Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

Gen

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s)

Additional Tags:

Pre-Canon, Putting 16-year-old Shane into sitcom-esque situations, Shane in Juniors, Mentions of ABBA, Dumb Hockey Boys, Underage Drinking, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Homophobia, the period is 2007, Coming of Age, Mixed Media, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Nova Scotia

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Rookie of the Year

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-06 Words: 22,352 Chapters: 7/7

Rookie of the Year

Summary

August 2007: Shane Hollander is 16 years old, a star rookie for the Halifax Bucks, and totally, completely, fine.

Chapter 1: AUGUST 2007: Smells like Teen Spirit! And Axe Body Spray!

Chapter Summary

Our Hero meets some teammates, his billet family, and isn't a loser. Mostly.

Chapter Notes

i cannot look at this anymore, please take it from me!

AUGUST 2007

Good communication helps prevent problems. It is important to communicate some important relevant information such as:

• Orienting the player in your house: Explain how to use house appliances (washing  machine, dryer, oven, electronic appliances, etc.), show him where food, kitchen tools,  bedding, towels, etc. are stored.

• Orienting the player in the city: Show him how to get to the rink, to school, to the grocery store, to the movie theatre, etc.

• Identification of a parking space

• House rules: Taking off his shoes when entering the home, stow his clothes, do his dishes, communicate if there is a problematic situation, etc.

• Rules regarding the Internet, television and the use of phones: Use must be limited to normal hours. Long-distance calls must be made on the player’s own expense. Late calls should not be tolerated. A reasonable time limit must be set for the personal use of the family’ internet, if necessary.

• Bathroom rules: Toilet seat, shower schedule, wet towels, where to put his dirty laundry, etc.

• Game day routine

• Curfew and bedtime: The team will inform you about the curfew imposed on players. Since they are training almost every day, go to school and have several games to play during the season, players must go to bed at a reasonable time. In order to properly rest, players must go to bed before 10:30 p.m. except on game nights and with a special permission from the team.

“More like special permission for your mom,” someone whispers, and there’s a cascade of snickers throughout the locker room.

Shane fidgets and focuses on the speaker, a shockingly blonde woman in Halifax Bucks green, holding a clipboard and glaring at whoever just caused the boys gathered to lose their focus – again. It’s happened a lot since she started reading the rules.

The room is still clean, sparkling even, and has not yet accumulated the grime and detritus it will by mid-season. It smells fresh, like rubber and pine trees, fresh paint, and, of course, Axe body spray. His new teammates, the ones that have passed through rounds of cuts and trades, are scattered about in various shades of Aeropostale polos and cargo shorts, like there was a memo sent out noting a required uniform before this first meeting.

He studied them all before he got here, or as much as he could find on hockey web forums and news sites, on the family PC after school. Where he could, he memorized their stats, teams, positions, and names, but for the life of him, he can’t remember who is who, now. They are mostly tall, big in a way that’s clear they don’t yet know what to do with their bulk, long-ish hair flipping out from under their baseball caps. A few lean towards lanky, and some have a smattering or more of acne on their summer-tanned skin. He thinks the one in the far right corner is Jeffrey Richards, because he’s from Ontario too, although he played in a different conference, so it’s not like they crossed paths too many times. That’s about all Shane can remember now, and he feels stupid that he didn’t drill himself on their faces, too.

Shane looks down at himself. Black t-shirt, grey sweats. Running shoes. At least he’s wearing his contacts, not his glasses, but, well. Thank God his mom did say she’d take him shopping before she left town.

“Right,” says the woman. Shane can’t think of her name just now – Jeanie, maybe. Or Janice. Jean? “Any questions before we move on?”

Shane has a lot of questions, frankly, but none he thinks he should ask right now. Top of his mind: is he the only one who feels sick to his stomach right now, and also, is that nervousness, or maybe excitement, or did the Subway he had earlier make him queasy? Where is he sleeping tonight? Is his mom still in the building? And most importantly, when can he get on the ice?

Nobody says anything, the boys seemingly chastised by her stare.

“Listen,” she says. She puts the clipboard down. “I tell this to the guys every year, and every year, they forget about it until it’s too late. But I’m gonna tell you anyway. And I need you to – Mr. Smith, this is important, eyes up here – I need you to pay attention.”

One of the guys – navy American Eagle shirt, camo cargo shorts, Adidas slides, broad shoulders, single earring, blond hair – huffs and raises his shoulders.

“Jeez,” he says.

“Listen,” she repeats. “Most of you are from teams where you’re hot shit. Am I right? Big fish, small pond. Best on the ice by a margin. A lot of you are probably the only ones from your hometown team to move to major juniors, maybe even the first ones in a while.”

Shane watches a few proud smirks and chests puffing out. He himself was one of two on his U18 AA team to get drafted, with his linemate going to a team in Manitoba.

“Here no one knows who you are. No one gives a shit if you were the best scorer in, I don’t know, Mactaquac, or wherever. And not all of you are going to make it to the show, maybe even most of you won’t. Sorry, but that’s just, like, the facts. But you could, if you work hard enough. You have to want it, and you have to want to get better. Leave your ego where you came from. If you’re really as good as you think you are, you won’t need it.”

“Is this supposed to make us feel better?” the guy to Shane’s right whispers. Shane shrugs, uncertain if he’s supposed to answer.

“Think of this as a really long job interview. Or like, a test run. Okay?” whatever-her-name-is continues. “You have to show up to practice ready to work. You have to go to class ready to work. You have to do your drills, do your strength training, do your homework, listen to your coaches, listen to your billet family. If you don’t, you won’t make it in the MLH. Again, just facts.”

“But like, some of us will get drafted,” Smith says.

“The dream would be you all get drafted. But,” and here she points to some words painted on the dressing room’s wall in a simple, blocky script, “hard work beats talent if talent never works hard. And I know you’re talented, Smith. You all are. That’s not enough.”

“Jesus Christ, lady,” Smith says. “I had 80 points in 30 games last season. That’s pretty good, I think.”

“Okay, and one of you had 92,” she says.

There are some wide eyes and whispers. Shane shifts where he’s sitting.

“All I’m saying is, don’t get cocky. Capisce?” she says, looking at all of them with a piercing, heavily-lined gaze. “And another thing. You can’t win any games by playing alone. Don’t try to be a hero. Instead be a team player. I promise you’ll see better results.”

Most nod. A couple bump fists. The guy next to Shane catches his eye and smiles again, and Shane forces himself to respond in kind.

“Tomorrow you meet your academic advisor, who’s there to help make sure you don’t fall behind in school and get you help if you need it. You’ll also meet your strength and conditioning coach to do your physical assessment,” she says. “In the meantime, tonight you will find out who your billet family is for the season. They should be finishing up their orientation in a few minutes, then you can go out to see them.”

At this, she seems to lose the last of the boys’ attention, and chatter erupts around her. Shane watches her roll her eyes and shrug.

“Thanks,” he says to her amidst the noise. She startles.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re welcome. Hollander, right?”

He nods, and she smiles.

“Hey,” says the guy next to Shane. “I’m Sonny, I’m from New Brunswick. I’m a goalie.”

“Uh, hi,” Shane says. He clears his throat. “I’m Shane Hollander. I play center. From Ottawa.”

“Cool, man,” Sonny says. He has closely cropped brown hair, and kind of a large nose framed by full cheeks. Kind of a large everything, actually – he’s taller than Shane by like, four inches, at least, and his hand is huge when he sticks it out for Shane to shake. Encounters of the goalie kind usually go one of two ways, wherein at times goalies are sullen and cerebral and weird, and at other times it’s more like this, with a large goofy grin and boundless excited energy.

Most of what Shane knows about New Brunswick as a geopolitical entity is what he’s learned in his Sciences humaines classes in school: tiny province, small population, bilingual, sort of, it’s complicated, maybe. Actually, his knowledge of Nova Scotia is kind of on par with that too. Plus that its capital Halifax is his new home. The license plates on the cars here have the same old-fashioned sailboat that’s on dimes, and they say CANADA’S OCEAN PLAYGROUND in blue.

License plates are the kind of thing Shane likes to pay attention to; he knows what each province’s and state’s looks like, and keeps a running tally in his notebook when he sees a new one. Not that he’s interested in cars or anything, not beyond if his own 2003 Chevy Cavalier goes and if it stops, but when he’s driving it gives him something to focus on beyond the rush of traffic and finding the right street to get where he’s got to go. His mom says it’s normal for a 16-year-old to be nervous about driving on his own, but he’s pretty sure it’s not, if the excitement of his former teammates regarding getting their driver’s license is anything to go by.

What he thinks is more useful to know about Nova Scotia and neighbouring provinces is that Nova Scotia has two teams in the Québec Major Junior Hockey League, also called the Q, and those teams are the Halifax Bucks and the Cape Breton Screeching Gulls. New Brunswick has three: Acadie-Bathurst Trojans, Moncton Cougars, and Saint John Sea Wolves. Not to be confused with the St. John’s Squalls, which is Newfoundland’s only team, and PEI has the Darts. The other teams are scattered across Québec, and one in Maine. This will be Shane’s life now, ping-ponging between different towns, on buses and planes, fitting in school and practices and conditioning sessions in all that.

This is not just the life he has chosen, it is the one he has fought for. It’s not like his parents forced him into this, or anything, not like some of the guys he knows whose parents go kind of crazy at games and are really strict with them and yell at the linesmen. If anything, David and Yuna always encouraged him to branch out and try different sports or hobbies. He just – well, he never wanted to. Why would he? Hockey is like, it, for him. He can’t imagine anything better, or anything else at all. And obviously the MLH is the ultimate goal. Duh.

His dad said that Shane is ‘an all or nothing kind of guy’, whatever that means, and his mom told him if he was all in then she was all in, so now here he is, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, surrounded by new teammates, with a guy named Sonny staring at him waiting for Shane to say something else.

“You, uh, speak French?” is what he comes up with. “Because of, uh, the New Brunswick thing.”

“Ouaille,” Sonny says. “They’re putting me in French immersion, actually. You?” “Same,” Shane says. He doesn’t love speaking French and could have just done the regular program but he’s been in immersion his whole life, and if he has to go to school anyway, why not? Why walk when you can run and get further, faster? Maybe that’s what his dad meant by ‘all or nothing’. Whatever.

“Nice, dude,” Sonny says. He holds out his fist, and Shane bumps it. Sonny looks around, appraising the others around them, chatting similarly. “Wonder who the crazy motherfucker is that got 92 points.”

“Oh,” Shane says. “Me.”

Sonny whistles. “Dude.”

“It’s not – it’s – yeah,” Shane stutters. He knows it’s good. Great, even. But Jeanie-maybe-Janine is right. Coming here, it’s like starting from scratch, and he’s playing against a totally different calibre now. On his old team he was Captain but he’s not under any illusions about his place here. He knows he will have to win his way back up. That doesn’t scare him – he is used to winning.

“Oh, I think they want us to go meet the billet families. You got any idea who they’re putting you up with?”

They follow the crowd being ushered out into the stark white hallway. This is their training facility, where they will practice and do their strength and conditioning sessions, along with some players seminars like media training and such. It’s a little outside the city, but close to Shane’s new school, he has been told, not that he’s seen it or indeed much of the city yet.

“My mom spoke to them, I think,” Shane says. His stomach still kind of hurts. “I haven’t yet. I guess we’ll find out.”

–

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Bishop,” says Shane’s mom as they enter through the back door. The small bungalow is on a quiet, tree-lined street, neat houses packed tightly, some even sharing driveways. It’s a world away from the high-rise condo Shane grew up in, though with summers spent at his family’s cottage in Québec, he’s not totally unfamiliar with the concept of a yard, or a garden, which many seem to have here.

“For God’s sake, please call me Bonnie,” says Shane’s host for the year. “I haven’t been a missus in just about 10 years.”

Bonnie is a short, plump woman in a flowery tank top and hot pink pants, with deep laugh lines and a tall ponytail. Her voice is raspy and warm, kind of like the house. Well-loved, certainly, and clean, but the cheery yellow paint is peeling on the back door and there are cracks along the foundation.

Yuna smiles. “Well, Bonnie. I’m happy to finally meet you in person. Have you billeted a Bucks player before?”

“First year!” Bonnie says. “But I’m at that rink half my life with JP anyway, so I figured, what’s one more?”

“Is JP your son?” Yuna asks. Shane doesn’t feel like he has much to contribute to the conversation, so he just looks around, examining the kitchen where they’re standing. The kitchen is small and homey, wooden cabinets with an apple wallpaper border around the beige walls. There’s a fruit basket on the counter with a few browning bananas and what looks like a Canadian Tire flyer stuffed in, some more apple-themed decor here and there, and tidy counters.

“Mmhmm, that’s right,” she says. “Same age as Shane here. He’s a figure skater, outta the rink where the Bucks train. He’s at work right now, but he should be getting home soon.”

“A figure skater! That’s nice,” Yuna says. “I love watching them at the Olympics.”

“Well,” Bonnie says, gesturing at the kitchen table for them to sit at, “not sure if he’s Olympic bound just yet but he’s doing well. Going to Nationals in January.”

“Wow,” says Yuna. “Impressive, right, honey?”

Shane clears his throat. “Um. Yes.”

“He works at the pizza parlour up the road in the summer. I told him to bring us home some pizza for tonight,” says Bonnie. “Hope that’s alright. You don’t got any allergies or nothing, do ya?”

“No,” Shane says. “I’m, uh, good with pizza.”

“Great. Which reminds me, I’m going to go to the grocery store later, so you tell me what kind of food you’d like me to get,” Bonnie says. “Any meals you want me to make this week?”

Shane frowns and traces the red and white gingham-patterned tablecloth with his finger. “They said they gave you a list of meal suggestions from the team dietitian,” he says.

“Well sure, dear, but anything specific you’d like?”

Shane shrugs. He doesn’t have many opinions about food, overall, like or dislike. Some things taste good, some things taste bad, whatever, it’s all the same. Even if it wasn’t, it’s easier when he doesn’t have to think about it. The thing is, the only thing he cares about is hockey, so everything else – school, food, sleep – is also about hockey, and making him better, and stronger, and not fucking his hockey up.

“Shane likes to, uh, hm, how do I say this,” his mom cuts in, “follow the rules.”

“Mom!”

“What, honey! I’m just saying, you don’t really like, uh, surprises.”

“You’re making me sound like a loser,” Shane says. He’s aware he sounds a bit like a little kid but doesn’t know how to stop it.

“Oh, no, honey,” Yuna says. “You’re not a loser. That’s not what I meant.”

“Just sounds like you like things planned out,” Bonnie says diplomatically. “Don’t I wish JP was like that, sometimes. Tell you what, what if your mom gives me her email address, and she can send me a list of things you eat at home? Just to make you feel more comfortable.”

“Yes, yes,” says Yuna. “Definitely, I can do that.”

“Great,” Bonnie says, and claps her hands. “Now, let me give you the tour and show you your room so you can start unpacking.”

—

The house is small, but cozy: upstairs the kitchen, bathroom, living room and Bonnie’s bedroom, downstairs a den with a TV and an old Nintendo 64, JP’s bedroom, Shane’s new bedroom, and a storage area with the washer and dry and an oil furnace. This is where Bonnie helpfully tells him he can keep his gear, so long as it gets washed, dried and Febrezed regularly so as not to smell too bad.

His room is nice and cool for August, with kind of sickly green walls she says he can cover up with posters if he wants. A double bed with a plaid comforter, a little closet for his clothes, a desk and dresser. A mirror in the corner he’ll probably turn over so he doesn’t have to look at himself too much.

He doesn’t have any posters, but he could get some, probably, if he asked his mom.

JP’s room is next door, and he can’t help but look in when they walk by. Black walls adorned with medals, pictures, posters, drawings, nearly every inch taken up by something colourful. His bed and floor are messy, clothes strewn about, a bag with black figure skates peeking out in the corner. There’s a huge transparent CD player on the wall, but Shane can’t see which CD is in there right now at this distance.

Yuna helps Shane unpack his two big suitcases, not that it’s too difficult. Everything has been carefully pressed and organized in advance.

“Why don’t you go put your toothbrush and toiletries upstairs?” Bonnie says. She is helping hang up his shirts and chatting with his mom about whatever moms talk about. “I showed you where I cleared out a drawer for you.”

He nods and takes his things upstairs. There isn’t much, just shampoo, toothpaste, and deodorant, some shaving cream and razors, but he likes that he has his own little space in the bathroom for it all. He deposits it all carefully, making sure not to disturb the other things on the counter. Intent on his task, he doesn’t notice the guy staring at him from the hallway until he looks up and sees him in the mirror.

“Oh my God,” he says, his heart racing, “you scared me.”

“Sorry,” says the guy, who Shane assumes is JP. He doesn’t look sorry at all, actually, but Shane can’t really read his expression too well. Anger, maybe, or concern, he thinks.

What he does see is artificially black hair and heavy eyeliner on a thin, angular face. It contrasts with the bright blue polo that must be his work uniform, because there’s also a logo of a corny chef holding a pizza on it. Even from a few feet’s distance, Shane smells flour, and pepperoni, and grease.

“I’m Shane,” he says, holding out his hand. JP doesn’t take it. “You must be JP. Um, I’m going to be staying here? Cause I’m, uh, playing with the Bucks, and…”

He trails off. Obviously this guy knows this already. It’s his house.

“Your mom is nice,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“She’s a bitch,” JP says.

“Oh.” Shane frowns. That seems harsh, to talk about your mom that way, especially one who seems pretty okay, as far as moms go.

“Can you get out?” JP says. “I need to shower.”

“Oh, sorry, yes, let me just–” Shane stuffs his remaining things into his drawer and slips past JP to leave. JP says nothing and just closes the door behind him.

–

–

From: shanehockeylover_24@hotmail.com

To: hollanders1985@aol.com

Subject: RE: Missing you…

Mom and Dad

Yes I am brushing my teeth every day (twice) and also eating well. Tell Grandma I am separating my whites from my darks like she showed me.

We have been practicing most days, and we did some seminars on nutrition, media relations, and time management. Also we did our physicals (all good) and got our strength and conditioning plans. The S+C coach is Chris he is very nice. Most people here are nice.

I am nervous about starting school tomorrow but Sonny Gordon (goalie, smiles a lot, New Brunswick) is also in immersion so at least I know someone. Bonnie brought me to the school yesterday to drive around just so I could see it. JP is also at Peninsula High but not in French immersion and anyway I’m not sure he likes me very much. He has mostly been working a lot and in practices when he’s not working so we haven’t seen each other a lot. When school starts Bonnie says our practices will be back to back sometimes so I will probably see him skate then.

Rained yesterday. I have been driving myself to the training rink, no issues with the car.

First game is Friday September 14 in Charlottetown, then Sunday we are in Cape Breton. Saturday the 22 is our first home game at the Metro Centre against Moncton. I’m not sure which line they’re putting me on yet.

Say hi to Grandma. I will call her tomorrow after school.

Love you

Shane

Chapter End Notes

find me on tumblr @bluegrasshole

Chapter 2: SEPTEMBER 2007: How did they even get their hair to stick up like that?

Chapter Summary

Hockey! Figure skating! Speed skating? No, shut up, too scary.

Chapter Notes

i know just enough about hockey to know i know absolutely nothing :)

SEPTEMBER 2007

September comes stumbling and unsure with a bout of wet and warmish weather culminating on Shane’s first game day, when a heavy rain storm lashes against his car on his way to the training facility where they’re meeting the bus, already packed with their gear last night. He gets there early, probably too early, and sits in the parking lot until other players start arriving. He’s been there 10 minutes when an old beat-up truck that’s seen better days — or decades, really — pulls up next to him and Sonny Gordon rolls down the window.

“Hollzy, buddy! You ready to make a run for it?”

Shane smiles. “Loser gets the aisle seat,” he says. He gets out of the car and waits for Sonny to do the same.

“Ready? On three, two—“ and Sonny runs for the door, backpack swaying off one shoulder behind him.

Shane swears and runs after him, easily overtaking Sonny in a few strides.

“Tabarnak!” Sonny says when they get to the covered doorway, other teammates similarly running to get out of the rain. “I even gave myself a head start.”

“I noticed,” Shane says, laughing. “Cheater.”

“Hey, I know my chances.”

Sonny is a good guy, Shane thinks, insofar as what he knows constitutes a good guy. He knows that Sonny is from a really small town, he has a little sister named Jenna, and brought his slick new PS3 with him to Halifax so he could “fuck up some Guitar Hero” in his free time. Of which, if you ask Shane, they do not have a ton of, or any at all, really. When he’s not in practice he’s at school, and when he’s not in practice or school he’s working out, or doing his homework, or calling his parents, or studying tape, or doing his laundry. It’s been two weeks of this – two exhausting, exhilarating weeks – and Shane could do it forever. He is so tired at night he falls asleep in seconds, when usually he would be up for hours, rewatching his day in his mind like he rewatches games for any slip-up, any missed shot, any moment of hesitation.

School is school is school: a means to an end, something to pass the time until the next time he laces up his skates. He sits with Sonny and some other hockey guys at lunch, he smiles at the teachers and answers their questions when called upon, he writes all deadlines and reminders in his planner so as not to forget anything, he passes in his work on time even if it isn’t always as polished as it should be. It is early in the semester yet, but he’s trying not to fall behind at all, and has brought some work with him to do on the bus.

The thing about being a Bucks player, he is realizing, is that no one expects much of you, academically speaking. Mostly they are impressed if you stay awake the whole day and pass in something when asked. Sonny loves this about his new status, but not more than he loves the many email addresses he’s received from girls, with breathy requests to “add me on MSN, please” and “find me on Myspace”.

“Do you even have MSN, Hollz?” Sonny asked the first time this happened.

“No,” Shane said. True.

“Myspace?”

“No.” Also technically true, though at one point last summer he had tried to create one on request from his AAA teammates and after a few hours of exploration, came across a photo of two guys with pouffy black hair and My Chemical Romance shirts kissing, which startled him so much that he deleted his account immediately, and then figured out how to get rid of the entire browsing history off the family computer for good measure. He walked into practice the next evening convinced his teammates could tell he’d seen something gay on the internet from just his posture or maybe from the guilty smell of him, and told them his parents wouldn’t let him make an account, citing security fears. This is definitely not true. His parents deny him nothing, usually because there is nothing to deny. But it is a convenient excuse.

So frankly no matter how many cute girls ask him about it (three, so far) or how much Sonny needles (a lot), he will not be wading back into that particular cesspool, thank you very much.

But maybe he can handle MSN.

–

The game is a fucking shit show, even though they do win by 3. This, Coach Isenor says, is more due to the fact that PEI is a disjointed, disorganized mess, than it is due to any prowess from the Bucks at all. Of their 19 penalty minutes, Smith racks up 7, when he starts a fight with a PEI defenseman, and then tries to leave the box before his time is up. Still, Shane, on the third line, gets an assist and a goal himself ten minutes into the second period, from an easy breakaway he can’t believe he got away with. Not bad for his first major junior game, but not great either.

Sometimes Shane feels like he can see the game from above when he’s on the ice, as if he is a bird following the plays and finding the puck from up high, vision swooping down when it’s time to get his stick on it. It is easy, to him, to track other players’ movements, see the holes in their defense, predict their next position, even when the lines are new and no one has really gotten a feel for each other yet. Pattern recognition, his dad says. Natural talent, says his mom. To Shane it is nothing more than a tool to hone.

“At least Gally was awesome,” Sonny says, when they make it back to the bus after the game. Their starting goalie, an 18-year-old trade from Victoriaville, stopped 35 of 37 shots in 60 minutes.

They settle into the bus, the seats a soft grey velour with purple and green squiggles on them, and Shane pulls out the book he has to read for French class. He’s nearly done, though he doesn’t remember most of what he read. The rain has finally let up, and some stubborn sun is peeking through the clouds on their way out of Charlottetown. Montana. Alberta. There is chatter all around, with some making plans to meet up when they get home – it is only mid-afternoon, and they’ll get back to Halifax by 7, though they’re back on the road on Sunday. Shane lets the noise surround him. He has missed this.

“Hollz,” says a voice from the seat in front of him. Maxim Petrov, a gregarious fourth-round Minnesota Nomads prospect from Russia and also the Bucks captain, has sat up to look at him and is holding out his fist for a bump. “Good job today.”

“You too, man,” says Shane.

“Your skating,” he says, his accent strong and rolling, “very smooth. Impressive.”

“Need to work on my speed,” Shane says. It’s always been an issue; his brain moves faster than his skates.

Petrov shrugs. “Still. Pretty good for a rookie. You do media today?”

Sonny nudges Shane’s side. “Yeah, he did. I was listening.”

A small scrum had formed in the hall outside the dressing rooms and Shane, the only Bucks rookie to score, had been pulled into it, nervously fidgeting in his new suit and tie, hair still wet from the shower. Even though there were only a few gathered, and all from small publications Shane didn’t recognize, Shane felt it again: watching his body from above, but this time without the familiar comforting weight of his pads on his shoulders and his stick in his hands. He was unmoored. And his stomach hurt.

“Oh God,” Shane says. “I think I blacked out.”

“You were fine,” says Sonny. “It’s an honour to play for the Bucks, I’m excited to see what’s in store for our team, blah blah blah.”

“Good,” says Petrov warmly. “People eat that shit up.”

Famously hockey players are horrible at answering reporters’ questions, and privately Shane thinks the questions are usually kind of stupid too, but it is a game everyone plays: the fans pretend to care what players have to say, and players find new, increasingly convoluted ways to say ‘we did well’ or ‘we did badly’ or ‘the refs were idiots’. In this way it is kind of like school, wherein nobody expects much so when you show even just a crumb of intelligence beyond ‘see net, shoot puck’, everyone is surprised.

“Happy to help,” Shane says. “I think.”

Petrov is called away by a game of cards that has begun somewhere in the back of the bus – “No gambling!” Coach Isenor yells – and Shane tries to go back to his book. He doesn’t get more than a few pages before he’s interrupted.

“You happy to be drafted here?” Sonny says. “Or, not here, wherever the fuck we are right now. Halifax, I mean.”

Shane snorts. “I got it.”

“I am,” Sonny says before Shane can answer his question.

“Yeah? How come,” Shane says. He gives up on his book and puts it back in his bag. It is a bag his grandmother bought him two years ago, one of the last times she was well enough to leave the house without her son’s or daughter-in-law’s supervision. She said he needed something sturdy, for all the travelling he did, and she helped him choose a navy Jansport from Sportchek, and some workout clothes to go in it. Now looking back he thinks she probably spent too much money on him but at 15 he was just happy to have new things without having to ask for them.

“Close to home. My mom is like, so excited to be able to come to games when she can,” Sonny says. “She’s a total hockey freak. She used to come to every practice, even, ever since I was little.”

“Mine too,” Shane says. “But I think she was – I don’t know, I think she was upset when I came here. Well, happy too, but also — I don’t know. Scared probably. It’s far away. She worries, like, a lot. And there’s, you know, not a ton of, um, Asian guys in hockey at this level.”

It is stupid, how saying this makes Shane’s heart beat faster, as if Sonny hasn’t noticed by now that his seat mate isn’t white. The only one on the team, actually — and he sticks out like a broken tooth. He’s been trying not to draw much attention to it, which he knows is an exercise in futility, but Shane doesn’t mind exercise. And anyway, at this point in his life, in this sport, surrounded by teenage boys every single day, he’s heard it all.

It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make him better or worse at hockey, it just is. It’s not like his mom could have protected him from it any more if he’d been drafted in Ontario, though Yuna is nothing if not stubborn. She has sent letters to the league, cold-called parents whose children so much as sneered at Shane in a vaguely hostile way, and contacted the media after one particular on-ice incident left 14-year-old Shane with a bloody nose and a chipped tooth. Shane finds this attention deeply embarrassing. Like, it’s hockey, Mom, what do you expect? Good thing I don’t tell you every time someone calls me a retard, because then I’d never hear the end of it.

Then, of course, this makes him feel like a total fucking dipshit. Ungrateful and disappointing. His stomach hurts just thinking about it.

“No kidding,” Sonny says, easy as ever, “especially around here. You got a dad?”

“Yeah, my dad was okay with it,” Shane says. Unconfirmed, so not a lie. Shane cannot read his dad, sometimes. He says things like I just want you to be happy and Are you sure this is what you want? Actually he’s been saying that since Shane was a little kid. He loves to tell the story of the time he brought Shane to Zellers and told him he could pick out any toy he wanted – Shane was maybe 5 or 6, just a little thing with thick black hair falling into his eyes all the time. And Shane chose stick tape and a pair of socks. They weren’t even fun socks, just grey with a black heel. Now when David tells this story he chuckles, like, ha ha, my son, so sensible, so responsible, even as a kid, what can you do. In Shane’s memory his dad’s voice was a little desperate: anything you want, for the love of God!

“Mine works out west. I don’t see him much. He was psyched, though, I think? He helped me buy my truck.”

Shane hums. He thinks about it, the original question. There’s something clean about Ottawa, which he has always appreciated. Grand art installations, yearly visits to the Museum of Civilization with his school, or Parliament Hill, or the National Art Gallery of Canada. Glittering windows, wide streets, the tree-lined Rideau he skates on every winter with his family ribboning through the city. Friendly sterility, organized just so. It is nothing like Halifax, or at least not the bits he’s seen in the past two weeks, with its salt-caked waterfront and precocious seagulls, its weird one-way streets criss-crossing and winding up around the Citadel. The Bishops’ street and its asymmetry, small houses leaning into each other, neighbours waving, kids out in their yards playing ball hockey with the crudest of equipment. It is windy all the time, and kind of damp too, like the city is breathing heavy, inhale and exhale, stuttering, nothing of the careful, predictable measures of Ottawa’s heartbeat.

And he thinks of his parents.

“I think I am happy to be here,” he says, finally. “Even if it is far away.” Maybe because of it.

–

When they get back to the training rink the parking lot is wet and shining, a pink and orange sunset shimmering in puddles like so much spilled paint, reflections only briefly broken when gulls fly overhead and land splashing into the water. Shane stows his gear in his car and waves off Sonny and some of the other guys who are planning to meet up at someone’s billet house later.

“We have to finish that book for Tuesday,” Shane says when Sonny presses. “At least one of us has to read it.” Not to mention all the other work they’ve been given, which Sonny has similarly half-assed.

“Alright, alright,” Sonny says. He doesn’t seem too upset at the prospect of Shane helping him with whatever assignments they get. “See ya tomorrow.”

But instead of getting in his car and driving straight home, Shane makes his way to the rink’s entrance, where he sees Bonnie smoking a cigarette outside the doors. It’s the first time he’s seen her here, though logically he knows she drives JP to and from skating practice. It just rarely overlaps; the figure skating club’s ice time seems to be exclusively early mornings and late nights, so far.

“Hey, kid,” Bonnie says when he approaches, hands in his jacket pockets. “How’d your game go?”

“We won,” he says, instead of answering her question directly. He turns his face a little so her smoke doesn’t blow directly into his eyes.

“That’s great. You heading home? I left some fish and rice in the fridge for you.”

“Oh,” Shane says. “Thanks. I was actually hoping to go watch, um, inside, for a bit, is that okay?”

He’s not sure why he says this. God knows his parents have tried to get him interested in other sports over the years, and it never stuck. Again, that burning, frantic voice: what about soccer? Or tennis, maybe? Or speed skating, that’s on ice? Is hockey truly the only thing you want? Answers: no thank you, definitely not, those blades freak me out, and yes, it is. Still, there is something intriguing about it, from a purely athletic standpoint. Last year during the Torino Olympics he had to watch something when hockey wasn’t on.

The rink has modest bleachers, nothing crazy like the Metro Centre’s 10000-person capacity where they’ll play their games, but respectable, and heated, which is nice. God knows he’s dragged his parents to enough frigid barns for a lifetime to know what constitutes a nice rink and a bad one. There are a few people milling about, some other parents watching. In the corner near the canteen, Shane sees Petrov chatting with Coach, but he seems distracted by the skaters on the ice. Shane doesn’t feel so weird about being here, knowing his Captain is sticking around too.

It is odd though, sitting here with Bonnie tucked under a blanket she brought, watching instead of being watched. Even the Bucks’ practices gather a crowd. Shane surveys the skaters, five or six of them, and their coaches, practicing their spins and their jumps, somehow avoiding collision, respectfully ceding space when necessary. It smells the same, that clean, cold scent of ice, but the sounds are different. Sharp edges, punchy toe picks and quiet discussions overlaid on a soundtrack of what sounds like ABBA’s greatest hits for some reason, instead of the what Shane knows best, which is the fast scrape-scrape-scritttchhh of hockey skates, yelling, whistles screeching, and the heavy thunk of pucks and bodies hitting the boards.

JP is easy to pick out. He is in all black – typical – and is three feet off the ground at any given moment, like a crow mid-flight. Lean, surprisingly strong muscles bunching when he prepares to jump, tensing into position, and loosening in elegant repose when done. He skates fast, faster than Shane imagined figure skaters did, with long strides that cover half the ice in a couple seconds. Idly, he wonders who would win in a race, him or JP.

“He’s been working on his triple axel,” Bonnie says, leaning into Shane’s space so close he can smell the tobacco on her breath. Shane nods like he knows what that is. “He’s getting it in practice but can’t seem to keep it together in competitions. I keep telling him, it’s better to put his double into his program rather than try the triple and risk falling. But what do I know, I’m just the bank roller of this whole operation.”

“It seems to me like he’s doing well,” Shane says. As he watches JP catches his eye as he launches himself in the air again just as the relentless beat of Does Your Mother Know starts up over the loud speakers. In an instant his ass is on the ice, legs sprawling in front of him. The few other spectators hiss in sympathy, and Shane sees Petrov make a pained face. JP gets up and shakes himself off before starting again.

“Well enough,” she says, “but you know, figure skating isn’t like hockey.”

“No checking,” he says, and she frowns like she didn’t know Shane can make jokes.

“No money in it,” she says. “Not really. Not unless you’re like, really really good. And you can’t get really, really good in Nova Scotia. You have to go to Calgary or Montreal for that, mostly.”

“Oh,” Shane says, dumbly. “Does he want to go?”

“God, hon,” Bonnie says. She pats his leg. “Sometimes it’s not really a question of want.”

–

Tim Horton’s Phone Booth

Trans-Canada Highway, Baddeck, Cape Breton

Hi, Mom. Gotta make this quick, a few of the guys are waiting. Yeah we won. Yeah, I did. Just the one. Thanks, I – hi Dad. Huh? Sorry, you’re just both – oh. Yes once. First period. It was – no, not too tired, I’m sleeping okay, yeah, no, I might try to nap on the bus. All – yep. Yes, I’m following the nutrition plan, Mom, please. I eat like every three hours, Chris says – no, my stomach’s been fine. Bonnie’s great, yes, all good, yes, I’m making my bed, duh. Is Grandma – ? Okay, tell her I love her, yes, okay. Okay. Yes. Okay, love you, bye.

–

Chapter End Notes

find me on tumblr @bluegrasshole

Chapter 3: DECEMBER 2007: I'm actually trying really hard to be funny, thank you!

Chapter Summary

Oh my God! Shane's at a party?!

Chapter Notes

finally i get to use my powers of Press Release Writing for evil!

DECEMBER 2007

The lack of routine becomes the routine itself, or rather, Shane tries to find little repeatable patterns in his days where he can, clinging to them like a toddler to his mother’s hand.

When in Halifax he wakes up at 6am daily – JP is usually already gone to the rink, Bonnie with him – and he showers, dresses, makes his bed, and pulls out his homework to finish while eating breakfast. Six boiled eggs (salt and pepper to make it taste okay), whole grain toast with all-natural peanut butter (oily but manageable), protein smoothie with blueberries (a chalky affair that leaves purple flecks between his teeth but he’s assured it’s bad for his oxidants, or whatever the fuck it is blueberries do). He boils the whole dozen and packs the rest of the eggs away for a snack at school. For lunch sometimes he drives to the Atlantic Superstore with Sonny, and they each get a whole rotisserie chicken and eat it directly in the car with their fingers, juice dripping down their wrists while they wash it all down with Powerade. Otherwise he buys two portions of whatever the cafeteria is serving that day, and has that plus whatever else he brought himself from home.

After school it is straight to the rink for some gym time, where he parks his car in the same spot, and goes in through the back door. There, his strength and conditioning coach is waiting for him, says Hey bud, and they run through whatever work-out he has planned for them that day. Chris Hancock is the kind of person who asks a question and listens for the answer, and doesn’t just spend the time trying to come up with the next thing to say. When he asks where Shane is sore from the last game, he means for Shane to stop and take stock of his body before telling him. If he shows him something new, he expects Shane to work at it until it’s done right. When he tells Shane he’s doing a good job, Shane believes him.

Shane is often alone for the first half hour of training, before the others start filtering in, and this is his favourite part of the day, aside from when he gets on the ice. And if he goes just a little faster than the speed limit trying to get to the rink after school, if he speeds up on yellow lights instead of slowing down, then that is no one’s business but his.

After this there is ice time. Skills, drills, plays, scrimmages. Shower quickly, participate in locker room banter, get dressed, get in the car, drive back home. Supper with Bonnie and sometimes, a recalcitrant JP, though more often than not JP is not there, choosing instead to go back to the ice and get dropped off later by a friend Shane never sees and Bonnie begs to meet. Then homework, emails to his parents on the basement computer. If a game is on, he will watch until he starts yawning. Bed by 10:30. He doesn’t dream – he is too tired to.

On game days, it becomes harder to find the patterns. In general, games are Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays, though sometimes they fall on Monday, Wednesdays or Thursdays, so some weeks school is an infrequent event. Despite this, he is sitting at comfortably average with his marks, and that is where he plans on staying. There is a two-day stretch in October where they fly to Newfoundland, and even mid-week the stadium in St John’s is at capacity. In November they are in Maine, playing the only American team in the league, then the next day they are back in New Brunswick where Shane scores the sixth, and game-winning, goal in overtime against the Sea Wolves. On November 11th he does it again on home ice. 8000 fans in the stands, at least half of which are screaming his name.

While they do not win all their games, Shane himself is on the hot streak of his life, which could only be made better if Smith, his right winger, would get his fucking head out of his ass occasionally and try passing to him more often than sitting in the box. But whatever. This too becomes part of the routine. Just another thing to work around.

Saskatchewan. North Dakota. Massachusetts.

His mom schedules exploratory calls with agents, while EliteProspects.com has a new feature for #24 for the Halifax Bucks Shane Hollander. He’s the QMJHL’s December Rookie of the Month. Little kids stop him after practice asking for his autograph. Media scrums get easier, though his stomach still hurts when he’s done, probably from how they make him so tense. Or something.

“You’re a fucking beaut,” Sonny tells him.

“You’re doing a good job keeping up your bulk,” Chris says.

“Cool it, Jackie Chan,” from Brandon Smith after another game where they lose but Shane still comes out of it with two goals and an assist, and Smith spent as much time in penalties as on the ice.

“You’re like, so secretly funny,” Jessica whispers in class. To this Shane says nothing because, frankly, he didn’t know it was a secret. “I’m having a party after your game on Sunday, you wanna come? My parents are like, so cool with us drinking.”

Sunday is their last game before Christmas, and Shane’s parents and grandmother are flying in to see him. He will fly back with them for 10 days spent in Ottawa. It’s hard, sometimes, for Shane to think that far ahead. He’s leaving in Halifax in a week, and he still has three games, a bus ride to New Brunswick, and a math test to deal with before then. So forgive him if he answers:

“Um, maybe?”

“Come on, all the hockey guys are invited, it’s gonna be awesome,” she says. She blinks her eyes – green, wide, outlined by spidery mascara – up at him in what is probably supposed to be a cute way. She smells like candy-sweet green apples.

“Dude,” Sonny says later when Shane tells him about this. They are walking to the cafeteria for lunch. “We’ve got to go. Finally a chance to get our dicks wet!”

“Why are you worrying about my dick?” Shane says, trying very hard not to blush at the crude words. “That’s fucking gay. Anyway, my parents are going to be here.”

Shane himself certainly makes every effort not to worry about it. His dick, that is. Which is very difficult, by the way, when you’re 16 and pumped up on adrenaline and pre-workout shakes all the time, surrounded by incredibly horny, extremely athletic, similarly teenaged, hockey players. Give yourself a pat on the back, Hollander.

“You never hang out with us,” Sonny says, ignoring him. “Just for once! I won’t even make you drink, you square.”

“I’ll drink,” Shane says, for some fucking reason. “I’m not a pussy.”

“Fuck yeah!”

“Mr. Gordon, language, please,” says the voice of the school guidance counselor from behind them. Shane and Sonny scuttle away, giggling into their jackets.

–

Speaking of.

“Why, uh, why do you need to see me?” Shane says. He has been pulled away from gym class for a meeting in the guidance counselor’s office, which is comfortable in a way that lets you know that she tries really hard for it to be. A squishy and somewhat dusty old armchair which Shane is currently sitting in, a fresh box of Kleenex on the little table next to him, and some sickly positive posters decorating the walls. It’s all about perspective! Change your view to change your life!

Shane sneezes.

“I’m meeting with all our Grade Elevens this month,” she says. “As you know, now that you’re heading into your second semester, it’s time to start making some decisions about which classes you’ll be taking, you know, and planning for your future.”

“My future.” As far as Shane is concerned, there is only one future worth planning for, and what comes after that is none of his business.

“Well, have you given it any thought?” she says.

Don’t forget to smile! a poster tells him, so he smiles.

“Not really,” he says. He points to his Bucks t-shirt. “I play hockey, so, uh, that’s it, really.”

“Hm. Well, as you know,” she says again, as if Shane is supposed to know everything, “hockey is not necessarily a reliable career path. But, if you’re interested in pursuing it after high school, there’s lots of universities with great teams.”

“No,” he says.

“No?”

“I mean, yes, there are good university teams, trust me, I know, but –” He doesn’t want to say that if you don’t get drafted right out of juniors your career is pretty much dead, save for a few exceptions. He knows he’s definitely not the first cocky kid to come into her office, sure he’s MLH-bound, and he probably won’t be the last. It’s just, Shane is like, really sure.

It’s not like he’s totally against the idea, at all, because his dad used to play for McGill and his mom was the equipment manager for the team, and that’s how they met, sweet, right? His dad kind of wanted him to do that too, stay in the minors until high school graduation and then go to university. It’s just that in Canada, players who go to university don’t usually get drafted to the MLH, or if they do, it’s much later than their major junior counterparts. Plus, there’s no guarantee they go right to the show instead of languishing in a farm team for a while, waiting for their big break sometime in their mid-twenties.

It’s not like David Hollander was faced with deciding between becoming a civil servant or signing a lucrative contract with the Admirals or anything. That choice was made for him.

“But I don’t want to,” he finishes lamely.

“It’s always good to have a back-up plan,” she says, “as you know.”

“I guess. Sure.”

“Your marks are pretty good and you’re bilingual,” she says, tapping a file folder on her desk of what must be his report cards as she does, “so you’ve got lots of options. Have you ever thought about what you’d like to study in university or college? They’re always looking for tradesmen, if you want to work with your hands.”

“Tradesmen?”

“Sure,” she says, “like mechanics, or pipefitters, or boilermakers, that kind of thing. These jobs can pay very well.”

“God.”

“Or, you know, if you want to stick with sports, there’s tons of programs. Physiotherapy, sports management, personal training, journalism…”

“Right.”

She blinks at him through her staid, square glasses. He blinks back.

“Alright, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you some brochures for you to look at, okay? Can you promise me you’ll read them?”

“Yes,” he says, and he means it, because he is who he is. Shane Due Diligence Eugene Hollander, that’s him. Yes, Eugene. Honestly, it’s kind of a mouthful.

–

Shane Eugene Hollander is, actually, for real, on his way to a party. British Columbia. Ontario. Alberta. He is in Sonny’s truck, and the heat doesn’t work so he’s fucking cold, plus he’s sore, plus he’s got a a bag of mix, a half-empty bottle of lemon gin, and a two-four of Moosehead on his lap supplied by Sonny’s billet brother’s cousin, plus he feels really bad about leaving his parents and grandmother in their hotel room to go out the night before his flight back to Ottawa, plus, Sonny told him he had to wear jeans. He hates wearing jeans.

Not like his parents were upset, or anything.

“Jesus, Yuna, he’s 16, let him go,” his dad said. “He just won a game with his team. He wants to celebrate.”

“I know, I know, it’s just I worry, is all!”

“You know, I got married when I was 17.”

Heavy sigh from David. “Not helpful, Mom.”

So Shane is going to a party. Here is a list of things that can go wrong at an underage drinking party: the underage drinking, mainly. Like, what if the cops get called, and they tell his coach, and he gets kicked off the team, and Chris is disappointed in him, and also he passes out, bumps his head, gets a concussion, can’t remember his name, and can never play hockey again? What if he loses his chance to get to the MLH before he ever truly had it?

Sonny thinks this is funny.

“Hollz, get that stick out of your ass,” he says. He is bobbing his head to a Chris Brown song, hair spiked, body liberally doused in Axe, smiling like he’s won a million bucks.

“Again with my genitals,” Shane grumbles. Sonny ignores this.

“There’s a hot girl who likes you asking you to go to her house and get drunk, and what do you do? Go full fucking panic attack, asking me if you should get her mom to talk to your mom, just in case. Just in case what, my dude? What do you think is going to happen?”

Shane covers his face with his hands. “You’re making me sound like a fucking dork.”

“Well, if the size eleven skate fits,” Sonny says. “Good thing I didn’t tell you I brought joints too.”

“You brought marijuana?”

“See, this is why I didn’t tell you.”

“Sorry, sorry, I can be cool,” Shane says. “I think?”

Chris Brown finishes singing, and Justin Timberlake starts up. Cry me a river, indeed.

Jessica lives outside of the city, in a quiet wooded suburb with big houses and only the occasional streetlight. When they get to her place there are familiar cars parked haphazardly in the driveway, and music coming from the two-car garage.

“Come on, dude, we’re not getting any younger,” Sonny says. Shane nods and opens the door carefully so as not to drop the supplies on his lap. He follows his friend in and hears cheers.

“Big Gordo’s here!”

“Here comes the Asian Persuasion!”

“And he’s got beer!”

The music is loud, the lights are dim, and there’s a couple making out on a John Deere lawnmower parked in the corner of the garage. Shane recognizes some girls in his classes, guys he knows from the school’s hockey, soccer and volleyball teams, and of course most of his team members are here. Petrov now old enough to buy his own beer, Smithy, Richie, Fiver, Gally, DJ, Brick, and all the others. They clap him on the shoulder and ruffle his hair. It’s a real who’s who of junior sports, it seems like, and some of them are even wearing their jerseys, for whatever reason, girls clinging to them and cooing. There is a distinct air of teenage debauchery, i.e. everything smells like spilled beer, diesel, oversweet perfume, and sweat.

He nearly drops what he’s carrying when he’s startled by someone hugging him from behind.

“Oh my God, Shane, you made it!” It is Jessica, in a very tiny tank top lined with lace and a jean mini skirt. Her brown hair is teased and stands at least an inch off her head. In the dim light he can see her lips sparkle with gloss.

“Yeah, I, uh, printed out the Mapquest directions,” he says. True. She laughs like this is hilarious.

“You’re hilarious!” she says.

What he knows about Jessica MacDonald is limited, even though they talk most days, in school or occasionally online. She has a pond behind her house (“You should totally come skating on it when it freezes over!”), she doesn’t really care about hockey but her father does (“It’s just so violent!”) and she sings in her local church choir (“I know, so embarrassing!”). She says everything with enthusiasm, like she is excited about it all, even when she is complaining to him about math class (“I just think it’s confusing!”) or he tells her the outcomes of his games (“Oh my God, that’s great!” and “Oh my God, that sucks!”, respectively).

Over her head, Sonny winks at him and points to the case of beer still in Shane’s arms.

“Is there anywhere I can put this?” he says. Sonny shakes his head and mouths try again. “Um, do you want a drink?” Sonny gives him a thumbs up.

Jessica scrunches her nose. “Blech, no beer for me,” she says. “But I’ll take some of that lemon gin you got in there!”

The next hour passes in a blur, but he does his best to be present, cool, calm. The taste of his first beer ever is bitter, acrid, and gets worse as it warms up in his hand. Sonny convinces him to take a swig of lemon gin and this is even more disgusting, like drinking fucking Mr. Clean or something, and his body feels like it is not his own, his body which is the only thing he has, so he chucks the last of his drink on the ground outside the garage and doesn’t take another. Around him things are getting progressively more bizarre. Some of the guys from the high school hockey team are trying to do handstands. Girls mill about in groups of three or four, giggling and whispering to each other. Petrov and the other vets have disappeared with Sonny outside, presumably to smoke whatever weed they’ve mustered, and Sonny comes back alone, coughing. Jessica drags Shane to the middle of the garage to dance, but her eyes are shifting around like she’s trying to locate someone else, and ends up stepping away halfway through the song, leaving Shane swaying and uncertain what to do with his arms.

Then, because of course they do, the lights go out.

The next thing Shane knows is he’s being pushed onto his knees, hard onto the dirty concrete floors, and manhandled until his arms are behind his back and held together.

“What the fuck!” he yells and tries to push himself up, but someone is holding him down. In the dark he doesn’t see who. Around him he hears similar protests and outraged screams. Incongruously, he hears Sonny laughing.

“Calm down, Hollz!” he hears Petrov say from behind him, where he is apparently the one holding Shane’s arms tight.

“Get the fuck off me,” he hears Smithy say from somewhere to his right. Sonny is still giggling.

“Ah, ah, ah,” says Petrov, “little rookies, be still, this will go easier!”

The pressure on his wrists releases. Someone has turned the music off. The lights come back on and Shane looks around to see all the Bucks rookies similarly positioned, kneeling on the cold floor in a line next to him. The vets are standing before them, Petrov front and center, arms crossed, with a crazy grin on his face. Maniacal, Shane thinks, like in cartoons. The rest of the crowd stands behind them, whispering and nudging each other at the display.

“Gentleman,” says Brick, or Richard Bennett, their A, a veteran right-winger Shane has spoken to only here and there, and then it is mostly about gear, which Brick seems really passionate about. What kind of tape he’s trying out on his stick, what pads he has, which blades, et cetera. Shane appreciates there are guys like this out there but he is not one of them; he finds a piece of equipment he likes and uses it until it breaks, then buys the same again. “We have gathered you here today to take part in this, the Bucks sacred welcome ritual.”

“It’s been four fucking months,” grumbles Smithy.

“Shut the fuck up, Smithy, let me get through this,” Brick says.

“He practiced,” Petrov says.

“Christ,” someone whispers. Shane sees Jessica laughing with her girlfriends. She catches his eye and winks.

“It’s finally time for you to earn your place amongst our ranks!” Brick continues. “Tonight, you show us what you’re truly made of. Or else.”

“Or else what, dude,” Smithy says.

“I don’t know, I didn’t practice that part,” Brick says. “Ladies!”

At once a half dozen or more girls start twisting their arms under the shirts and wriggling. Shane stares in horror as they pull out their bras and hold them out. Jessica is looking right at him. Her bra is hot pink.

“Holy shit,” Shane hears Sonny whisper.

“Rooks! Arms up!” Brick cries.

It is at this point that Shane thinks, okay, but what if he just doesn’t do what they say? What does it fucking matter if he doesn’t submit to this hazing, what are they going to do? Kick him off the team?

And then he thinks, and then fucking what? They hate him? They resent him for not taking part in their weird brotherhood? Call him a loser, a weirdo, a retard? Or worse, they tell the coach he was underage drinking and – ?

He puts his arms up.

The braless girls step up. Jessica kneels in front of him and smiles.

“After this I’ll show you my room,” she breathes, and then before Shane can react, she’s ripping off his shirt and putting the bra on his chest, clipping it around his back. He never really noticed but he supposes Jessica has pretty big tits, because the cups are gape but the rest of it is tight and cuts into his armpits and back.

“Hey!”

“What the fuck!”

“This is fucking gay!”

Around him the others protest. Shane feels nauseous, and cold, and miserable.

“Men!”

The older players push the girls aside. Petrov grabs Shane’s hair and tilts it back, pushing a can of beer against Shane’s lips which he seems to have produced out of thin air. His eyes are fucking intense, unblinking. Maybe some people get like that when they’re drunk.

“Chug!”

“Drink up, baby,” Petrov says, and pours the beer into Shane’s mouth. This doesn’t last long before he is spluttering and coughing, trying to take a breath. Petrov still has his hand in Shane’s hair. He can’t really see what’s happening around him but the others don’t seem to be having as much trouble as him. Sonny even whoops.

“Stop, stop, Jesus Christ,” Shane says, or tries to say, but instead it comes out as the worst possible thing it could at that instant, surrounded by his teammates and classmates. He vomits.

–

Twenty minutes later, Shane is sitting in the extremely bright lights of Jessica MacDonald’s kitchen, or maybe they are only blinding compared to the dimness of the garage where the rest of his teammates are still, presumably, beating their chests for attention like gorillas in some weird quest for dominance and superior beer chugging ability. Sonny, at least, took pity on Shane and followed him inside, and was granted clemency for his crimes against hockey with a nod and a pat on the back from Petrov and Brick. No such luck for Shane, who received only a scathing glare and a muttered “more like Crouching Tiger, Puking Dragon, am I right?” from Smithy.

“Here,” Sonny says. He’s rummaging around in Jessica’s fridge. Her parents, who she promised were like, oh my God, totally cool with this, are not even home, so jury’s still out if they even know this party is happening at all, and what they will do once they find out. Not like Shane really cares if Jessica doesn’t really care. And not like Shane really cares about Jessica, either. He sent her back out to the garage after a few minutes of fussing, unwilling to deal with her drunken pity for much longer. At least he apologized for her ruined bra.

Sonny slides him a can of ginger ale.

“Settles your stomach, right?” Sonny says. “It’s supposed to, I think.”

“Alright,” Shane says, and takes the ginger ale. Pop is not on his dietitian approved meal list but what the fuck ever, neither is beer, and this is better than water, which just tastes like the lingering taste of vomit right now.

Sonny opens a can for himself and hops up on a bar stool next to Shane at the kitchen island.

“Did you, uh, did you know about that? Like, what they were going to do?” Shane says, when half his drink is gone and his nausea has died down significantly.

“Nah,” Sonny says, “but I figured it was only a matter of time.”

“Oh,” Shane says, dumbly. “I feel like a fucking loser.”

“Well, a little bit,” Sonny says, shrugging.

“Ugh. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

They sit in silence a while longer. The refrigerator hums, and through the walls they hear muffled music and shouts.

“You know,” Sonny starts, “in fifteen years, when you’re on your like, third Cup win, and you’ve got an Olympic medal, or the Con Smythe, or some shit—”

“Come on, man,” Shane interrupts. “That’s crazy.”

“It isn’t, it isn’t crazy, shut up,” Sonny says. “I’m saying, you’re going to make it to the show, and the rest of us are gonna be, you know, at our stupid day jobs or whatever, thinking about our glory years playing for the Bucks, and those guys in the garage right now are gonna look back and think this was one of the best nights of their lives. And you won’t even remember their names.”

“Too many concussions?” Shane says.

“Shut the fuck up, I’m trying to be nice, here!”

Shane bumps his can of ginger ale against Sonny’s.

“I know, man,” Shane says. “Thanks. You really think none of them are gonna get drafted?”

“Eh, maybe, maybe some shitty farm teams somewhere will want some of us, maybe not. Petrov, maybe, sure, but it doesn’t look like the Nomads are calling him up anytime soon. He could go to the KHL, who knows.”

“You’re good, though. Coach is playing you more.”

Sonny shakes his head and downs the rest of his drink. “I’m fine. The point isn’t — the point is just to play hockey as long as possible. I don’t really care where. Or well, obviously it would be fucking nice to get drafted, I mean, crazier things have happened, but you know, I’m not betting on it. You though, you’re fucking good, and you like, really want it. I can tell.”

“I’ve never wanted anything but that,” Shane says. “It kinda feels like I want it so bad there’s no room for anything else.”

This is an admission he’d rather not make to anyone, but in the face of Sonny’s earnestness it feels fair, even necessary.

Sonny stares at him for a second then nods his head.

“You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” His mouth turns into his familiar big smile and he claps his huge hand on Shane’s shoulder. “Come on. You’re driving.”

—

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 15th, 2007

Bucks Spread Christmas Cheer to IWK Patients

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA – Players and staff of the Halifax Bucks traded the Metro Centre for IWK hallways this past week as they visited young IWK pediatric patients to spread a bit of cheer ahead of the holiday season.

The players brought Bucks merchandise and sweet treats to hand out to patients and their friends and family, even singing a few carols as they did so. They signed autographs, answered questions and took photos with the children receiving care for complex medical conditions.

“Our team this year has such great energy,” said Andrew Isenor, Head Coach of the Bucks since 2001. “They were really pleased to be able to come to the IWK and bring joy to patients in a difficult time of their lives.”

Last April, the Bucks announced they would be donating 1% of all merchandise sales from the 2007-08 regular season to the IWK Foundation, citing a commitment to their community and their young fans. The IWK Foundation is currently fundraising to renovate its pediatric oncology unit, which would include new, state-of-the-art equipment and upgraded in-patient rooms.

“We love having the Bucks visit,” said IWK’s Chief of Communications, Engagement and Change Tina Fitzpatrick, “and we truly appreciate the franchise’s dedication to the needs of our hospital. It means a lot to our Foundation, and to the patients.”

The Halifax Bucks have visited the IWK every holiday season since 1997, and participate in activities at the hospital throughout the year.

-30-

-

“ MERRY CHRISTMAS “

FADE IN:

LIVING ROOM, HOLLANDER CONDO. YELLOW WALLS COVERED IN PHOTOS, FRAMED ARTICLES, MEDALS IN SHADOW BOXES. DECOR IS ECLECTIC, WITH PIECES HAVING CLEARLY BEEN COLLECTED OVER YEARS OF MARRIAGE. THERE IS A SIMILARLY MISMATCHED SPARKLING CHRISTMAS TREE IN THE CORNER, SOME PRESENTS AND WRAPPING PAPER SCATTERED ABOUT.

DAVID HOLLANDER and YUNA HOLLANDER are sitting on the floor with SHANE HOLLANDER. They are watching him open gifts. In DAVID’s hand is a black garbage bag half full of wrapping paper.

GRANDMA HOLLANDER sits on the couch overlooking the scene. She is drinking coffee from a mug that has the Halifax Bucks logo on it. Next to her on the side table there is a bottle of Bailey’s.

SHANE HOLLANDER opens a box and gasps. In his hand you see a sleek flip phone with the time 9:23 on it.

SHANE

You guys got me a cell phone? That’s so cool! Thank you!

YUNA

(with warmth)

Well, honey, we thought it would be easier to stay in touch that way. You can call us whenever you want now.

SHANE

Can I text too?

DAVID

You have 200 minutes of local calling, 200 minutes long distance, and 100 texts a month. Please don’t go over that, ‘cause they cost, uh, I think, it’s something like twenty cents each after. That adds up quick, you know.

GRANDMA HOLLANDER

And don’t be sexting or anything on there.

SHANE

Grandma!

DAVID

(at the same time)

Mom!

YUNA

What is sexting?

GRANDMA I saw it on the news. Apparently the young folk are –

SHANE

(in a loud voice)

Okay! Okay! I won’t sext, I promise!

LAUGH TRACK

FADE OUT

Chapter End Notes

find me on tumblr @bluegrasshole

Chapter 4: JANUARY 2008: Thank goodness this 2003 Chevy Cavalier has a CD player

Chapter Summary

Shane has a moment of clarity. Don't worry, it doesn't last.

Chapter Notes

JANUARY 2008

In January JP and Bonnie fly to Vancouver for Figure Skating Nationals, leaving Shane alone at the house for multiple days, with pre-cooked meals packed in neat Tupperware in the fridge. Shane tries to watch the competition, or at least its highlights, on TSN, but doesn’t manage to catch JP’s programs at all. He’s not sure why he cares enough to try. Certainly JP has never shown any interest in hockey or in Shane, and remains morose and uncommunicative when they do cross paths, for reasons Shane can’t quite parse. He’s pretty sure he’s been nothing but polite, and when asked Bonnie just shrugs and says JP’s always been private. In any case, they come home bearing the news that JP placed fifth, which sounds pretty good to Shane, especially as JP is the only Nova Scotian and indeed the only Maritimer competing in his event at all, but this does not seem to make JP any happier or friendlier.

“Well,” Bonnie says when Shane asks how it went around the dinner table one night, “all we can do is focus on the next competition now.”

Shane can understand this, putting a loss aside and moving on to the next opportunity, though really he prefers to study his losses, look for weakness and holes in their defense, moments he could have skated faster, reacted quicker, hit harder.

JP pushes around the shrimp and greens on his plate, his black hair falling into his eyes. “It wasn’t – I just fell,” he says. “If I – whatever. Nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”

“I keep telling you,” Bonnie says, “the triple might be out of reach right now, and –”

“It’s not!” JP says. “Jesus, why do you – why do I even – I’m done.”

He pushes his plate away and stands up and leaves. Moments later they hear JP’s bedroom door slamming and some whiny music reverberating through the floors.

Bonnie sighs. Since their return from Vancouver she’s been doing extra shifts at the long-term care facility where she works, and her eyes are ringed in dark circles, her hair limp.

“He thinks I’m too hard on him,” she says.

Shane doesn’t want to say that yes, kind of, she maybe is. He’s heard her express doubts about his abilities before, and berate him for not caring enough about school, or his job, or tidying his room, or picking up his socks, or his towels, or doing his dishes, and so on. These are things Shane has never heard from his parents before, though he’s not sure if that’s because they’ve had no reason to say them or because they just don’t care about that stuff enough. What he does hear from his mom is different: I’ve scheduled some meetings with trainers for the summer, please look over this contract with this agent, can you pick which training camp you want to do this year, are you meeting one-on-one with your coaches regularly, have you heard any rumours about getting traded, how confident do you feel about the Bucks’ play-off chances this year, et cetera, ad infinitum. From his dad it’s more like: do you have a girlfriend, are you eating enough, how is school going, who are your closest friends on your team, do you like Halifax, where are you storing your summer tires, we love and miss you so much, can you mail us that newspaper clipping you were mentioned in, I’d love to frame it.

So it’s like, who’s the more normal parent around here? Would he even know?

“I’m sure he appreciates everything you do for him,” he says instead. This is the kind of thing adults like to hear, he thinks, like when he does media scrums and says things like playing with the Bucks is a really valuable learning experience and our team is really tight-knit, like one big happy family.

She shrugs. “I don’t think it really crosses his mind,” she says.

“I don’t know. It’s not every parent who gets up at 5:30 am to bring their son to practice every morning before work.”

“Maybe,” she says. “Most parents I know probably would do that, if they had to. Yours did.”

“There’s no law, or anything,” Shane says. The music from the basement gets louder.

“No, but maybe you won’t understand this, but JP, he — well, he always had a hard time fitting in, and the rink was the first place I saw him really be himself, you know. Maybe the only place.”

“No, I – I get it, sure.”

“Between us, sometimes it frustrates me that he doesn’t see how hard – how hard I work to keep him in that place,” she continues, “and that – how do I say this – I’m just trying to prepare him if it doesn’t always work out.”

“Well,” Shane says, slowly, chewing on his last bite of salad, “I don’t know him very well, or you, I guess, not that I’m not grateful to be here, by the way. But, it’s just that sometimes it sounds like you don’t believe it’ll work out at all.”

“Huh,” she says. “Out of the mouth of babes.”

“Sorry, that probably was–”

“Don’t be sorry, hon,” Bonnie says. She takes a deep breath then stands to stack their plates and take them to the sink. She pauses for a moment and stares out the window above the sink, soft snow falling against the black evening. “I’m sorry I dumped that on you. I forget how young you are, sometimes.”

“Let me do the dishes, please,” Shane says, hopping up from his seat.

“Oh, would you? I want to get to the grocery store before it’s too late,” Bonnie says. “You sure I can’t get you anything this time?”

“Actually,” he says, “could you pick up some ginger ale?”

—

And so the routine begins again, the days becoming just one long exhausting moment in time, blurring in a succession of bus rides, school work, rotisserie chickens and training. The arenas start to look the same – though a nice reprieve is a trip to Gatineau at the end of the month, and Coach even lets him stay with his parents while there, which Shane thinks is less due to his own quiet request but rather because he suspects his mom called and told Coach in no uncertain terms she wanted her son at home for at least one night.

They win against the Marathons, satisfyingly, and even better, Shane is named Star of the Game for his two goals that leave local reporters clamouring to speak to him, their little Ottawa native making moves out East. Plus he is bilingual, which is a draw. He is getting, he thinks, quite good at this media stuff, if only because he is better able to predict what they’ll ask, based on the outcome of the game. He prepares answers ahead of time, rehearses them in his head, until he no longer stutters over them.

“What were your thoughts going into the second period, when you were tied up with one goal each?”

“Sure, well, we knew Gatineau would give us a run for our money but we talked about keeping the pressure up in the neutral zone, you know, and focusing on our passing game, which I think worked out for us in the end.”

« Comment te sens-tu d’avoir reçu la première étoile du match devant ta famille ? »

« Oui, c’est vraiment spécial, j’ai souvent regardé des matchs des Marathons de Gatineau ici avec ma famille quand j’étais jeune. Je suis tellement content qu’ils étaient ici. »

“How do you think you did today?”

“Yeah, I think we did great, we’ve been working on a lot of teambuilding and I think it shows on the ice.”

Two truths and a lie, but who can tell what’s what from the outside looking in? It doesn’t matter. These are not good questions, and they never are, so the answers have to follow in the same vein. What matters is to make himself seem – or be – level-headed, mature, quick on the draw, and smarter than your average guy, if by average guy you mean someone who’s been getting their shit rocked on ice since they were like five years old and may or may not be missing teeth and brain cells. This, Shane’s mother tells him as they’re sitting together in the living room after he makes it home after the game, is what will set him apart when prospect camps and the draft come. Being unable to string five words together might be good enough for the goons and the rich kids from legacy hockey families, but not good enough for Shane, the only Asian kid in his conference and one of two in his league, no name recognition yet, and two parents who had to work their asses off to put him through camps, and buy equipment and food for a boy who never seemed to stop growing, and send him to Halifax to be billeted by a complete, if very nice, stranger.

“Jesus, Yuna, stop putting so much pressure on the kid,” his dad says. “He’s leading his division in points right now, that’s gotta count for something.”

Yuna waves an impatient hand. “I’m not talking about your skills, honey. We both know you’re the best player on the ice ninety-five per cent of the time.”

“Thanks, I think,” Shane says. That five per cent is what used to keep him up at night, before he started being too tired to keep his eyes open past ten, but he won’t mention that.

“And speaking of points, what is wrong with number thirty seven? What is his fricken issue with passing to you?”

Finally, a good question. He sits up in the armchair, the same one he used to curl into as a kid sorting through his hockey cards and placing them carefully in their binders.

“Smith,” he says. “I don’t know. He doesn’t like me, for whatever reason.”

“You’ve never mentioned this before,” Dad says.

“It’s like he’s allergic to giving you assists,” from his mom.

“He’s given me some,” Shane says, but his mom is mostly right.

“Bullshit. You were wide open in the third right before that hooking call and that asshole just completely ignored you and shot at the fucking post instead. He shouldn’t be on a line with you at all.”

Yuna gets kind of vulgar when she gets riled up about hockey, which he appreciates. She is normally so proper, so attentive, and so friendly, but hockey is, frankly, a vulgar game. He could wax lyrical about its beauty, the satisfaction of seeing a play come together, the simple elegance of shooting a puck exactly where it needs to go, but it’s not that. Or, it is, but it’s also angry pubescent boys pushing each other around in sweaty gear with razors strapped to their feet, chewing on mouthguards that don’t get washed enough, and grown adults analyzing their every move so they can make a few hundred bucks on bets their wives don’t know they made. Not really poetic stuff, honestly.

“Leave it to the coach to decide what the lines are,” his dad says. “Has this kid been giving you trouble off the ice?”

“Dad, please,” Shane says. He gestures to himself, all one hundred and ninety six pounds of him. “Look at me. I can take care of myself.”

“I know, I know, it’s just, bullying is a serious infraction in the eyes of the league, so it would be important to know if–”

“There’s no bullying,” says Shane. “We’re all good. Do you mind if I go to my room? It’s just that I have an essay for English class I have to finish and we’re on the road again tomorrow…”

And the day after, and twice the following week, and so on and so forth. Playoffs seem far away, but really it’s just a month and a bit until the first round, and he can’t let himself get caught up in the what-ifs just yet. If they make it to the Memorial Cup finals, they could be playing until May. Or they could get kicked out in March. It’s no use planning for anything but the next game.

Shane stops on his way to his childhood bedroom and looks around. “Where is Grandma, by the way?”

Dad makes a strangled noise, and Mom laughs.

“She’s on a date,” she says. “He picked her up after your game.”

Shane opens his mouth and closes it again. “What?” he says finally.

“Met him at a crib tournament last month,” she says. “It’s very cute. They have matching canes.”

Well. Never too late to go for what you want, he supposes.

-

--

Chapter End Notes

find me on tumblr @bluegrasshole

Chapter 5: FEBRUARY 2008: Man, this lady must really love eggs

Chapter Summary

If all the snowflakes were natural peanut butter and ice skates, oh what a snow it would be!

Chapter Notes

thank you halifax mooseheads for keeping such meticulous records of games from the past 25 years!

FEBRUARY 2008

It is a rare Friday when Shane has nothing to do, no game, no training, and no responsibilities. Exams are done, Chris has scheduled him a rest day in his workout plan, and his laundry has been taken care of. Coach told them to “be smart about whatever you’re doing on Friday, for the love of God,” which means, according to Sonny, ‘get drunk but don’t get crazy about it’. Shane isn’t so sure about Sonny’s translation abilities at this point, but whatever.

“JP!” he yells when he spots his billet brother’s black hair at the end of the hall after the last bell has rung. JP is at least a head taller than most people, and that head turns to glare at Shane as he hurries to catch up. “You want a ride home?”

JP frowns at him, and it is impressive. He’s not put on his eyeliner today, leaving his face bare and somehow sharper, the cut of his jaw more prominent. Shane’s never noticed before but JP’s eyes are a startling green under his makeup.

“From you?” JP says.

“Well, yeah,” Shane says. “I’m going straight to the house. Coming?”

JP blinks at him a few more seconds, before nodding once. “Thanks. I hate the bus in the winter.”

“Great. Wait here, I’m just going to get my – oh, hi, Jessica,” Shane finishes lamely, as the Jessica in question rounds the corner of the hallway and waves at him. JP raises one eyebrow.

“Shane! You never answered my text!” Big, sparkly smile, as always. “But I was wondering if, well, my pond is frozen, so I thought you could come skating this afternoon?”

Around him, people are moving quickly to get to the door, as if not to waste any moment of their free Friday. Most are bundled up, like so many teenage Michelin men, bustling about and talking about their plans for the weekend. Shane, however, is stopped mid-motion. He loves skating outdoors and has fond memories of racing his dad on the Rideau, dodging tottering older couples and clumsy children, the wind on face free, for once, of a helmet. But spending time with Jessica alone is not appealing, for reasons he doesn’t understand. It’s not like she’s a bad person. Once you get past her excessive Oh my Gods and her general zest for life, she’s pretty nice. And she is, objectively, hot. They make sense together, in the way that it makes sense for a student athlete to be dating a cute, girl-next-door type, like on TV. Some of the other guys on the team do have girlfriends, and the way they talk about them in the locker makes him feel dizzy and kind of nauseous. So no, not appealing. Shane doesn’t like lying though, but this he knows would be a painful truth if he told her, and he dislikes hurting people even more, so –

“He has plans,” JP says, interrupting Shane’s thoughts. “With me.”

“Oh my God,” says Jessica. To her credit, her smile does not diminish at all. “Do you skate? You should come too! Why don’t I ask a couple more people and we’ll make a party of it? No booze, though, promise.” At this last she winks at Shane.

“What’s this I hear about a party?” A booming voice comes from behind them.

“Jesus Christ,” Shane says.

“Sonny!” she squeals, and begins to explain her plan to him as he flings his arms around Shane. Shane looks to JP, who has the faintly horrified face of someone who has profound regrets.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Shane says. “You don’t have to go.”

“Neither do you,” JP says.

They stare at each other. Shane tries to read something in JP’s face but all he gets is an intense sort of gaze sweeping over him. He thinks maybe JP is trying to do the same.

“Fuck.” JP says, finally. Whatever it is he was searching for in Shane he seems to have found it. “If this dulls my blades, you’re paying to get them sharpened.”

–

In the end it’s not so much a party as it is just a couple of Jessica’s girlfriends, and Sonny, Shane and JP, but that’s fine. Totally fucking weird, but fine. The car ride to the house to pick up their skates and drop off their book bags is the longest Shane and JP have been in each other’s presence ever, but, again, fine. And if Shane can’t help but notice JP staring at him like he’s trying to find the answer to a riddle no one’s asked, then yes, that too is fine. Shane is used to people watching him. He can play this game, and he can hold his body still and casual, pretend he knows what to do with his smile. At least his hands are occupied with driving. It’s all completely fine.

It is only when they’re back in the car, his stick and their skates carefully placed in the back seat, the sleek black elegance of JP’s leaning on Shane’s own rough, textured ones, that anybody speaks.

“So who is this girl?” JP says. Shane waits to answer, choosing instead to focus on getting through a particular busy stretch of Halifax streets, slushy and dirty with old snow. A week ago a wet rage of a winter storm ground the city to a halt, but now there is just this gross mess left over. All winter it has been humid, and sometimes when he gets onto the rink the plexiglass around him is fogged up and damp. Prince Edward Island. Ontario. New Brunswick.

“Just a, a girl in my classes,” he says. JP squints at him. “Her name is Jessica.”

“Do you like her?”

“She’s nice.”

“Not what I asked.”

Fuck. “Sure, of course,” Shane says. True? Unconfirmed.

JP makes a face. “Like, do you have a crush on her,” he says. “Cause she totally has a crush on you.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t. Just trying to figure out what kind of situation I’ve volunteered myself for.”

“Please,” Shane says, tilting his head. “Don’t act like you’re a martyr.”

“Big word, hockey boy,” says JP.

“Just six letters.”

“Fuck off.”

Shane laughs and to his surprise, JP smiles, just a little. It transforms the sharp planes of his face into something more boyish and open. This is totally normal and fine.

“I don’t have time for a crush,” Shane says. “I’ll figure that out after the playoffs.”

“A crush isn’t really something you can plan for, you know,” says JP. “It usually just sort of happens.”

Shane blinks. Sometimes he thinks that inside of him there is something hungry and gaping that he can’t name and there are moments like this one when it tries to nose its way into the light. In locker room showers he does not look around – he knows it is waiting somewhere in the corners there and if he can’t see it, it’s like it’s not real. But mostly it is harder to pinpoint where it will emerge. The strength and conditioning room. Long bus rides on the road when the sky has gotten dark and everyone has fallen silent and Sonny’s head tips onto Shane’s shoulder as he sleeps. The moment of celebration when he tips the puck into the net and everyone rushes to see him, thank him, touch him. His parents’ dinner table where he watches them play cards and tease each other.

What it is, he thinks, when he can be bothered to spare a minute or two to examine it, is his drive. His need to win, to be better, always, better than even himself from yesterday. It’s been there since he was a child, putting on his first Timbits jersey with his mom’s help, feeling the warmth of potential and adult approval when he started pulling apart from the pack. He was the wheat, not the chaff. Everything, everything, he can get good at everything if he wants it bad enough. Winning is something you have to work at every day. He doesn’t always need to be first but being second kills him. He’d rather fight for third.

Maybe this is the difference between Shane and Sonny and the others. He can’t understand how Sonny is okay with not knowing his fate, or not believing he has one worth fighting for. The goal cannot be to just play hockey. It has to be good hockey, hard hockey, it has to knock every other thing else out of him until it’s just him and the ice and the stick as an extension of his arms, the blades, of his feet. It has to be enough to fill the black, yawning lack inside of him.

In JP maybe he sees something similar. Early mornings, late nights, fall after fall. A desperate want to be the best at what he does. Like if he doesn’t have that he has nothing.

“We’ll see,” is all he says.

–

The snow on the pond has been scraped to the side to create a sizable skating area, and there are even a couple raggedy old hockey nets on either end. Someone’s brought a wooden bench to the edge of the water so they can sit and tie their skates. Sonny and Jessica and her friends are already on the ice, with an older man in boots who must be Jessica’s dad. Jessica, for all she claimed she doesn’t like hockey, is pretty smooth on her skates, and is even holding a stick, chatting with her friends as they edge around the little improvised rink. These are girls Shane recognizes from the party, but he doesn’t know their names, and doesn’t particularly care about learning them.

“Come on, dude!” Sonny yells as Shane and JP make their way down to the pond.

“Hey fellas,” Jessica’s dad says when they arrive at the bench. “Nice to meet ya, I’m Trent.” He holds out a hand. JP hesitates before taking it, and Shane follows.

“Nice place,” Shane says after introductions. The pond is, frankly, picturesque, surrounded by towering evergreens at all sides. It’s not huge, maybe a bit more than a regular rink, and the space cleared of snow is half that. Some gentle flakes are still falling, and it’s cold but not frigid. It’s a perfect day for this. They lace up quickly as Trent walks back up to the house, waving goodbye.

They step onto the ice carefully. It is bumpy at first, and requires a lot of care so as not to fall over, but soon smooths out so they can glide. Beside him, JP lets out a startled whoop. He’s stuffed a beanie on his head so his black hair flips out from underneath.

“I haven’t done this since I was a kid,” he says. “I forgot what it’s like.”

“I feel free without a helmet on,” Shane says.

“Imagine how I feel!” Sonny cries when he reaches them. Without his goalie gear he looks almost small on the ice, and does a silly little dance as if to demonstrate the looseness of his limbs. One of Jessica’s friends giggles.

“Do a jump or something,” Shane says to JP, who is twirling around on one precise blade. Without responding, JP picks up speed, turns around, and flies off his toe pick into a simple jump, spinning at least a foot off the ground as he does so.

“Oh my God!” says Jessica.

“Fucking beaut, man!” from Sonny.

“That’s nothing,” JP says, when he lands and comes back around to them. “Just a single Lutz. I gotta warm up to do anything more complicated than that.”

In the softly falling snow they skate, and Sonny attempts to copy JP’s jump and fails miserably, due to his lack of figure skating experience and, crucially, toe picks, laughing the entire time. JP and Jessica commiserate over their shared distaste of hockey but they still join in an improvised scrimmage with Sonny in net and the others trying to shoot on him. They make the rules up as they go and lose count of points. JP is beautiful to watch on the ice, elegant and serene, but he can’t quite keep the puck on the stick Jessica’s dad left behind. Sonny teaches Jessica what ‘chirping’ means. It is easy – joyful and funny – in a way hockey hasn’t been in years.

“Hey,” Shane says, when it starts to get dark. He remembers his thoughts when he first saw JP skating, all those months ago at the training facility. “Let’s race.”

“Oh! I want to see this,” Jessica says. Her friends have long since gone home but she hasn’t made any noise about making them go, and has been playing along with them the whole time. She makes the boys line up at one end of the cleared space. “Ready, set, go!”

Shane takes off like a shot, pumping his legs as fast as he can. He can hear Sonny huffing behind him, and he is almost at the edge of the ice, when he sees JP out of the corner of his eye, overtake him and make it to the finish point a full second before Shane.

“Holy shit,” Sonny says. “Shane lost.”

“Nuh uh, you lost,” says Shane, but he’s laughing, and he can’t believe he’s laughing.

“I don’t count! I’m just an innocent goaltender.”

“Show me how to do that,” Shane says to JP.

“Skate?” JP says. He’s not even winded, though his cheeks are red from the cold.

“Skate faster.”

Soon they are all at it, practicing lengthening their strides, pushing slowly then faster as they get the hang of it. It feels odd but he wants to practice some more, later, and see what he can do. They race again, and this time Shane is just a hair behind JP. He probably wouldn’t beat some of the faster guys on the team – Brick is like a fucking bullet, sometimes – but Shane’s always had to work on his speed.

Jessica whoops. “JP, you’re all warmed up now, think you could do some more fancy jumps?” she asks. “After that I gotta go back to the house and have supper.”

They stand aside as JP skates around, gaining speed and momentum, until – one rotation, two rotations, three, and? And then – with a heavy thud, he falls.

“Fuck,” he says, with feeling.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” Jessica says, gliding over to him. He gets up and dusts snow off his pants.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I thought maybe – nevermind. I think I’m done for the night too.”

Shane wonders if his fine is the same as JP’s.

–

When they get home Bonnie is still at work, taking a double shift on a rare night that neither of her teenage charges have obligations, and Shane even thinks about going to pick up some takeout for he and JP for supper. Subway for him, probably, because vegetables, but he doesn’t mind stopping somewhere else for JP. He feels weightless, somehow, like his responsibilities are lighter, his anxieties floating just above him instead of on his shoulders. They’re still there, of course, just distant, maybe, or less important right now, which, paradoxically, does make him worry a little, but not enough to bring him down.

Shane knocks on JP’s bedroom door to ask him what he wants, but it swings open on its own. Inside is the same riot of colour and clutter that Shane’s come to expect. Clothes strewn on the floor, posters and photos on the wall, medals pinned up above a messy desk. Music is playing, something guitar-heavy thing Shane doesn’t recognize, but then again, he never recognizes much outside of the songs played at games, and even then, it’s usually in 30-second bursts before the puck drops at face-offs.

The light is dim but in the middle of the room there is JP. He has his shirt off, turned away from the door, leaning down to pick something up off his bed. From here, Shane can see his skin is painted in blue and purple, bruising mottling his ribs and arms, mostly along his left side, but with some rounder spots here and there elsewhere, mostly all around his chest and neck.

“Jesus,” Shane whispers.

JP whips around, his eyes wide. The bruises continue on the front of his lithe body, some turning yellow from age.

“What the fuck!” JP says.

“What the fuck yourself,” Shane says. He can’t help but take a step forward to see better. “Are all those bruises from falling on the ice?”

“Get out of my room,” JP says. His voice is flat, no echo of the joviality it had gained earlier.

“I just came to ask if you wanted to get something to eat. Are those – did someone beat you up?”

“No, you fucking – you stupid fucking jock, mind your own business.”

Shane backs out of the room frowning, and goes upstairs. He doesn’t understand what just happened, and doesn’t even know where to begin unfurling it in his head.

An hour later he leaves a ham and cheese sub and a tin of tiger balm at JP’s door. Both are gone when Shane wakes.

–

-

In For A Penny, In For A Buck

Meet the Halifax Bucks Rookie Making His Mark on Major Junior Hockey

by Stephany Whynot February 28, 2008

It’s been a great year for the Halifax Bucks. After an intense period of rebuilding led by Russian forward and team captain Maxim Petrov (acquired in the 2005 Import Draft and later by the Michigan Nomads in a fourth-round pick) and Coach Andrew Isenor, the team is finally starting to feel cohesive, if their latest winning streak has anything to say about it. They’re almost leading in the Eastern Conference, with an impressive 40 wins in 63 games, a close second to the Acadie-Bathurst Trojans, who’ve handed the Bucks a few of their losses. It’s something fans have been dreaming of for years, and the nearly sold-out games at the Metro Centre prove it.

At the heart of this success is #24 Shane Hollander, a 16-year-old Ottawa native who’s been making waves across the league. First in assists and second in goals scored, with a cool 93 points total, he’s leading the points race across the QJMHL – and there are still 7 games left to play in March before the first round of playoffs. Off the ice, however, his teammates say he’s ‘quiet’ and ‘single-minded’ about his game.

“He’s the first guy at the rink every day and the last one to get off the ice,” said Bucks starting goalie Mathieu Gallant when I caught up to him after their recent match-up against the Trojans on home ice, where, for once, the Bucks won. “He kind of leads by example with how hard he works.”

Hollander, though, doesn’t see it as being a leader, but instead as just doing his job. Over the phone, I asked him what exactly drives him to this level of dedication.

“I’ve always been like this, since I was a little kid. Every day I tell myself I have to be better than I was yesterday,” he said. “I don’t let anything distract me from that.”

Even school? The QMJHL has a strict GPA requirement players must achieve to stay on any roster, and each team has an academic advisor on staff to help team members make sure their learning doesn’t fall behind. Still, it can be hard to balance training, games, travel, and practices at such a young age, especially when they’re far from their parents’ watchful eyes.

“No, school isn’t an issue. I see it as part of my overall training,” said Hollander, perhaps unsurprisingly given his reputation as a ‘total hockey nerd’, once again according to Gallant.

“When he’s not studying plays on the bus he’s doing homework,” said Gallant. “In French!”

“I’m in French Immersion,” Hollander explained when I asked why. “I’ve done it my whole life, growing up in Ottawa, so I figured, why stop now?”

Maybe, I speculated, he’s hoping to be drafted one day to a team where speaking French would be considered by fans and management to be an asset, like the Ottawa Centaurs or the Montreal Metros.

“I’m not thinking about the draft right now,” he said, sounding a little shy about it. “That’s over a year away. All I want to focus on is my team and getting through one game at a time.”

It is a lot to handle, however, for a fresh-faced 16-year-old who was virtually unheard of a year ago and who is one of two Asian-Canadians in the league. Does he feel the pressure?

“I think I put more pressure on myself than anyone else does. I don’t want to let my teammates or Bucks fans down.”

With only 7 games left before their all-but-confirmed playoff run starts, I asked him if there’s anything he’s focusing on ahead of the first round.

“I’m proud of the amount of assists I’ve had, and I want to keep making good moves to set my teammates up for goals. You can’t win a game on your own, so that’s really important to me.”

Talented, bilingual, and humble. C’est la vie for some of us, I suppose.

The next Halifax Bucks game will be played against the Moncton Cougars at the Metro Centre at noon on Saturday March 1st. Call 902-555-5555 for tickets or visit the Metro Centre between 8:00am and 5:30pm.

Chapter End Notes

find me on tumblr @bluegrasshole

Chapter 6: APRIL 2008: Those seagulls are like, weirdly agressive, don't you think?

Chapter Summary

Shane realizes the world doesn't stop for his hockey games. Hard to believe!

Chapter Notes

forgive me father for i have futzed with hockey logistics in favour of the Narrative

APRIL 2008

Then it’s over.

It is a brutal slog of a third round, and the Marathons want it as badly as the Bucks do, and Shane’s shoulder hurts, and he can’t keep his weight up anymore no matter how much he eats, and everyone is pissy and tired and hungry for it, so of course, it happens at home, not Halifax but on Gatineau ice, his parents and grandmother watching from two rows behind the bench. He won’t make it to the 2008 Memorial Cup. The Marathons win this round. More importantly, the Bucks don’t.

It wouldn’t hurt so bad if maybe the media didn’t make such a big deal of it. Hockey is a win or lose sport, and you can’t win all 70 games in a season plus playoff round robins plus exhibition games, and sometimes you lose at the wrong time. The story is there, though, and he can’t even blame them. Ottawa’s prodigal son, a rookie sensation, the name on every scout’s lips, loses against a team he grew up cheering for, ice he’s played on as a child.

He begs Coach not to throw him into the scrum. Coach makes him do it anyway. The other boys aren’t in any state to speak to reporters, and Shane’s the only one calm enough not to answer every question with ‘how the fuck do you think I feel’ like he feels is merited.

He does not feel calm. He wants to sleep. He wants to sleep for a long time. He wants to run a mile screaming the whole way. He wants to go home. He wants to go back on the ice and try again, please, he can do better this time, promise. If he closes his eyes he can see where they went wrong, when they spent too long deciding what to do on the penalty kill, and when Smithy hesitated when he should have passed, and when Shane should have shot an inch further to the left. He wants a do-over. He wants, he wants — there is something inside of him roaring with want. Will it ever stop?

If everyone else felt like this no one would ever give anything up. So he must be the only one.

After the media he showers. He keeps his eyes forward. He dresses in his game-day suit, ill-fitting and loose, and does not look around. Everyone else is quiet too. Sonny is crying, maybe. Brick banged his stick against the floor and broke it earlier. Gally is staring straight ahead, unblinking, his shirt only half-buttoned, hands lax. A heavily bruised Petrov is muttering to himself in Russian, the same word over and over again. It’s his last game with the Bucks — he’s been called up to Iowa to play for the Nomads farm team next season, at least for now. Imagining Petrov standing in a corn field in his gear almost makes Shane smile, but not quite.

“Parents taking you home, kid?” Coach asks when they’re back outside, everyone standing in front of the bus waiting to load their gear into its storage compartment.

Shane nods. “If that’s alright,” he says.

“Sure. Just be at the hotel tomorrow for 8.” Coach claps him on the back. “You did good, Hollander. I expect great things from you again next season.”

And isn’t that just the problem.

—

A moment, somewhere on the TransCanada, driving through Québec, some breathtaking lake or another outside the window:

“What’s, like, the first thing you’ll buy when you get rich?”

This is a game the boys play sometimes, the ones who haven’t yet come to terms with the fact that this paltry seventy five bucks a week Major Junior contract might be it for them. Shane’s never participated. He feels too much like he’s jinxing it, or else being too cocky about it. But for Sonny he’ll answer.

“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe I’ll pay my mom and dad’s condo off. They don’t talk about it much but I know things were tight for a while. Because of me, probably. You know. Then I’d buy myself a house, maybe, or build a cottage near my parents’.”

Usually the answers are outlandish: a Ferrari, a yacht, a closet full of limited edition sneakers, a Rolex, a secret sex dungeon, ha ha.

“Real estate. Very sensible,” Sonny says. “Figures.”

“Well, what else should I buy?” Shane says.

“I can’t think of anything you’d want,” Sonny says. “Maybe a nice tailored suit or something.”

“I’ll add that to the list.”

A beat.

“What are you gonna do?”

Sonny smiles. “I’ll just take care of my mom and my sister, no matter what.”

“Your dad?”

He shrugs. Shane realizes with a start he knows practically nothing about Sonny’s family, and he feels stupid about it. Has his life really been all about hockey, this breathless game, this whole time? Has he let nothing else in, not for months, except one distant afternoon in February? It feels insane to imagine, now, on the other side, standing on a ledge looking out at the next few months of his life. It’s only mid-April. The grass is turning green, new blades unfurling like tender arms reaching for the sun. He has to somehow make it through the rest of the year in Halifax, find a new routine.

He feels like he is coming up for air after a long stay underwater. He misses how muffled the water made everything, how he just had to think about pushing his body through survival, the pressure of it on his lungs. But breathing feels good too.

“Tell me about your family?” Shane asks, so of course, Sonny does.

—

Okay, so he can start noticing things outside of his own head, if he wants. Easy. So, he starts with this: JP’s stopped dyeing his hair, and there’s a band of brown at his roots the same colour as his mother’s.

They’re sitting on the cracked cement step outside the Bishop house’s back door. Everything smells like mud and salt. Spring. Sun. Thaw. Not ice. Shane was here first, talking to his mom on his cellphone and soaking up the last of the day’s heat, greedy for it after months under artificial lighting. He asked his mom what the weather was like in Ottawa, and she laughed like she was surprised at the question.

JP arrived just as she hung up twenty minutes later, dropped off by a coworker. Now that his skating season is more or less done he’s working at the pizza place again after school and on weekends, and Bonnie is home so infrequently it kind of feels like they have the place to themselves. Still, there are always groceries in the fridge, and some days Shane wakes to find eggs already boiled and ready for him, packed in an orange sauce-stained Tupperware, and the house is clean.

Their legs are pressed together on the narrow step. He thinks they are supposed to be mad at each other – they haven’t spoken in two months – but maybe they’re both too tired for it now. The sun is almost completely set and it’s getting colder.

Noticing, noticing. There is a new medal on JP’s wall. Gold. When Shane asks, JP just says “I fell, but the other guys fell too, so.” Shane doesn’t like the way he says I fell so easily now, like it’s a given, but he lets it go. This is something else he has come to realize: not everyone cares as much as him, or at the same time, or for the same reasons.

He kind of thought JP did, though. Maybe he was wrong.

“I’m going to Montreal,” JP says. Or maybe Shane was right. “Mom found a coach and a school. There’s this program for student athletes, if I keep my grades up. I can do it.”

Shane nods. “My mom’s from Montreal. It’s a nice place. You’ll like it.”

“I’ve been trying to save as much money as I can. Mom is going to try to come. If she can’t I’ll be billetted too. She’d sell the house, but – the market is kind of shit right now, it’s like, a recession or something, I don’t know. She told me not to worry about it but it’s all over the news.”

“Really?” Shane hasn’t watched anything but TSN and game tape in months. Coach even got his hands on some recordings from Russia, the Czech Republic, Sweden – he gave copies to Shane and told him to start studying them over the summer and pay close attention, for future reference.

“Feels like hockey is so much easier, sometimes,” JP says. “Like, all the money, and the good ice times, and the attention, and the resources to get better. Everyone loves you. Even the assholes get fawned over.”

“Sometimes it sucks,” Shane says, “to be that. One wrong move and you get sent to, to fucking, Iowa or something. You don’t really get a say in anything. It’s all just rich guys playing chess with your body.”

“Iowa? What’s in Iowa?”

“Minnesota’s farm team. Like, kinda like the military reserves but for hockey. Petrov, our captain, he’s –”

“I know Max. I didn’t know he was getting sent to Iowa.”

“You know Petrov?”

“I told you. Everyone loves you.” JP’s voice cracks and he looks away.

“Thought you hated hockey.”

“Well. Some of the players are alright.”

Shane remembers the time, back in September, when he stayed to watch JP skate, and Petrov was there too, ignoring Coach in favour of staring at those jumping and spinning in front of him. JP staying late at practice all the time, never telling anyone how he got home.

Shane thinks of the hunger. He thinks of the bruises. He thinks about how neither should have seen the light.

Okay, so noticing is actually fucking hard.

“Jesus,” he says.

“Don’t.”

Bonnie’s car pulls up in the driveway before he can say anything else, and she steps out in her work scrubs, arms laden with bags, a coat, a lunchbox.

“Oh!” she cries when she sees them. She drops her things and sits on the bottom step with a huff, leaning her head back against JP’s knees. He drops his hands onto her shoulders and starts rubbing them, and she sighs.

“Nice night,” Shane says.

“Sure is, honey.”

–

Team supper, last of the season, before the older guys ship out to wherever it is they go to post-season and the younger ones hunker down for the last two months of school. Everyone is there, even the staff. Janine with her fake tan and blonde hair, the coaching team, the GM and the team owners, Chris the strength and conditioning trainer. They’ve rented out the entire floor of this nice seafood place overlooking the harbour, Georges Island and its abandoned fortress standing sentinel over the city from the water. The little touristy shops along the boardwalk are not open yet, but there are a few people walking out there anyway, holding each other and staring at the grey choppy waves, seagulls swooping and diving for forgotten fries, fearless. Two hundred and fifty years ago Shane imagines seagulls were doing much the same, minus the fries.

He could be an island, he thinks. He could be strong, and stalwart, able to withstand the pull and push of the media and his parents and everything else that will come next. He an island, the hockey his tide, season after season, coming back to it forever. It could be easy. The noticing can just be part of it, and it doesn’t have to change anything. Some things never change. Some things don’t have to.

But he is so hungry, like a seagull. In two weeks he turns 17, and he has been hungry since he can remember, since his first time winning some cheap plastic medal he wore around his neck for a week. Always will be, probably.

Someone comes to stand next to him, where he is staring out at Halifax Harbour through big floor to ceiling windows.

“You like Halifax?” Petrov says.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Maybe not forever. But for right now.”

“Me too,” Petrov says. “Three years here, same billet family. Like home, a little, with the water, but also not.”

“I like my billet family. The Bishops,” Shane says, carefully. He doesn’t look at Petrov when he says this, but he hears a sharp breath then a slow exhale.

“Ah. The Bishops. Yes, I knew this.”

“Any water in Iowa?”

He shrugs. “Des Moines has a river. I looked it up.”

“Still.”

Petrov grunts. “I go where hockey takes me,” he says. “Like driftwood. Maybe I like it there, you never know. Maybe I find a girl.”

“Maybe Minnesota calls you up,” Shane says.

“Ah, Hollander. Good luck with everything. I will always remember playing with you.”

He claps a hand on Shane’s shoulder and heads to the long table that has been set for the meal. Sonny waves Shane over to a spot he’s saved for him and Shane goes to find his friend.

–

QMJHL All-Star Teams Announced

May 7, 2008

The QMJHL is proud to announce its Rookie All-Star Team for 2008.

Forward: Shane Hollander, Halifax Bucks 40 goals and 59 assists for 99 points in 70 games

Forward: Jean-Louis Dumoulin, Baie-Comeau Vikings 40 goals and 55 assists for 95 points in 69 games

Forward: Justin Hammersmith, Acadie-Bathurst Trojans 29 goals and 63 assists for 82 points in 70 games

Defenseman: Radek Brozik, Rimouski Atlantiques 14 goals and 55 assists for 69 points in 60 games

Defenseman: Konrad Goldschmied, Gatineau Marathons 10 goals and 40 assists for 50 points in 66 games

Goaltender: Marcus Noreau-Sylvain, Gatineau Marathons 34-10-1-4 record in 50 games, 2.24 goals-against average, .924% save percentage and 8 shutouts

-

--

Chapter End Notes

find me on tumblr @bluegrasshole

Chapter 7: JUNE 2008: More like Rattled by the Thrush, am I right?

Chapter Summary

We come to the end of our intrepid Shane's journey... for now?

Chapter Notes

Kung Fu Panda came out a week and a half before the events of this chapter

JUNE 2008

Apparently now that Shane’s 17, his parents have decided it’s okay to start talking to him about all kinds of weird shit, the stuff they never would have dreamed of mentioned to him before, like he’s a full-blown adult or something just because he blew out a few candles on a store-bought cake. It’s like David and Yuna had a talk without him and unanimously decided that all bets are off in terms of familial propriety.

“What’s thrush?” He is in his room in the Bishops’ basement, getting ready for a fucking high school dance, trying to knot his tie one-handed with his phone in his other hand. He’d reluctantly turned his mirror around for the task, and as usual when he looks at himself he is shocked at how much older his face looks, how his cheeks are less full than they were in September. It’s still only June but already the sun has tanned his face and revived new freckles on his nose. “And why does Grandma have it?”

“It’s a fungal infection in your mouth. She was on antibiotics for a urinary tract infection and developed this because of them.”

“Jesus, Mom!”

“What! You asked me how my day was, and I told you!”

“Most people just say shit like it was great, how about you!”

“Well,” Yuna says, “I am not most people, I am your mother. By the way, did you get flowers for Jessica?”

“She’s not my girlfriend. Do I really need to get her flowers?”

In Ottawa his mom tsks. “It would only be polite. Oh, here, your father wants to talk to you.”

Shane gives up on his tie for now and throws himself onto his bed with a huff. Sonny is due to arrive in twenty minutes and he can help then, like they’ve done for each other before most games since September. “Hi, Dad.”

“Listen, son, I just wanted to tell you, you know, prom is a big night–”

“It’s just a dance!”

“--and whatever you may get up to, I just want you to be smart, okay? Be safe about this.”

“Oh my God.” Oh my fucking God, actually. Like, had he known this is what being 17 entailed he would have stayed 16 forever. “Please don’t do this.”

“Don’t drink and drive,” his dad says, ignoring Shane’s pleas completely.

“I won’t drink!”

“Don’t text and drive.”

“Who am I texting?”

“And most importantly, use protection if you’re going to fool around with Jessica.”

“I’m going to hang up now. Actually, maybe I’ll start a new life somewhere else. They play hockey in Finland, right?”

He hears his dad sigh and his mom laugh from further away. “This is serious, Shane. I know you’re young and in the heat of the moment it can seem like a good idea, but–”

“There won’t be any heat in any moment!”

“Alright, alright! Whatever you say. Make sure you have fun, okay?”

“But not too much fun?” Shane says.

“As much fun as you can have responsibly.”

They hang up after I love yous and one quick Oh by the way, I got the official invite for the Prospect Cup Selection Camp, please sign the consent form as soon as you can and fax it back, which is, of course, par for the course. Just another day for the Hollander family. Already his schedule has filled up for the summer, every day assigned a task jointly by his mother, his off-season trainers, his agent, and Coach Isenor. He is looking forward to it. His body feels tightly wound with unspent energy, even if he has been at the gym nearly every day since the end of the season. At least there will be no math tests to study for or essays to write for two whole months – it’s almost a vacation. His dad does seem to have had a bit of a say in some of it. Two weekends have been dedicated to the family cottage, and Shane has been firmly instructed to leave his notebooks and DVDs of game recordings at home.

He stares at himself in the mirror again. His game-day suit is way too short now, and tight on his shoulders. He hasn’t started bulking yet but it’s not just the post-season weight loss. His body has changed. And he needs a fucking hair cut. Oh well.

From upstairs he hears a bright “Hello, Mrs. Bishop!” then heavy footsteps barrelling down the stairs. Shane pops his head out of his room to greet him, but Sonny doesn’t come right to his door – first he stops at JP’s and knocks.

“Joseph Patrick, my man, are you coming with us?”

JP steps out of his room looking dazed. He is dressed in his blue work polo. “I’m going to work,” he says.

“Your name is Joseph Patrick?” Shane asks. “How come Sonny knows that and I don’t?”

“I asked, dude,” Sonny says. “You know you can just ask questions? Most of the time people answer.”

“Oh.” Like, he can’t believe it’s that simple, but it must be. Much to consider.

“Sucks that you’re working,” Sonny says.

JP rolls his eyes.

“Who else is going to make the pizza you’re going to order when you come home at midnight?”

“Midnight? Oh ye of little faith. I’m aiming for at least two.”

They’re upstairs and ready to go ten minutes later, ties properly knitted and Shane’s hair flattened as best as he could manage.

“Dear,” Bonnie says, “before you go, can I just–”

He grabs her and pulls her into a hug before she can even finish her sentence.

–

There is something to be said about the melt of bodies on a dance floor, the hormones of awkward teenagers demanding to be closer, music pulsing and lights flashing while teachers and guidance counselors watch closely from the edges of the room. And that something is: this fucking sucks. Shane hates it. He brought change to buy a ginger ale from the vending machine so he could have something to clutch onto while Jessica dragged him into the throng of sweaty acne-studded classmates, but he’s drunk it all and he’s out of change for more. She, however, seems to be having a great time, and she does look quite pretty in a sparkly green dress that defines her waist with a huge bow. Now that he is making himself notice things, he can appreciate this. She is pretty in the way a Christmas tree is pretty: she glitters, she smells nice, and he does not particularly want to hug her. This may be due to the fact that Trent did actually give him a ‘you hurt her and I’ll hurt you’ type of speech while her mom, her best friend Gabrielle, and Sonny looked on, but then Trent winked and shook his hand, so like, who knows what that meant. Shane doesn’t think that was the right time to start asking clarifying questions in the wild. Either way, he’s a little shy about touching her. He wouldn’t want to ruin her makeup.

She doesn’t seem to mind. She is nice in that way, the kind where she lets him be a little weird sometimes and she always laughs at his jokes. She lets him bob his head on the edge of the crowd while she shimmers her way around the dance floor, grabbing onto friends and whispering things in their ears. They giggle. Girls do a lot of giggling, apparently.

There are a few hundred people here, including most of his teammates and their dates. A few of the guys have come up and fist-bumped him, and it is nice to see them one last time before they all go their separate ways. Some of them he might never see again. They might get traded, or sent back down to AAA, or, well, a few might get drafted next week, not that that doesn’t mean anything concrete other than some new rich guy has bought the rights to their body, pushing them around like action figures on a board. Petrov is already in the States, and JP hasn’t talked about it at all. That’s life. Life and hockey. Kind of the same thing, for Shane, at least.

There is one person Shane hasn’t seen yet, though, that he would really like to find. He’s got a few questions for him.

Before he can start looking, the music slows down, and he knows he can’t escape the dancing any longer.

“Go, dude,” Sonny says, and pushes Shane into Jessica, just as Gabrielle grabs onto the lapels of Sonny’s blazer. It is almost funny – she is just about five feet tall in heels and Sonny towers over most people, but he seems so happy about it that it just looks sweet.

“You alright?” Jessica says into his ear. “We can go sit down if you’re uncomfortable.”

“I’m okay.” He looks around quickly at the other couples filling up the space around him, and copies their stance: hands on Jessica’s waist, slowly shuffling side to side. She smiles.

“You got any plans for the summer?” he asks.

“I’ve got a summer job working at my church’s day camp,” she says. She does not seem to be making any move closer to him, which he is grateful for. Her arms around his neck are a nice heavy weight. “You?”

“More hockey,” he says. She scrunches her nose. “Sorry to offend your bourgeois sensibilities.”

“I’ll allow it,” she says in a fake lofty voice, and he laughs. “Oh my God! Look, Sonny and Gabby are kissing.”

They certainly are, Sonny hunched over and Gabrielle up on her tip-toes, somehow still slowly spinning to the song as they are attached to each other’s face. A lot of the other dancers are making out, actually. Shane looks back at Jessica, who is biting her lip.

“Do you want to…?” she asks, letting her sentence trail.

“Um. Maybe not in front of all these people,” he says.

“That’s okay too,” she says. Then he hears it, a familiar snicker from behind his back.

“Looks like Kung Fu Panda isn’t a faggot after all.”

Jessica gasps and Shane turns around. Lounging against the wall of the event center is Brandon Smith, looking a little drunk like he may have snuck some booze in somehow, red-faced and frowning. Around them, other couples break apart and start whispering. Sonny swears.

“What the fuck is your problem, Smith?”

Smith stands up straight and walks closer.

“You are my problem.” He rams his finger into Shane’s chest, and Shane is done with this. All year, he’s been dealing with this asshole, ignoring him and keeping his mouth shut, but he’s fucking over it.

“What did I ever do to you? Seriously, apart from setting you up for like, a dozen goals?”

“You uptight loser. You fucking golden boy. You’re just the teacher’s fucking pet, aren’t you?”

“Hey!” Sonny shouts. Shane puts his hand up to stop Sonny from coming closer. The whispers around them are getting louder, and the chaperones are probably about to be called, but Shane really wants to do this first.

“Someone told me once I wouldn’t remember your name once I’m famous,” Shane says. Smith spits at his feet. “But I’m here to tell you I will remember you, and I’ll make sure everyone knows what a piece of shit you are.”

And then he hits him.

–

“Dude. Dude. Dude.”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

Shane and Sonny are sitting on a bench outside the event centre, waiting for Jessica and Gabrielle to grab their things and come meet them. Unsurprisingly, both Shane and Smith were kicked out of the dance, but not before getting a few good punches in. Shane’s lip is bleeding and his jaw feels tender-sore where the bruising has already started, and Sonny is staring at him with something like awe on his face.

“That was awesome. I’ve never seen you get in trouble before.”

“I’ve never gotten in trouble before.”

Sonny starts laughing, and Shane can’t help but join in, and it’s then he can’t stop, loud snorts and chuckles bubbling up from his chest. It’s warm out, and he’s flying home tomorrow, and he is sitting here with purple knuckles in a suit that ripped at the shoulders when he hit his fucking linemate, and he feels fucking great.

“Think we’ll have to deal with him when we come back in August?”

“Oh,” Shane says, “I think my mom’s had an email with Coach’s name on it locked and loaded for months. We’ll probably never see him again.”

“Fucking right.”

“You better be coming back, though,” Shane says.

“Coach told me odds are good,” Sonny says. “Not putting money down on it or anything but you know. It’s enough for me right now.”

In the moonlight an errant seagull swoops through the sky, and even if they’re not near the water right now Shane thinks the city smells permanently of salt and the funk of seaweed, something solid and familiar in his lungs. For once, he doesn’t want anything more than this. Tomorrow he flies back to Ontario but tonight he is here, in Halifax, with his best friend, 17 years old with the future wide open before him, and that too, is enough for him.

“Good.”

Chapter End Notes

thanks for reading! this took over my life for two weeks :)

find me on tumblr @bluegrasshole