Off the Crossbar (7 page)

Practice was scheduled to start in thirty minutes — and Charlie was still waiting by the front doors for Hilton. He must have missed him somehow. Charlie began to jog down the street towards the arena. Not only would he have to tell Pudge that he’d messed up, he’d probably be late for practice. Hilton would love that. He looked back at the school. Nothing seemed to go right.

His luck proved better than he’d thought, however. He spotted Hilton driving out of the parking lot. Charlie spun around and charged back, waving his arms furiously. He breathed a big sigh of relief when Hilton slowed down and pulled over.

The window lowered. “Are you practising today?” Hilton asked. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Charlie shook his head. “I’m fine. I wanted to talk to you about something. I thought you’d come out the front, but I guess you took the side door. Anyway, could I ask you about something before practice?”

Hilton reached over and opened the passenger door.

“Come on in,” he said. “We’re a bit late, so you may as well come with me. We can discuss whatever’s on your mind while we drive.”

Charlie got into the car. He felt extremely nervous. He seemed to get that way whenever he was around this man. It was not that he didn’t like him — just the opposite. Hilton most definitely knew his hockey — Charlie had already learned a great deal about the game after only a few practices. And he even made English class interesting! He hadn’t spent any one-on-one time with him, though, and Charlie always felt uncomfortable with new people.

Hilton started driving, while Charlie desperately tried to think of how to broach the subject. Fortunately, Hilton came to his rescue.

“So what is it you wanted to talk about?” he said.

Charlie took a deep breath and launched into it. “It’s no big deal, really. I just wanted to bounce an idea off you, about the team, and about my line.”

“I’m listening.”

“Zachary and I were thinking about all the left wingers we’ve been playing with the last few scrimmages. We seem to have cycled through three or four different guys already — a different one every practice, it seems. We’re a little worried about it because nothing is working too well. So far nobody seems to play the same game as Zachary and me. I like to get the puck early, and carry it at the defence, then make a quick play to my wingers. Zachary knows exactly what I want, like he knows what I’m about to do almost before I do it. The other guys just
don’t get it very well. Passes aren’t getting to us on time, and everything’s disconnected.”

Charlie fell silent. This wasn’t going well. His coach didn’t look impressed. And small wonder! He’d just told him that the other players weren’t good enough for him and Zachary. He barely knew the man, had started a brawl at practice, and now was criticizing his teammates! The coach must think he was a total jerk.

Hilton didn’t say a word. He just waited for Charlie to continue.

“That didn’t really come out the way I wanted,” Charlie began. “Let me start over. What I meant to say was that the guys we’ve played with have all been great. They have lots of skills, good skaters, and good with the puck too … I’m having trouble saying it, but, for whatever reason, we haven’t played very well together. Have you ever played with certain guys, and the game seems so simple and fun? That’s the way it is with Zachary and me. We just click on the ice — and we haven’t clicked with the other guys. And I have a feeling you think so too, because you’ve moved so many wingers on and off our line.”

He looked over at Hilton. “Is any of this making sense, or am I sounding like an idiot?”

“You’re not sounding like an idiot,” Hilton said, looking over at Charlie. “I know what you mean. Some players suit your style, and you can’t exactly say why.” He shrugged. “You get on the ice with other players, even guys who are much better, and you never get anything started.”

“That’s it,” Charlie broke in eagerly. “I’m not criticizing the other players. I just know that the team would have an awesome line if we could find a left winger who was more in sync with how we play.”

“So you think your line will be awesome?”

He shouldn’t have said that. Now it sounded as if he was bragging about how great a player he was. “I’m not saying we’d be the first line. I know Jake, Liam and Matt are the first line,” he stammered. “I meant that we would be another strong line. We could take the pressure off Jake, and maybe score a few goals also.”

“So you think your line will score a lot of goals?”

Charlie wanted to jump out of the car. If he kept this up, he’d be lucky to be on the team, let alone get Pudge moved to forward.

“No, that’s not it. I mean, I hope we do, but I’m not saying we will, like a guarantee or anything. It doesn’t really matter who scores, I guess. We just want to win.” His voice trailed off. He was lost. He didn’t know what to say next.

Again, Hilton helped out. “You were going to ask me about something?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you’d better hurry, because we’re at the rink, and practice starts in about fifteen minutes.”

He parked the car and turned to face him.

Charlie decided his best bet was to pretend that the three of them had played together before — the experience factor. He couldn’t do worse than he’d done so far, he reasoned.

“Zachary and I were playing together on the weekend, just some shinny — no big thing — and Pudge was there too. We somehow ended up on the same line. I don’t know how, because Pudge always plays defence. Before school started I played some pickup at this rink, and Pudge played defence the whole game. Of course, no one plays their position for too long in shinny — I guess you’ve played a few pickup games in your life?”

Hilton nodded, a slight smile creasing his features.

“So this is the thing. Once we got on the ice together we were practically unstoppable. It was totally bizarre. Pudge never played forward in his life, at least that’s what he told me after. And you wouldn’t necessarily think of him as a forward. He’s a stay-at-home defenceman, always headmanning the puck. I don’t think I’ve even seen him take a rush, or even try to. You should have seen him, though. He was all over the ice. He’s got a great shot, and with his size, he’s almost impossible to move from in front of the net. He’s fantastic in the corners, digging the puck out and centring it to Zachary and me. He must have scored four or five goals, and set me up for another four.”

“You were playing shinny on the weekend?” Hilton asked.

“That’s right.”

“Where?”

Charlie hesitated. What should he say? There was no backing down now.

“We played here,” he said.

“What time was the game? I didn’t know they had a regular shinny game on the weekend.”

“I’m not sure if it’s a regular game,” Charlie said.

“Okay. What time was the game?”

“I can’t remember exactly. I think it was in the morning — early in the morning.”

“As in six in the morning?”

“Not that early. It was around eight or nine. I’m not sure, but I think it was around then.”

Charlie’s mind was reeling. Hilton wasn’t buying into the pickup game — that was obvious. Why’d he even say that? All he had to do was come straight out and ask. Lying was the worst thing to do — and to be caught! This idea was headed straight for disaster. In fact, disaster was not going far enough. All he wanted to do was get out of that car and go home.

“We only have six defencemen on the team,” Hilton said. “Someone will have to move back. I’m not sure who could do it. I’d have to put some thought into it. If I’m not mistaken, Pudge has played with Thomas for a few years, both with a club team and on the grade-eight school team. I’d hate to split them up.”

Charlie was so relieved that he’d stopped asking about the invented pickup game, that he wasn’t too disappointed that Hilton didn’t like the idea.

“I appreciate that,” he said. “No big deal. I just wanted to ask, that’s all. If you don’t think it can work, then forget about it.”

“I didn’t say that. I just need to consider it a bit more. Why don’t you leave it with me, and we’ll see how it goes.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Have you checked this out with Pudge?” he asked
sharply.

Charlie was confused. Was he going to actually consider it, even after his ridiculous story about an early morning pickup game? He nodded slowly. “He’s all for it. We talked about it. He said he’d always played defence, but would move up if it helped the team. He thought it would be fun, playing forward, that is.”

“I was a forward back in my time,” Hilton said, “so I can understand that.” He laughed. “To be honest, I never could understand defencemen. How can you stay back all the time, waiting for the other team to attack? One mistake, and there’s a goal in the net. I could never do it. Too selfish, I guess!”

Charlie laughed also. “You could be talking about me too.”

Hilton looked at his watch. “You’d better get a move on,” he said. “Practice is in less than ten minutes, and you’ll be late if you don’t hustle.”

“No problem,” Charlie said.

He got out of the car and closed the door. After a few steps he stopped, came back, and opened the door.

“Thanks a lot, Coach,” he said, closing the door again and running off to the rink. He sprinted through the lobby towards the dressing rooms.

It was a miracle, but he had a feeling that things had somehow worked out. Hilton was certainly an interesting person. You never knew what he was thinking. If he would only give Pudge a try on the wing. Charlie had a feeling that it would only take one practice together to prove themselves.

Charlie barely made it onto the ice before Hilton blew his whistle and waved the players to centre.

“We’re going to work on some forechecking and offensive zone coverage today,” Hilton announced. “We can scrimmage a bit at the end, if we have time. Coach Tremblay couldn’t make it, so bear with me and try to listen. Some of this stuff is a bit technical, but it’s important, so let’s try to concentrate for the next half an hour.”

He held up a large whiteboard with rink markings on it, and invited all the players to kneel down in front of him. “This is how I’d like to pressure the other team on the forecheck. The hockey world calls it the left-wing lock.”

“What about the trap?” someone called out.

Hilton shook his head. “I don’t like the trap — and certainly not for high-schoolers. We’re going to play a more aggressive style. Anyway, listen up. The basic concept is simple. Look here.”

He rapidly sketched his forechecking scheme on the board.

“The
X
marks the puck, and we’re the
O
s. Assume the puck’s been dumped into this corner. The player closest to the puck, the right winger in this case, is the first forechecker and he pressures the puck in deep. The next player, usually the centre, plays up high, around the top of the circle, and moves to where the defenceman is most likely to pass it, usually up the boards or around the net. The two forecheckers take turns pressuring the puck, cycling the zone while the puck flips from side to side. The idea is to pressure the defence into passing early, so we can get a turnover inside the line.

“Meanwhile, the other three players spread out in a line across the ice in the neutral zone. They divide the ice into three equal zones, and each player is responsible for covering that zone, all the way back to his own net. The defencemen line up behind the two forecheckers, with the left winger next to them. It’s critical that these three players resist the temptation to go in deep. They must stay in the neutral zone, waiting for a turnover, clogging the middle, and trying to intercept any breakout passes.”

Hilton lowered the board and looked at his players. “I like this forechecking style because it forces defencemen to make quick choices, and if they make a mistake we have a good chance of getting the puck. The Detroit Red Wings made it famous in the mid-nineties, taking advantage of their forwards’ speed. I want to do the same, using our foot speed to break down the other team’s defence. Finally, while it’s aggressive, it does leave one winger back. If done right, we won’t have any three-on-twos or two-on-ones. We have to avoid those at all costs. So, any questions?”

No one put up a hand.

“Either you guys are absolutely brilliant, or no one understood a word I just said,” he laughed. “Let’s find out. To start, I want Jake’s line up. Give me Nick and Scott on defence. I’ll have the puck in the right corner, and we’ll go through it a few times, just to work on positioning. Everyone else pile onto the bench, and watch closely. We’ll switch it up, so everyone gets a turn.” He paused, and added, “Pudge, I want you up with Charlie’s line for this. Adam, you move back and play with Thomas.” He didn’t wait for any reaction, skating off with the puck to start the drill.

Charlie couldn’t believe it. Just like that and it was done. He skated over to Pudge.

“You’re amazing,” Pudge said. “I didn’t think he’d even give me a chance.”

“You have no idea how amazing this is. I sounded like a total spaz when I asked him. I started telling him about how we played together on the weekend.”

“We never played together.”

“I know — and I think he knows that too. That’s why it’s so bizarre. I thought for sure he’d say no. But then as I left he said he’d consider it. I guess he did.”

Zachary joined them on the bench. “You’re quite the general manager,” he said to Charlie, pointing to Pudge. “I didn’t know you were such a powerful guy.”

“You’d better pass me the puck, or you’ll be watching from the press box,” Charlie said.

“I’ve always wanted to sit up there. You can see the whole ice.”

Hilton gave his whistle a sharp blow.

“Okay, guys. Line up how I showed you. Jake you move in a bit, and Matt, I want you over closer to the middle. Liam, you come closer to me. Remember, your job is to get me to pass the puck quickly — you don’t want me to have the time to get a good look.”

For the next thirty minutes the team practised their forechecking. It was a little boring at times, especially since Hilton blew his whistle almost every five seconds to point out mistakes and explain how to do it better. Charlie loved it, though. Hilton had a way of making the most technical aspects of hockey seem simple. It was always fun to learn something new, especially when it made you a better player.

Eventually, Hilton blew his whistle and pointed at centre. “Let’s have a scrimmage, and try to forecheck like we’ve just practised. You all look like you could use some action. Jake and Charlie, your lines will start. Thomas and Adam, you’re on Charlie’s team, and Scott and Nick,
you’re with Jake.”

The puck was dropped, and soon they were racing around the ice, forechecking scheme completely forgotten. Hilton reminded them a few times about it, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. After a while he gave up and let the players enjoy themselves.

Pudge acquitted himself fairly well in his new position, encouraged by Charlie’s incessant praise. He slapped Pudge’s shin pads after every shift, and he made a great show of celebrating when Pudge scored a goal. Charlie and he had come down on a two-on-one. Charlie had faked a move outside, and then slid the puck between the defenceman’s feet to Pudge, who fired the puck into the top right corner, just over the goalie’s blocker.

Charlie was relieved to see that by the end of scrimmage Zachary had accepted Pudge. Pudge’s performance seemed to have won him over, because he overheard Zachary explaining some new plays to Pudge, the pair sounding as if they’d been linemates for years.

The sound of the Zamboni firing up announced the end of practice. A few of the more energetic players, Charlie included, took some final laps, enjoying the chance to skate full out. Only the driver honking his horn, combined with two loud whistle blows from Hilton, convinced them to get off.

Hilton followed them to the dressing room. He knocked on the door to get the players’ attention. “Gentlemen, before you get changed, we need to take care of some business. It has become a tradition at Terrence Falls to hold an assembly with the entire school before the
tournament and announce the members of the hockey teams. Part of that tradition is to name the team captains and assistants. So if we don’t want to break with tradition, we need to pick some, and we may as well do it now.”

A feeling of tension had entered the room, and the guys looked around nervously at each other.

“I’m going to open the floor to nominations. Please don’t just call out a name. Give it some thought. Your captain must be someone you respect both as a player and a person. It doesn’t have to be the best player, or the guy who scores the most goals. It’s someone you feel you can trust. Someone you want to act as a go-between, between you and me, and also someone you feel comfortable talking to. The second and third runner-ups in the vote will be the assistant captains. And as far as I know, no one’s being sentenced to death, so you can all relax.”

That broke up the tension, and everyone laughed.

“We’ll do it this way. Call out a candidate and I’ll write the name down on this board. The vote will be by secret ballot, so don’t worry about having to vote in front of everyone.” He gave one of the players a cardboard box filled with small slips of paper and a bunch of pens. “Take a pen and one slip of paper before we start.”

The players passed the box around. Charlie took his and looked around the room. He didn’t know the grade ten players too well. Among them, Ethan Mitchell, a defenceman, seemed like a good guy. Among the grade nines, he guessed Jake had the best chance of being captain. Tough to say about assistants. Matt and Thomas were good players and fairly outgoing. He certainly wasn’t
a Thomas fan. Matt, on the other hand, hadn’t bothered him recently, at least not since their fight. Charlie had even grown to admire his determination and spirit on the ice. Matt was more of a team player than he’d given him credit for.

“It looks like we’re all ready,” Hilton said. “You’ve also had a minute or so to consider your choices. Before we start, however, I want to emphasize that this is no big deal. It’s not a popularity contest, or any judgement about your hockey skills. If you don’t get nominated, or if you get nominated but not chosen, please do not take it personally. Teams need leaders, which is why we’re doing this, but every player on the team is important. There’ll be no special privileges for the captain or the assistants, I can promise you that.” He took a deep breath. “All right! Enough with the preliminaries. Let’s have some nominations.”

Liam held up his hand first. “I nominate Jake.”

Hilton nodded. “Anyone else?”

“I nominate Thomas,” Matt called out.

“Can defencemen be captain?” Jake wisecracked.

“I think so,” Hilton replied.

“I nominate Ethan,” another player said.

“I nominate Craig.”

The room went quiet after that. No one seemed willing to put forward another name.

Finally Pudge’s hand shot up.

“I nominate Charlie Joyce,” he said, in a loud voice. That caught everyone’s attention. Jake’s face clouded over. He glared menacingly at Pudge.

“Any more nominations?” Hilton asked.

The room was silent. “Okay, the nominations are closed,” he said, finally. “List three names in order of preference. The player you want to be captain is number one, and the others are your choice to be assistants.”

The players quickly wrote down their choices and dropped the slips of paper back into the cardboard box.

“I’ll count these up tonight, and you’ll find out in two days at the assembly.” Hilton nodded to his players and left the room.

Charlie sat in disbelief. Pudge’s nomination shocked and embarrassed him. He saw the other players looking over at him, and then turning away. They were obviously also surprised. He really wished Pudge hadn’t done that. It’s not that he didn’t appreciate it — Pudge was probably just trying to be nice. But it wasn’t the kind of attention he needed right now. He undressed as quickly as he could, hoping to get out of there before anyone asked him about the vote. He didn’t even bother drying his skates before he zipped his bag, grabbed his sticks and left the dressing room.

Charlie fretted all the way home. He’d been tempted to withdraw his name right then and there, although Hilton might have thought that kind of weird. He slapped his stick on the sidewalk. It had happened so fast. It was over before he knew it. Jake and his friends were going to be ten times worse than usual after this.

He saw his house up ahead. Why did Pudge do that? He felt his anger rise — then, curiously, it went away. He shouldn’t blame Pudge. How can you get mad at a guy
who nominates you for captain? And besides, he had to admit that deep down it was nice to know that at least one player on the team thought him worthy — and nominating a guy Jake hated was a bold move. He hadn’t thought that Pudge had the guts to challenge Jake so openly.

Charlie tossed his equipment into the garage. Obviously, there was no sense worrying about it. Anyway, he had an even more pressing problem — homework! He had enough assignments to sink a ship, and had barely gotten started on any of them.