Page 23 of An Irresistible Force (Vancouver Vice)

“You’re not dumb,” I reassured her. Cynthia was smart, but her brother had been genius-smart and a top scholar. It was tough to follow in his tracks. And Josephine had been chosen for some national science competition when I knew her. But we all had family roles; Greg was the son, so he got tagged to work in the family forest products business and take over the business mantle, even though I was better suited to corporate life.

As we stood to leave, I impulsively hugged Cynthia. She seemed so vulnerable under her perfectly polished exterior. Maybe neither of us was as grown up as we tried to appear. I was surprised by the intensity of the hug I got in return.

“It’s great to see you again, Cynnie.”

She was beaming. “I’m so glad you’re back, Amanda. I missed my best friend.”

10

Play By Play

Chris

Amanda stormedinto my office first thing on Monday. I was still recovering from a weekend up at Whistler, and her energetic demands weren’t exactly welcome.

“Finally, you’re here. I’ve been waiting. I have a scoop for you!” She looked really excited.

“A scoop? Chocolate or vanilla?” “Scoop” was typical of Amanda’s old-fashioned vocabulary, and she was vanilla all the way.

She ignored my joke, or more likely, she had no sense of humour. “You know our high scorer, Eric Fairburn?”

I nodded. I’d taken a good look at the roster while going over those contracts. Couldn’t judge a player’s worth without seeing his stats.

“He’s getting interest from an NHL team.”

“How do you know this?”

She pinched her lips together. “Well, I can’t tell you. Someone who knows someone who knows.”

“That seems pretty definite.” I had a sip of java. While this facility lacked in every way, the office coffee was decent.

“Well, what are you going to do about it? Can you stop them? It would be a terrible thing if we lost our top scorer.”

“Okay, Amanda, calm down. Two things. First off, the AHL is a developmental league. That means the purpose of the league—beyond entertaining fans—is to get players ready for the NHL. So we can’t ‘stop them’ because then nobody would want to play for us.” Not that good players were knocking down the doors here anyway.

“Oh.” She plunked down in the crappy chair and it creaked loudly. “What’s the second thing?”

“The second thing is that the Vice are so bad that I highly doubt that anyone is watching the games. In fact, the only scouts there are selling cookies.” I snickered. That was a pretty good joke for this early in the morning.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s Girl Guides who sell the cookies. Boy Scouts help people cross the street, if we’re using clichés.”

I shrugged. It was still a good joke if you didn’t think too hard.

“Are you going to all our games?” she asked.

“Ummm, not all.” As in none.

“Why not?”

“Because I know hockey, so I don’t have to go to every single game to figure out what’s wrong with the Vice.” I wasn’t going to mention that going to hockey games was stressful for me. The last time I’d been to a game, it was the Millionaires’ home opener.

“There’s nothing wrong with the Vice that some good marketing can’t fix,” she declared. “Everything we’ve done before has been bush league.”

I blew out a breath. Well, I had promised to tell her the truth. “Marketing cannot fix a hockey team’s attendance problem. There’s only one way to attract crowds—winning.”

“Really? What if we create a fun in-game experience?”

“Everything you’re talking about is bells and whistles. What people want is a team they can feel a part of, and nobody wants to identify with a loser. You don’t even have to win a lot of games—fans are okay with a young team that stumbles sometimes. If there’s a vision for the team and improvement, that can be enough.”

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