“... and Johansen is breaking up the left flank there, and… a good pass from Bealey! She’s through, she shoots!... and it’s saved by Ju-Gong, and there goes the whistle. Well, it was almost at least a defiant end to a four nothing defeat of the Scarecrows by the Citadels, but in the end they whimpered and gave up, folks. I think the only fear that’s going to be brought is to the locker room, judging by the look on their captain’s face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a captain look so obviously frustrated!”
Alexa groaned, turning off the stream of the game and setting the tablet to the side. She held her head in her hands for a moment, letting out a heavy sigh as she picked the tablet back up, checking the time. Almost six am, a good time to give up on watching tape and get breakfast, instead.
Alexa moved into the kitchenette of her small, cheap apartment, rummaging about through the cabinet. Out of cereal, but she still had protein powder, at least. Next she checked the fridge, finding no eggs, barely any milk, two slices of bread and just enough butter to maybe have toast. Luckily, it was easy to prepare as she got ready for the rest of the day, and it was just as easy to rapidly eat the toast, before attaching her phone to a holder on her arm and heading out for a jog. Even on a day off, there was no such thing as a day off.
She had been lucky enough to find an apartment she could afford in western Saint Louis, just minutes from Forest Park, a large green space near the edge of the city proper. The park had quickly become her retreat from life, a place to clear her mind with a jog, or just destress in general. It was more than just a park to go running in after all, though that was what she was doing today; it had a huge open air skating rink, a planetarium, multiple theaters, sports fields, and best of all… the zoo.
Six fifteen in the morning was a bit early for any of those things to be open, though, as Alexa passed into the park. She jogged in place for a moment, starting up a podcast on her earbuds as she began a slow but steady pace through the park.
“Hey listeners, welcome to another weekly episode of Future Hockey, the podcast where we tell you all about… the present of hockey,” the host of the show began to speak over soft music, laughing slightly. “Don’t worry, we get some future in there too. I’m Dan Nerosi, and I’ve got Billy Kean and Kim Smith with me, as per usual.”
“Hey Dan,” another man, who must have been Billy, spoke. “Excited to get into today’s topics, I think we have some fun ones on the schedule.”
“Right, we do,” Dan’s voice sounded over Alexa’s speakers as she passed an older couple on a morning walk. “We’ll be talking about the upcoming playoffs in both the SHL and the J, discussing the potential lottery teams for the SHL draft, and reflecting on the season as it’s unfolded so far, here about three quarters through.”
“And a big part of that is that we’ll be doing a bit of a re-draft for the J, right?” A woman, presumably Kim, said. “After all, you can’t really redo the SHL draft right away, you have to wait for those players to reach the top level, but you can get into the J draftees right away.”
“I’m pretty excited for that one, honestly,” Billy said as Alexa took a brief moment to jog in place on a bridge, watching a stream flow past underneath. “I love going back and taking a look at that. See who already looks like a smashing success and all that!”
“Well, no reason to delay then,” Dan said as Alexa started moving forward again. “And we might as well take it from the top, I think. The overall number one pick was… Anna Skovgaard, to the Quebec City Citadelles.”
“Right, an easy consensus number one going into the draft. Basically everyone who follows youth hockey even a little bit had her pegged as a sure fire number one, even more when the lottery fell in such a way as to give Quebec City the first overall,” Kim said. “Anna looks like a natural fit to replace some of their players going to the SHL.”
“Of course, she’s not first line, but on a team with Frøya and Sonja Solberg, plus players like Céleste Desjardins, that's actually a good thing,” Billy said. “It’s an amazing chance to learn from some of the most promising players of the future, more even than I’ve listed here.”
“But we want to talk about how she’s doing, so let’s take a look at some stats,” as Dan spoke again, Alexa ran by a small fountain on the pond. For a moment, she was distracted by it, she’d already taken to coming by every time she could. Something about it was calming to her, and she was thankful for that right now.
“... and so, the stat that really stands out to me the most is twenty eight assists,” the podcast host continued as Alexa zoned back in, continuing her run. “But, honestly, Skovgaard has been good all over. She’s just a slight bit short of that point per game mark, but considering her hits and TA/GA ratio, I think we can say her defense makes up for that.”
“I’m very impressed by her shooting percentage. Over fifteen percent is pretty good, even for experienced forwards. I would like to see her shoot more often, though,” Kim added. “It clearly works for the team, however.”
“Right, and given all that, I think, if the draft was done today, after so much of the season, I’d take Anna Skovgaard first overall again,” Billy chimed in. “She’s a fantastic player with amazing ability already and even more upside, a clear and obvious future generational player in the SHL, and will be more than ready to step into the center spot when Frøya vacates it.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Dan added. “She also seems like she’s got a good head on her shoulders, the right attitude.”
“That means we’re in consensus, then,” Kim said. “Anna Skovgaard was the right first overall pick. Let’s move on, next up is the second overall pick, Alexa Johansen, in Saint Louis.”
“For a little background, Saint Louis originally had no picks in the first round, and sent a decent pick haul, including future firsts, to Carolina, in order to jump all the way up to second overall. It was a pretty huge shock on draft day as it went down, and even more when they announced a relative unknown in Alexa Johansen as their pick,” Dan laid out the background.
“And looking at it now, forty nine games into the season,” Billy spoke next, the round table format continuing as Alexa began to pass more people entering the park. “... well, we were just praising the heck out of Skovgaard, but…”
“It’s a lot harder here, honestly,” Kim jumped back in. “We’re looking at 11 goals and 13 assists for twenty four points, just under a half a point a game, on a shooting percentage of ten point seven eight, and a TA/GA of point three nine. She does have twelve blocks, which is actually more than Skovgaard, but also about twenty less hits, and a much worse DGR overall.”
“The stats don’t look great for Johansen, no, I have to agree. She’s not terrible, and I don’t want anyone to think we think that,” Dan mentioned. “But, on the ice, she doesn’t seem to be playing like a second overall pick. There are a few other aspects of this, though, we should look at, because Alexa has one of the most interesting situations of all the rookies from this draft.”
“You mean how she’s the team’s captain?” Billy asked.
“And how the entire team is basically rebuilding from nothing,” Kim said. “You can allow, I think, some room for that for sure. Saint Louis has a lot of rookies, from the draft and the waiver wire, too. There’s going to be a lot of growing pains, it’s the exact opposite of Anna Skovgaard, right, where she’s got a bunch of players with two or three seasons already under the belt to point her the right direction, to take the pressure off. Alexa Johansen doesn’t really have much in that way, though, and after being elected captain, there’s a chance she might feel like she can’t use that kind of resource even if it’s out there.”
“I get that,” Billy said, just as Alexa began the curve back to the park entrance. “But I don’t entirely buy it, to be honest. The whole team is struggling, we all knew they would struggle, but she wasn’t drafted second overall to struggle. She was drafted second overall to set a tone, to guide this team. She went out and wrote a player’s tribune article about it! About how she was going to be the face of a whole new team! But then, a couple nights ago, you see her at the end of a blowout loss and she’s looking like she hates everyone, like she’s going to go into that locker room and tear everyone to shreds, not pick them up. And her on ice play just isn’t good enough to make up for a bad attitude.”
“To be honest, I agree with Billy,” Dan said as Alexa stopped to let a woman with a pram go in the opposite direction. “She isn’t a bad player, I’ll insist on that. I think she has potential, still, but it’s been a rough start, and I don’t think she’s been showing she’s worth that second overall pick so far. Especially not when it came at such a premium. We can’t see the behind the scenes, but we can kind of figure out some stuff from the way she acts when the eyes are on her, and I don’t like the looks she’s been giving so far at all.”
“Honestly, I think you might be holding a moment of frustration more against her than is fair,” Kim said. “But I actually agree I wouldn’t take her second overall if the draft was today, and to be honest I wouldn’t have at the actual draft, either. Her background is more roller hockey than ice hockey, which might explain some of my issues with her, like how she’s got twenty seven penalties in minutes already, on fifty two hits. That’s just over a minute’s penalty for every hit she dishes out, or every other hit is a penalty of some kind. And that reflects across her defense as a whole, it’s just… bad. She’s bad at defense and she isn’t scoring points to make up for it. Her PDO is all the way down at ninety five point eight, some of which can be excused by a bad team, but she’s supposed to be their guiding light and instead she’s just… not.”
“So if we all agree she’s not second overall material, where do we think she should go?” Dan asked.
“I’d say still first round, but later on, to a more stable team. Colorado would have given her a similar place to grow as Anna Skovgaard, and I wonder if that completely changes this conversation. But I think Anchorage would have been good, at eighth overall, or maybe with Quebec’s second pick, at twelfth,” Kim opined.
“I drop her right out of the first round. This is a stacked draft class, especially at the top, and I think there’s enough there to mean she doesn’t inherently have it,” Billy said. “Maybe the second round, to Carolina, at twenty sixth? Or as one of Vancouver’s three picks that round.”
“I think the second Quebec pick would have been really good for both sides,” Dan’s opinion came over the earbuds right as Alexa could see the entry gate coming into view again. “According to some media reports, she’s met the Solberg twins before, and they communicate on occasion, so she would have had preestablished relationships, and just like Frøya has clearly taken Anna under her wing, Sonja would have done wonders as Alexa’s mentor, in my opinion. But we’ll have to see if Saint Louis can get it figured out here, maybe there’s something more from Alexa yet. I hope so, she's still an exciting prospect. So, next, we go to Kelowna Knights and Jennifer Huh…”
Alexa pulled out her earbuds, turning off the podcast at that point. She’d reached the park gate, and while usually she might have thought about going out with her day, she instead headed straight home this time, in just a few more minutes falling on her bed in her tiny, shitty apartment, staring at her phone. For a moment, she thought about opening Chirper, but she knew that all it would take was a single bad chirp right now and her phone might get thrown. It was a good thing it didn’t, since it started to vibrate right about then.
Alexa answered it without even seeing who was calling. “Hey. Alexa Johansen. Who is it?”
“Hey Alexa,” an all too familiar European accent responded. There was no mistaking which two people it could have been, but based on the gentle tone of voice rather than a confident one, it was rather obvious who was on the other side of the line. “I couldn’t help but notice your frustration as I was going over the tape… I know it’s probably not my place to ask, especially not after last night, but I wanted to check up on you. Is this a good time?”
“I guess,” Alexa replied, sitting up and then laying back down again. “But if… ugh, nevermind, that would be a Sonja call.”
“I’m not here to gloat. I’m an open ear willing to listen to frustrations. Heck, I’m sure Sonja as much as she loves to tease you would know better than to mock you right now. So… I know there’s things you need to let out. If you want to, go for it. Let it all out,” Frøya continued, knowing that internalizing all these frustrations would only lead to worse play in the long run.
“Shit sucks,” Alexa complained. “I mean, I knew the team was going to struggle, I honestly am proud of us! I’m proud of my teammates! But I suck! My… ugh, I don’t even want to go over my stats. Did you listen to today’s Future Hockey episode?”
“I was going to, but after they went over second overall, I had something a bit more important to do than listen to the rest of those opinions.” Over a standard phone call, the two would never be able to share a visual, but the wink was almost felt over the other side of the line. “I wouldn’t let them get to you. St. Louis didn’t pick you for the immediate impact on the ice. You KNOW they picked you for the immediate impact in the locker room. You’ve got a strong personality. One that binds people together. Don’t let them take that away from you.”
“But..” Alexa was quiet for a moment, organizing her thoughts. “... at some point, failure on the ice will lead to unhappiness in the locker room. Maybe not right away, but I’ve seen it happen to other roller hockey teams as I was getting serious, even happened to one of our rivals for my ice team. And I’m not even helping very much on the ice. I know my stats, FroYo, they’re not great, but a single game winning goal feels like far too little for a captain.”
“Tell me Alexa… what’s the mentality in the room looking like right now? Is the team looking forward to a lottery pick? Is the team looking over their mistakes with a burning desire to improve? Are you cherishing every single victory, and learning from every loss? Burning the memory of defeat in your mind everytime it happens?” Frøya, her tone clearly sounding like she’s speaking those last bits from experience.
“There’s a lot of defeats to burn in the mind, they blur together,” Alexa admitted. “Every victory is celebrated. No offense, but the two over you guys were especially so. I think everyone is looking forward to the future, but it’s not hard to see where we could use a win soon. That’s not an indictment of the team, I just think they’re getting really sick of hearing me say ‘this is a building season, we just need to improve for next year.’ I’m getting tired of saying it!”
Frøya laughed as Alexa mentioned that the two wins over Québec City were celebrated a lot, though went back to being serious as she was going to speak, “If they’re starting to blur, you’re starting to lose sight of what your goal is. I know it’s hard to deal with constant loss after loss, but if you can focus your mind on every little thing that needs improvement, starting with the bigger things of course, your game will improve dramatically over the course of the season. I remember every loss Detroit handed us over these past two years like the back of my mind. What I needed to work on, what I needed to do to make it not happen again. It’s tough… it takes time, but if you manage that, I know you of all people will explode onto the scene with the potential you have. You don’t need to tell the team that this is a building season. That you need to improve for the next year. Find what you think you need to work on and build on that for the next game. For the next shift. For the next shot. Every moment is an opportunity to learn from your mistakes so etch them all in your mind and if you’re not sure what you did wrong, that’s when you go to your coach and ask for more help. Standard drills only do so much.”
“I have been,” Alexa sighed into the phone. “I get to training first, I leave training last. I speak with the coaches after every practice and every game. You’re not wrong, I’m losing sight of some of my short term goals. I wanted to challenge for rookie of the year at the start! Now I just don’t see it. Not that I’m giving up, but… I wonder if I should set goals closer to reality. Do our best in the playoffs. Come back next year with a sharper shot. Learn to pick up less penalties…”
“I know they say shoot for the moon so that you land among the stars, but have you ever wondered why you can’t use the stars to make it to the moon in the first place? Bar the science of course, just think about the philosophy of it.” Frøya said, quickly correcting herself since she knew Alexa would correct her if she didn’t do so herself. “You said you wanted to practice getting a sharper shot, learning to pick up less penalties.Any other short term goals like that come to mind? Every little thing that you can pick up on to improve. Season isn’t over yet. Rookie of the year might be a pipe dream, but you can certainly look at it with something smaller. They announce rookies of the month don’t they? Players of the week? Improve the little things and you might not even realize it but you’ll be named for those sorts of things. Rookie of the year is too long term. Focus on the here and now.”
“That's the plan,” Alexa groaned. “... can I admit something to you?”
“Of course, Alexa. I did tell you I was here to listen, didn't I?” Frøya replied without hesitation.
“I don't want to be the reason Saint Louis's rebuild and re-everything gets set back,” Alexa said. “The team gave up a good amount to get me, and I'm afraid to let them down.”
“Live with the reality that the possibility is there. You are the one in the driver’s seat to change it though. You’re starting from a lot further back than most of the players in the league though. Most of us started playing hockey in diapers. You didn’t exactly have that opportunity. You’re going to have to work harder than a lot of us, but I do believe that you’ll be able to, especially after the SHL draft, learn and improve so much that the slump you’re going through right now won’t even be remembered.”
“Gee, FroYo, maybe you should become a sports shrink when you retire,” Alexa replied, a little bit of her usual fire returning. “... but thanks, really. You should probably go before Sonja gets on the line and starts bragging.”
“I guess a gentle nature might help in that field a little bit, huh? And yeah yeah, I gotta get going, the team is wondering where the hell I am for practice. I can’t let up and let them down. I know you’d probably think the same. Good luck out there. Except against us, I don’t think last night was enough payback. Get ready.”
“Yeah, sure, we'll beat you next time, too,” Alexa replied. “Have a good practice, FroYo. Talk to you later,” she added, hanging up the phone.
“... I think I'll take a nap first, then get into it so no one doubts me again,” she mumbled to herself, setting her phone aside.
If the Future Hockey podcast thinks Alexa should have gone late in the 2nd round, then no way they think Max should have been drafted at all lol. Bunch of amateurs on the mic over there! Nice read!
02-25-2024, 09:30 AMxjoverax Wrote: If the Future Hockey podcast thinks Alexa should have gone late in the 2nd round, then no way they think Max should have been drafted at all lol. Bunch of amateurs on the mic over there! Nice read!
cake307
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