Page 133 of Changing the Playbook
The puck drops, and muscle memory takes over. My body knows what to do even when my soul is checked out. Read the play. Angle the forwards. Keep my stick active. Put myself where I need to be. But I’m watching someone else pilot my body, some other Mike Altman.
Halfway through the first, I thread a perfect pass through the neutral zone. Pure instinct. I see Maine breaking before he even knows he’s going to, and the puck finds his tape, magnetized. He dekes the goalie—a little shoulder fake that sells beautifully—and buries it top shelf.
The arena explodes. My linemates crash into me, gloves pounding my helmet hard enough to ring my bell. But as they holler and shout in my ear, I just nod. Then I skate to the bench, sit down, breathe and… feel nothing. This should feel good. This should feel like everything.
But it feels like absolutely nothing.
A few minutes later, I read a two-on-one perfectly, sliding into the passing lane at exactly the right angle. The puck deflects harmlessly into the corner. Textbook defensive play. The kind that makes highlight reels and gets scouts scribbling notes about “high hockey IQ” and “positional awareness.”
Still nothing.
Well, not entirely true.
I feel the weight of my decision pressing on my chest.
I feel Sophie’s tears, the way she saidpleaselike it physically hurt?—
The hit comes out of nowhere.
The defenseman catches me with my head in the clouds and my feet in cement, shoulder driving through my chest. The icerushes up with all the tenderness of a concrete kiss, air exploding from my lungs in a whoosh that would be embarrassing if I hadn’t just had my brain and body rocked.
“Shit, Mike, you OK?” Schmidt’s face hovers above me, concern creasing his perpetually sunburned forehead.
I push myself up, ribs singing protest. “Peachy.”
But I’m not peachy. Haven’t been peachy since I left Sophie’s apartment with her ultimatum ringing in my ears. As I head to the bench and the trainer starts prodding at my ribs—fingers finding every tender spot with sadistic precision—I wonder why I’m even here tonight.
What’s the point of playing out this last game?
Coach leans over, breath minting the air between us. “You need to sit?”
“No.” The word comes out sharp. “I’m good.”
He studies me for a heartbeat, then nods and calls for a line change. Just like that, I’m over the boards again, but my timing’s off even more now. Everything’s a half-second behind. I feel sluggish. On the backcheck, I coast when I should drive hard, letting my man drift into the slot unchecked.
The pass is inevitable.
The shot follows.
The red light blinks on, like hockey’s middle finger.
As the line heads to the bench, Maine’s stick meets the boards in an unhappy marriage. The crack echoes through our bench, but I can’t even muster that much emotion. Instead, I just sink onto the bench and marinate in the disappointment radiating from my teammates. It’s almost visible, shimmering off them.
Another shift. Another goal against. This one’s not directly my fault, but I’m not helping either. And by the time the buzzer sounds for intermission, we’re down 3–1, and the crowd’sexcitement has soured. I follow my teammates down the tunnel, each step heavier than the last.
The locker room greets us with morgue-like warmth.
Guys slump on benches, staring at nothing. The usual chatter—jokes to break tension, chirps to keep things light—is as extinct as the dinosaurs. There’s nothing but heavy breathing and the perfume of athletic failure: sweat, gear funk, and crushed dreams.
Coach storms in, face thunderous. “What the hell was that? Where’s the hustle? Where’s the heart? Where’s the team I’ve been coaching all season?”
He dissects our failures with surgical precision. Words blur together—lazy backcheckandmental mistakesandheads up your asses—but they slide off me, meaningless. Because why would they matter? I’m done after another two periods, so what’s the point?
“We’re better than this!” Coach finishes, smacking the whiteboard hard enough to make the markers jump. “Figure it out!”
He storms out, leaving silence thick enough to choke on.
I sit in my stall, studying my skates. Around me, guys attempt resurrection. Rook cracks jokes that land badly. Cooper rewraps his stick with focused intensity. Maine keeps shooting me looks, wanting to say something but unable to find the words.
