Page 3 of Snowballed

“Hey, Noah.” She holds up the bags. “I got the cutest shoes. And two summer tops. I love the boutiques here.”

“Is there any place on earth you don’t love shopping?” I tease her. I feel so good, floating and free.

“True dat,” Chi agrees. “So, what did that coach want?”

“He asked me to transfer to Burlington for my grad year. To play hockey there.”

“Can you even do that? I thought you had to redshirt one season if you changed colleges.” Chi is in the women’s hockey program at ASU too.

“You can do it if you’re going to grad school,” I explain.

“Poor guy. What did he say when you turned him down?” She’s not really paying attention to our conversation because there’s a window display calling out to her.

“I didn’t say no.”

Chi points to a mannequin. “Do you think that color would look good on—wait, what did you say?”

Now I have her attention. “I told him I’d go to Burlington.”

Her eyes and her mouth go round. “What? Why would you do that?”

“I feel like I need a change.” My explanation sounds lame, but it’s all I have. I can’t explain why—for the first time in my life—I’ve made a decision on intuition. Instead of weighing the pros and cons like a judge and getting opinions and approvals, I just did something that felt right. Yeah, it’s completely out of character. I’m the last person to be spontaneous.

Chi stares at me in astonishment. We’re in the lobby of the Hotel Germaine now. It’s a classy hotel—my mother likes to travel first class. The staff smoothly greets us in English and French.

We get into the elevator, and Chi sighs. “You know that Dad is not going to be happy, right?”

I swallow. Suddenly, all the consequences of my decision rise before me: the logistics of moving to Vermont, establishing myself on a new team, and my parents’ reactions. My good vibes burst like a pricked balloon.

Chi turns out to be wrong. Dad is more than unhappy. He is incandescently furious.

I wait until after our celebratory dinner at some high-end restaurant. Until after Adam takes off to meet up with some hockey buddies, all of them excited because the drinking age is eighteen in Montreal. Until after Chi has a chance to disappear into her room. Then I deliver my news in my parents’ suite.

At first, my dad only stares at me. Then I notice the flush of color moving up his neck. Oh shit.

“Are you out of your mind?” he asks. “Why would you give up on your college hockey career to move to the middle of nowhere on a team you know nothing about?”

When he’s mad, he can’t sit still. He rises to his full 6’4”.

During his playing days, my dad was a feared defenseman. He wasn’t a fighter, but he had an unpredictable mean streak. He would crosscheck, spear, and hack at any opponent who tried to set up in front of his net. Meanness is a quality I lack, as my father has pointed out many times.

That meanness is radiating from him now. He paces the room in pissed off silence. Then he returns to loom over me.

“After everything I’ve done for your hockey career, you’re leaving? Arizona needs you. What’s Andy going to do without his best d-man back there?”

“It’ll mean more playing time for guys like Heely and Binder, or maybe some of the freshmen,” I say. College hockey is like that; the roster changes every year as guys come and go. The team will miss Adam a lot more than me.

“What about my connections? I can still get guys out to see you play. It’s your last chance to get interest from NHL clubs.”

“That train left the station a long time ago.” Damn it, why do we have to keep going over this? Late-developing college players sign with teams after graduating, but I’ve never had an offer. Yet my father keeps insisting that the next season will be different. “Look, Dad, Adam’s been drafted now. Can’t you just be happy that you’ve got one son who’s going to play in the NHL?”

“You could still play pro hockey. Start in the ECHL and work your way up,” he says. But how often does that happen? Maybe a handful of players ever made it through the ECHL to the AHL and then up to the NHL. Besides, the ECHL is a brutal league. As a solid but undersized defenseman, I’d get hit a lot. And the ECHL means fights, and I’m not a fighter.

“Noah.” My mother’s voice is calm. She leaves the hockey stuff to my dad. “This seems like a very unconsidered decision on your part. What’s their grad school like?” School is important to her. She’s the one who encouraged me to go to graduate school when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after my arts degree. My dad is the one who saw grad school as one more kick at the hockey can.

“It’s good. The Masters of Education will give me a chance to do specialized studies in sports instruction.” I’d looked over the curriculum when Coach Keller first contacted me last spring, and it’s a decent one. At least as good as the one at Arizona State. Besides, college athletes already have a full plate without adding tough course loads.

My mother shakes her head. “You haven’t even looked into accommodations in Vermont. You and Adam were supposed to share our townhouse next year. This decision is going to cause a lot of extra work for me.”

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