02-25-2020, 01:58 AM
Rookie Bonus Media 2 - 1108 words - Ready for Grading
“Hey Lily, how long are you going to stay on that ice? Until it melts?”
If you have to.
Skate to the closer blue line, stop. Go back and touch the end of the boards. Skate hard to the center red line. Stop, immediately start going back to the end boards. Go as hard as you can to the other end of the rink. Touch the boards, and go back to where you started. Check the time on the stopwatch.
Too slow. You have to get faster. You won’t let Wagner turnstile you again if you see each other in the playoffs.
Puck-handling drills. Over one gate, under another. Around the mini cones - four ways, and then backwards. One hundred juggles. Puck to skate to stick to skate. Backheel pass. No look pass. Saucers over garbage cans, zambonis, Bob the janitor - he didn’t like that one too much - and over random sticks on the ice.
You have to get those passes on the tape. There were so many blown chances in the last game.
“Hey Lils, that’s enough. You’re going to burn yourself out. Knock it off for the day and let’s go for dinner.”
That’s Luke. You guess he has a point.
“We’re going to go out and celebrate winning the Laurifer Cup - that’s really quite the achievement for a young team like ours.”
Dinner was great - the guys were toasting Jmac NCheese for scoring the game winning goal in the very last regular season game with 12 seconds to go - and riding off the high of a three-win streak. It was a worthy goal, and you raise your glass to toast. Then, you start ribbing Luke about losing both of the fights that he’d been in. Hammarberg had four inches and fifteen pounds on Luke, but that didn’t mean that Luke could have done better. The other guys chime in - making rude comments about teaching Luke the right technique to punch someone, and how to not fall on his ass while trying to grapple another player. You smile, but you’re thinking about something else.
The playoffs. They’re starting in just a few days and you’re worried. Worried that you’re not good enough. That you’re going to let the team down, that you’re going to let that goal that was going to break the camel’s back through. You have nightmares about the puck deflecting off your skate, your stick, your shin - heck even your nose- and scoring on your own net to end the series. End your team’s run for the season.
This has been a miracle season so far - a team, mostly of rookies, achieving first place in the league, is almost unheard of. You’re proud to have been part of it. To have gone this far, in your first season… you feel like leaving home was worth it. But it’s not over yet; there’s still a lot of games to go through (you hope) and a lot of hockey yet to be played.
Cal, Kaarlo and Khabib seem unphased by it. The second year guys like Guy, Luke and JMac seem mostly cool, but you can kind of tell they’re excited for playoffs to start. This year, they said, the Falcons were going to go deep. That we had a chance to go all the way. You imagine it in your head, lifting the cup on the ice and the roaring crowd, as confetti falls and your teammates forming a giant pile of bodies. That would be nice.
“Don’t go all dreamy on us now, Lils. Stay loose but stay focused - we don’t know who we’re facing just yet.” Kaarlo with solid advice. You try to tap into that Scandinavian reserve that all players from Sweden are supposed to have, but you find it hard, since this is all new to you. You end up settling for a bit of a fidget as you try to think of your next opponent.
Halifax? They have a pretty deadly first line in Trevino, Cheezy and Kayhall. Abel Skinner is no joke either. Their second line is good too… but you’re pretty sure the Falcons can beat their bottom six. Reid, Freddy, Burlok and Paddy would feast on that matchup. The Falcons have them beat on defense too, you think, outside of Skinner.
Kelowna? Scary top six. You might have your hands full with that one. And their top four of Zhernov, Vessot, Nystrom and Scianna are studs. That would be a tough series for sure, you’d have to make sure your bottom six can outwork theirs. You’d have to go up against Noah Nystrom… that would definitely be interesting, as you remember playing in the World Juniors as teammates.
Newfoundland has a pretty strong powerplay. The Falcons have to stay out of the penalty box against them, and you hope that Cal, Karlo and Luke can break open their defensive structure that can really limit shots against their goalie, who hasn’t been having a great season. You just need to put shots on the net and make Vassallo work hard.
Anchorage has an even deadlier powerplay. Bischoff and van der Heijden are weapons. Wang is a huge dick, but he can score. Their defensive structure is weak though, and you think the team can exploit that quite easily. If you could get Stan Hanson riled up… pretty sure the Falcons could take advantage of his hot head and draw a few penalties to work with. Venables hasn’t been as good as usual, which gives the team an opportunity.
Out of the four teams currently in the wildcard round… You think you’d probably like to face Newfoundland or Halifax, and you think it’d be a pretty favourable matchup. But, then again, it’s hockey, and things could change in an instant so you don’t actually know if you’d win or not.
You shrug. Not much you could do now… it’s up to the four teams to determine who gets through to the next round. You decide that you’ve had enough, and you want to call it a day - there’s more practicing to do tomorrow morning after all, and you go to settle the bill.
After signing the bill - you think it’s pretty stupid to have chip-and-sign, and not chip-and-pin - you turn around to find yourself face-to-face with her.
She who went to the games wearing your jersey.
She who holds signs up for you.
She who gave you her phone number and told you to call her.
She’s clearly putting on a pout, and definitely looks very cute doing that.
You gulp.
“How come you never called?”
“Hey Lily, how long are you going to stay on that ice? Until it melts?”
If you have to.
Skate to the closer blue line, stop. Go back and touch the end of the boards. Skate hard to the center red line. Stop, immediately start going back to the end boards. Go as hard as you can to the other end of the rink. Touch the boards, and go back to where you started. Check the time on the stopwatch.
Too slow. You have to get faster. You won’t let Wagner turnstile you again if you see each other in the playoffs.
Puck-handling drills. Over one gate, under another. Around the mini cones - four ways, and then backwards. One hundred juggles. Puck to skate to stick to skate. Backheel pass. No look pass. Saucers over garbage cans, zambonis, Bob the janitor - he didn’t like that one too much - and over random sticks on the ice.
You have to get those passes on the tape. There were so many blown chances in the last game.
“Hey Lils, that’s enough. You’re going to burn yourself out. Knock it off for the day and let’s go for dinner.”
That’s Luke. You guess he has a point.
“We’re going to go out and celebrate winning the Laurifer Cup - that’s really quite the achievement for a young team like ours.”
Dinner was great - the guys were toasting Jmac NCheese for scoring the game winning goal in the very last regular season game with 12 seconds to go - and riding off the high of a three-win streak. It was a worthy goal, and you raise your glass to toast. Then, you start ribbing Luke about losing both of the fights that he’d been in. Hammarberg had four inches and fifteen pounds on Luke, but that didn’t mean that Luke could have done better. The other guys chime in - making rude comments about teaching Luke the right technique to punch someone, and how to not fall on his ass while trying to grapple another player. You smile, but you’re thinking about something else.
The playoffs. They’re starting in just a few days and you’re worried. Worried that you’re not good enough. That you’re going to let the team down, that you’re going to let that goal that was going to break the camel’s back through. You have nightmares about the puck deflecting off your skate, your stick, your shin - heck even your nose- and scoring on your own net to end the series. End your team’s run for the season.
This has been a miracle season so far - a team, mostly of rookies, achieving first place in the league, is almost unheard of. You’re proud to have been part of it. To have gone this far, in your first season… you feel like leaving home was worth it. But it’s not over yet; there’s still a lot of games to go through (you hope) and a lot of hockey yet to be played.
Cal, Kaarlo and Khabib seem unphased by it. The second year guys like Guy, Luke and JMac seem mostly cool, but you can kind of tell they’re excited for playoffs to start. This year, they said, the Falcons were going to go deep. That we had a chance to go all the way. You imagine it in your head, lifting the cup on the ice and the roaring crowd, as confetti falls and your teammates forming a giant pile of bodies. That would be nice.
“Don’t go all dreamy on us now, Lils. Stay loose but stay focused - we don’t know who we’re facing just yet.” Kaarlo with solid advice. You try to tap into that Scandinavian reserve that all players from Sweden are supposed to have, but you find it hard, since this is all new to you. You end up settling for a bit of a fidget as you try to think of your next opponent.
Halifax? They have a pretty deadly first line in Trevino, Cheezy and Kayhall. Abel Skinner is no joke either. Their second line is good too… but you’re pretty sure the Falcons can beat their bottom six. Reid, Freddy, Burlok and Paddy would feast on that matchup. The Falcons have them beat on defense too, you think, outside of Skinner.
Kelowna? Scary top six. You might have your hands full with that one. And their top four of Zhernov, Vessot, Nystrom and Scianna are studs. That would be a tough series for sure, you’d have to make sure your bottom six can outwork theirs. You’d have to go up against Noah Nystrom… that would definitely be interesting, as you remember playing in the World Juniors as teammates.
Newfoundland has a pretty strong powerplay. The Falcons have to stay out of the penalty box against them, and you hope that Cal, Karlo and Luke can break open their defensive structure that can really limit shots against their goalie, who hasn’t been having a great season. You just need to put shots on the net and make Vassallo work hard.
Anchorage has an even deadlier powerplay. Bischoff and van der Heijden are weapons. Wang is a huge dick, but he can score. Their defensive structure is weak though, and you think the team can exploit that quite easily. If you could get Stan Hanson riled up… pretty sure the Falcons could take advantage of his hot head and draw a few penalties to work with. Venables hasn’t been as good as usual, which gives the team an opportunity.
Out of the four teams currently in the wildcard round… You think you’d probably like to face Newfoundland or Halifax, and you think it’d be a pretty favourable matchup. But, then again, it’s hockey, and things could change in an instant so you don’t actually know if you’d win or not.
You shrug. Not much you could do now… it’s up to the four teams to determine who gets through to the next round. You decide that you’ve had enough, and you want to call it a day - there’s more practicing to do tomorrow morning after all, and you go to settle the bill.
After signing the bill - you think it’s pretty stupid to have chip-and-sign, and not chip-and-pin - you turn around to find yourself face-to-face with her.
She who went to the games wearing your jersey.
She who holds signs up for you.
She who gave you her phone number and told you to call her.
She’s clearly putting on a pout, and definitely looks very cute doing that.
You gulp.
“How come you never called?”
