.”

  The lady handed him two pieces of paper — number 164. “Pin this to your pinny, front and back. We have dressing rooms five and six … and good luck.”

  Rocket turned to leave. A boy bumped into him. Rocket shot him an angry glance, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “Jeremy Burns,” the boy announced.

  “Hey, Jeremy, you ready to go hard?” said Phil.

  Rocket took hold of his bag and sticks and hauled them through the doors. Duane was standing at the boards next to a man.

  “Okay, bud, this is the Demons’ third tryout,” the man said to Duane. “Things are totally tight. I spoke to the coach. He said there were only two open spots. You have to want it more than the next kid, right? You got to be hungry. Get to every puck. Go hard every drill. I know you’ve been to a ton of tryouts, but we got the Aces offer out of it, at least. The Demons are AAA, though, and that’s huge for you. Okay?”

  “Okay, Dad,” Duane said quietly.

  Rocket continued along the boards to the dressing rooms. Duane’s dad was right. Third tryouts were always tight. Of course, there’d only be a few spots. But they wouldn’t have invited him to try out if there wasn’t at least one forward spot left. If they already had three centres, he could always start at wing. They’d move him to the middle soon enough.

  Dressing rooms five and six were at the far end. He glanced over at the ice. Some younger kids, probably minor peewee, were racing around. One player curled sharply to corral a bouncing puck near the boards at the red line. He was big. That was depressing — Rocket was even shorter than minor peewees!

  His nerves kicked up, again. The rink had always been a familiar place: the echo of pucks off the boards, the whistle blasts, the shouts from coaches. It had been like a second home. It all felt different now, new, out of place, strange. He stopped in front of room five. The kids inside were pretty loud. He figured they were guys from last year. He went to room six. It was quiet — much better — a room where no one knew each other and he wouldn’t stick out. He pushed the door open.

  The faint murmur of conversation died out. Most of the boys were almost dressed, a few still taping their socks. No one seemed too interested in giving him a place to sit. He thought of going back to the other room, but he was scared of being in a room full of friends. He remembered last year’s tryout when a new kid had come into their room and Money and Jerrett had him in tears in five minutes.

  He spotted a bit of bench at the far end. He put his bag down in front of two guys.

  “Can I squeeze in there?” he said.

  A kid with dark, curly hair looked up. He wore a black pinny. “You sure you got the right tryout?” he said. “This is for minor bantam.”

  “I’m thirteen,” Rocket said. He pushed the kid’s bag to the side and slid his in. “Move over.”

  “Chill, bro. Wait until I’m done,” the kid said.

  “Move over and we can talk about it,” Rocket said.

  He could feel everyone looking at them. This guy was such a jerk.

  A kid in a blue pinny moved over.

  Rocket sat down. The kid with the curly black hair grunted and moved over as well. Rocket ignored him and began to get dressed as fast as he could. He liked to take his time when he dressed, but he didn’t want to sit next to this guy any longer than he had to. Before long, he had his shin pads and pants on and had slipped his feet into his skates. He threw his shoulder and elbow pads on next. He looked into his bag. He had two practice jerseys, one red and one blue, and his Huskies sweaters. Which one should he wear?

  The curly haired kid knocked Rocket’s leg as he got up.

  “You play for anyone last year?” he asked.

  He sounded sarcastic, like he expected Rocket to say house league — so that’s what Rocket said.

  The kid laughed. “And you’re trying out for AAA? You’re nuts, bro.” He laughed all the way to the door, looked back and then kept laughing as he left.

  Rocket reached for his Huskies sweater.

  Let’s see him laugh when he saw this.

  The Doorknobs!

  Pathetic.

  CHAPTER 7

  The players were divided into three groups: red, blue and black. It didn’t take Rocket long to figure out the players in black were the returning players. When the coach blew his whistle, after what felt like an endless series of skating drills, all the kids in red and blue raced to centre and dropped to one knee. The kids wearing black continued to fool around, some shooting on the goalie and a few others playing baseball with pucks. The coach didn’t seem to care. He was looking at his clipboard. Finally, he blew his whistle again. Only after the third whistle did the kids in black begin to trickle over.

  Rocket pressed his stick into the ice to keep calm. Those guys were acting like the tryout was a joke — and it was a joke. Just like the Huskies tryout.

  “Nice work. Good effort all around,” the coach said. “I want to scrimmage for the last little bit to end the tryout.”

  That caught Rocket’s attention.

  “I want lots of passing. You won’t impress me by hoggin
g the puck. Even though it’s a tryout, I also want to see if you can keep to your positions — and plenty of backchecking. All right?”

  “Yeah. Whatever,” a few of the boys in black said.

  The coach laughed.

  This was Rocket’s chance. Not much time, but if he put in a solid scrimmage, he’d be a shoo-in.

  “To be fair we’re going to split up the guys in black,” the coach said. “Give me Jeremy’s line, with Jonathan and Christopher at the far end. You put on red pinnies. The rest of you will be Blue and play with Aubrey.”

  Rocket figured Aubrey for a dad. He’d helped with the practice and acted like an assistant coach — which meant he thought he was an awesome player when he wasn’t.

  “Don’t worry about positions,” the coach called as the players sorted themselves out. “We’ll organize things as we go along.”

  Another dad-looking type waited for them at the Red bench. “We’ll go with the guys in black for the first shift ’cause I know them, and I’ll sort out you new guys,” he said.

  “Wise choice, Dad,” Jeremy said, and his teammates laughed.

  Rocket hadn’t really noticed Jeremy in the drills, except that his mouth was always going.

  “With a show of hands, tell me who’s a defenceman,” Jeremy’s dad said.

  Three guys put up their hands. Rocket’s heart sunk. He could get put on defence.

  Duane was next to him. He didn’t play with much fire, but maybe he’d been to too many tryouts. Rocket took a chance: “We’ll be on a line together,” he called out, patting Duane on the back.

  Jeremy’s dad shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Pick up another winger and you’ll be a line.” He moved over to organize the rest of the forwards.

  “You want to play with us?” Rocket said to the kid next to him. “I’m centre and Duane … you’re right, I think?” Duane nodded. “You want to go left?” The kid shrugged. “Let’s get to the door, so we can go out next.”

  Rocket filed on the bench and turned to his new left-winger. “What’s your name?”

  “Patrick.”

  “Where’d you play last year?”

  “I was with the Hawks. It’s an A team. I just came to check it out. I’m going back.”

  “Yeah. That’s cool. If you find a team you like …” He wasn’t too pumped about having a guy like that on his line. Too late now, he figured. “Well, let’s see if we can pop a couple in just for fun. I’m always up for a scrimmage.”

  His linemates didn’t respond.

  “That’s yours, Jeremy!” Jeremy’s dad yelled.

  Rocket watched as Jeremy raced after a puck deep in the Blue end. He did a spin at the blue line and banged his stick. His dad started laughing.

  Aubrey leaned over the partition between the benches. “Jeremy’s on fire this year. What’re you feeding him?”

  “Kid grew three inches, and he’s got so much energy, me and Tina are going crazy. If he’s not on the ice five times a week he loses it,” Jeremy’s dad said.

  “He’s looking good. Keep feeding him whatever you’ve been cooking ’cause it’s working,” Aubrey said.

  Jeremy’s spinning did nothing other than amuse the two dads. The defenceman ringed the puck around the wall to his left-winger. The winger trapped it with his skate, but a bit too casually, because the right defenceman was able to pinch down low and stuff the puck back in. The defenceman and Jeremy fought for possession. The Blue centre and left-winger joined in the scrum. Then another defenceman crept over. Rocket counted five guys in the corner.

  “Case of the bunchies, if you ask me,” Rocket said to his linemates. “Half the guys on the ice are there. If we spread out we’ll definitely get some goals.”

  Patrick didn’t answer. Duane nodded and took a sip of water.

  The puck squirted free behind the net and the Blue defenceman sent it around the other way. Virtually the same thing happened: the pinch, the puck in the corner and a scrum.

  “These guys are like fish in a bowl,” Rocket said. “They chase everything. Keep wide when we’re in possession and converge on the net when someone has a good shot.” He looked at the clock. “If they ever get off. We’ll barely get a couple of shifts.”

  Duane took another sip of water. “Good. I can rest up for my next tryout,” he said.

  Rocket was beginning to regret his linemate choices. These guys couldn’t care less. He looked up at Jeremy’s dad. Jeremy had been on for two minutes. The play drifted from end to end. The boys were treating the scrimmage more like shinny. Guys only skated when they had the puck, so no one got tired.

  Rocket banged the boards with his stick. “Long shift, Jeremy. Change it up.”

  A defenceman had the puck two metres inside the Blue zone. Jeremy lunged at it, but the defenceman passed it to his partner. Jeremy continued forward and jumped on the defenceman’s back and the two boys fell to the ice. The defenceman gave Jeremy a face wash with his glove, and then rolled over and got to his feet. Jeremy tried to trip him with his stick, but he hopped to his right and got away. Jeremy stayed on his back for a while and then slowly — painfully slow for Rocket — rose to his knees and, finally, one skate at a time, to his feet. Rocket banged the boards again with his stick.

  “Get off, already. Come on,” Rocket yelled.

  Jeremy paid no attention. He skated back to the Red end to join the play.

  “Okay, Jeremy, let’s change it up. Let’s go,” his dad yelled.

  Jeremy obviously didn’t care what his dad said, because he ignored him completely and instead began to tackle guys. Soon everyone was fooling around. Two guys even pretended to fight. The whistle blew.

  “Finally,” Rocket fumed.

  “Good fun,” the coach said. “Give me three hard laps around the ice to end it off.” He blew his whistle again.

  Rocket stared in disbelief. The scrimmage was over? He smacked the top of the boards with his glove. “That was ridiculous! Can you believe it?” he said to Duane.

  “I’m not doing three more laps. I’m going to the dressing room,” Duane said. He took his extra stick and headed to the door.

  Rocket stepped out on the ice. In a few quick strides, he was at top speed. He needed to show them why they called him the Rocket. This was his last chance. Spurred by his anger, he zipped past the other players. Jeremy had no respect for the game — a seven-minute shift! Mr. Big Shot, because his dad was assistant coach.

  “Look at that little guy go,” he heard someone say. Rocket looked over his shoulder. It was the curly haired guy from the dressing room. A shoulder in the rib cage would shut him up quick. But he couldn’t. He needed to make this team and show Barker he’d made a huge mistake. Rocket finished the three laps first and kept going. Too much pent-up energy and frustration: he needed to skate. He carved on the inside edges of his skates, curling behind the net, a crisp scrape sounding with each stride, the wind in his face, nothing but open ice in front of him.

  A whistle blew.

  “You, number 164. Off the ice! Zamboni is waiting.” The coach banged his stick on the boards.

  Rocket dragged his right skate to slow down. “Sorry, I lost track of laps and …”

  “Okay. Let’s get changed. Thanks for coming out,” the coach said.

  His tone worried Rocket. “My name’s Bryan Rockwood. I played for the Huskies last year.”

  The coach gave him an awkward smile. “I probably have all your information. Thanks for coming out and good luck.”

  He didn’t have a clue who he was! “I played AAA last year — for the Huskies,” he said desperately.

  The coach nodded a few times. “I’ll … um … I have to meet with some parents now. If you want I can speak with your parents later, but you’ll have to wait half an hour or more because there’s lots of paperwork and stuff. So let’s get changed.”

  Rocket stared at him. This wasn’t possible. The Doorknobs weren’t going to sign him? His line probably scored more goals last year than their entire team put tog
ether. He left the ice and walked to the dressing room, his mind spinning, almost feeling sick to his stomach. Again, he was the last guy in. It was crowded.

  He was too angry to be polite. He marched to his spot.

  “For the last time, move over!” he snarled.

  The curly haired boy rolled his eyes. “Chill out, little guy. You going to have a temper tantrum?”

  “No. I’m going to plow your face through the boards when we play you,” Rocket said.

  He laughed. “Not sure what dream world you’re living in. ‘We’ aren’t going to play. This is AAA, bro, not house league.”

  “You’re such an idiot,” Rocket scoffed. “Look at this sweater. Recognize it?”

  “Yeah. The Huskies. So?”

  “So I played on the Huskies last year, AAA, and we sort of won the championship, and I sort of won the scoring title.”

  Rocket knew he sounded arrogant, but this was ridiculous. They weren’t going to sign him?

  “Why aren’t you playing with them again?”

  “Not your problem,” Rocket said. “Worry about your own game.”

  “I should’ve gone to the other room,” he said. “And you need to chill, bro.”

  “You can sit here,” Duane piped up.

  He was sitting on the other side of the room and had made some space.

  Rocket grabbed his bag and clothes and gave the curly haired boy a harsh look.

  “Thanks. Guy’s a jerk,” he said to Duane. “Thinks he’s a big shot ’cause he plays on the Doorknobs.”

  The door opened and Duane’s dad came in. He looked like he’d won the lottery. “Duaner! You were awesome out there, especially on those one-on-ones. That’s what I’m talking about.” He leaned forward and whispered, “We just got an offer. How awesome is that? You made it. I’m so stoked, I can’t believe it! Coach is an awesome guy. I really like him. I talked to Aubrey, too. Strong coaching staff. I offered to coach, but they’re set, so I’m going to be an assistant manager keeping the stats.”

  Duane said something in his dad’s ear. His dad looked over at Rocket, shrugged and whispered something back. His phone rang and he frowned. “It’s the Aces. The manager keeps bugging me for an answer. May as well get this over with.” He pressed a button. “Hey, man. Good to hear from you. Sorry, I’m in a rink and the reception’s bad. Didn’t get your call.” He walked out.