The sound of nearly 30 sticks all smming the ice at the same time would wake anyone up. The Mariners’ closing practice ritual was done to remind everyone that no one was above the team. Sm your stick too early or too te and the noise you make will stick out.

  Sticking out means you’re not fully in sync with the team. Not being in sync, or worse sticking out purposely, runs against everything a young hockey pyer is taught from the first time they ce up skates to their final game. Hockey teams operate as a group. Lines, even as they’re made up of three individuals, are a unit. Same goes for when you add in two defensemen, who are a pair. The only ones who get to stick out, are the ones that transcend the sport. It’s why Gretzky was “The Great One.” They get to push beyond the team culture, because without them those great teams would not be remembered.

  At the beginning of a season, during training camp, the post practice salute sounded like a row of firecrackers going off. The team was just coming together and we hadn’t developed a sense of timing, or trust really. Being a young gun on a United Hockey League team comes with distrust built into the system you’re trying to fit into. You’re competing with veterans for spots to showcase yourself, hoping the bright lights of the National Hockey League call. Plus, you’re not tied to the area like some of the long timers become. You know this is going to be a short excursion, especially as a heralded prospect. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you — or really themselves. The organization prepares you to move up, they’re constantly telling you what they’re looking for. Expectations are set, but in true fashion information is limited to those who need to know.

  Mixing a bunch of early 20s hot shots with guys on the downslope of their career fighting for one st shot at the show would lead to any team being fractured from the start, but we were lucky there were enough career guys at this level to keep things even keeled. This was a championship caliber squad, and no matter what level you’re pying at guys want to win at all costs. So, by te February we had refined our post practice ritual to a solid “THUMP” with all of us in sync, save for the usual out of sorts pyer or line from general practice maise. We were cohesive, driven and more importantly in time with one another. You would leave practice as focused as you came in because if not, everyone would know.

  I wouldn’t be participating though, goalies rarely did. We are our own breed. We live on the outside of the team, but exist in the thick of everything. We’re watching, waiting and most importantly bailing everyone else out. So, when I skated out to center ice with everyone to end practice, I took my usual position of staring and listening for who would be out of sync. We had just won 5-0 st night, but coach was not pleased with our effort. Four first period goals and an empty netter will do that, especially when those four goals came in the first 10 minutes. Bag skates were ordered after the game, and we received lectures about “taking our feet off the gas” and how we’re going to feel missing the pyoffs on a tiebreak differential from not winning this game 8-0 instead of 5-0.

  I wasn’t the focus of today’s practice so it was hard to concentrate, but I knew I still had to focus. Coach always seems to have an innate talent to notice when someone is slipping in practice, be it a string of zy passes during a drill or just taking a breather during a sprint. When he notices, then your ice time is hit, or in my case you ride the bench in favor of the other starter.

  Despite pushing us harder after a comfortable win nearly two-thirds of the way into the season, no one was out of time. As I’ve said, we were a unit. Ready to push towards the pyoffs, setting aside our differences. Life in the U meant at any time someone may get called up disrupting the team, but we were honest with ourselves: the big club was trash and we had a shot at lifting a trophy. Everyone was chasing the same New York dreams, but it was communicated to the young kids that it would be better to py more minutes for a competitive team than they and hang on for a few minutes a night with a team denying to itself that a rebuild was necessary.

  “Hey Marksy, you coming?”

  I didn’t catch who was yelling out for me, its may have been one of the Core Four or someone else. It didn’t matter.

  Practice was over so now it was time to get the real work in.

  The locker room is always so peaceful after everyone’s left practice.

  Once the coaching staff dismisses us, I always take the time to do one-on-one drills with the team’s goalie coach. You can only stay so fresh trying to stop the same guys over and over again, so mixing it up with a coach giving you that singur attention helps to push your limits. Moving left and right and left and right stopping pucks is where I can finally rex and let go of the doubts in my mind. Reflex takes over and the more muscle memory you build the better you get, it is simple really.

  Plus, I have a job to steal back.

  A rough patch st month pushed me from 1b starter to firm backup. I went from expecting 35 or more starts this year, to realizing that number would fall somewhere in the 20s, if that. Each game I sat on the bench watching us catch fire was another reminder that my NHL training camp dreams next year were fading. I’d be with the club in New York the first week when every single member of the organization gathers. Maybe you get a period in a preseason game, but more likely you’ll get 30 minutes in a practice scrimmage, before the real goalies get to py against guys hanging on for dear life trying to start the season on the 23 man roster. No wonder guy’s trapped down here in the U with expectations have nervous breakdowns more often than my friends in college did. All my friends were worried about was securing employment in their chosen professions, I don’t know why they cared as much as they did. Most had a trust fund to fall back on or a family business that they were going to take over once daddy croaked from a heart attack after a lifetime of five beers a night and Marlboro reds for breakfast.

  You want pressure? Try pying a game where rubber discs are shot 100 miles per hour at you every minute being a referendum on your future contract worth. The media reports these gaudy figures for NHL pyers, but for guys like me a paycheck is tenth of that when you’re in the U, if you’re lucky. Then factor in the nutrition and workout gear costs that being a professional athlete entails that the gen pop could never even fathom and you understand why we all live in 600 sq ft two bedroom apartments with roommates and eat the biggest cheapest meals we can cook. The average prospect is lucky to make it through a season in the minors without racking a five figure credit card debt, and its impossible to even fathom how the older vets take care of kids and have mortgages.

  That’s why I’m out here hours after everyone has left the building still getting as many pucks as possible flung at my body, honing the muscles people did not even know they had to move a fraction of an inch faster and anticipate navigating a frictionless surface at speeds faster than blinking. Every day I don’t is a missed opportunity. A chance to get better, missed. Another day where Tucker Mackenzie gets to keep his spot in the crease while I have to watch him flub routine saves and our offense bails him out.

  Four games. Zero three and one with five point two five goals against and a seven ninety seven save percentage. That’s what relegated me to the bench. A four game stretch where we lost all four, and had twenty-one goals scored on us in a January onsught from our division rivals. A four game stretch where NHL scouts were starting to filter around the league looking for the best prospects they can include in trades hoping the fifth pyer in a mega-deal is the one that actually brings long term success to the middling franchise. Four games where we fell out of a pyoff spot for the first time all year, and four games where I just absolutely could not get out of my own head.

  Today also happens to be the trade deadline. My name isn’t on the block, but you never know. No one thought Gingy was going to be traded st year, but he’s now prepping for a Stanley Cup run in Regina, Saskatchewan. Life comes at you fast.

  So, yeah, I normally prefer to shower alone, but knowing I’ve all but fucked myself at a chance for a real look at the show? I’m not taking any chances. I can even turn the lights off so I don’t even have to see myself.

  “Yo Marks are you fuckin’ done with your little redemption practice?”

  “C’mon man we’re going to watch sportscentre at the bar”

  “None of us are getting traded, unless you heard shit?”

  “Nah, he doesn’t know anything he’s further away than ever.”

  “Lmao, sorry Marksy, but he’s right.”

  “Marksyyyyyyyyy we have an off day tomorrow, right? Where are you?”

  “You moron we literally have a game. But fr, Marksy do we have to drag you here?”

  The Core Four group chat would not shut up. Three of the most idiotic men on the pnt who somehow are some of the most talented hockey pyers on pnet earth, and me the babysitter making sure a bunch of 20 and 21 year olds don’t get arrested in bumfuck, Oregon while toying with UHL opponents.

  It really should have been the fab five, but no one had any idea why New York traded its top prospect Hewitt Langford at the deadline st year for an aging defensemen with a shot to die for, but who could not back check to save his life. Everyone knew st year’s hot start was a fluke and that Gingy was going to stay at the College of Vermont for his senior year to chase an NCAA championship with me. Those front office geeks up in Regina are savants though, and they saw an opportunity to fleece New York so now one of the few true friends I had in the organization has a shot at a Stanley Cup. My only saving grace was that New York was completely falling apart, and when your fans need something to cling on to, unproven prospects can juice attendance when they’re called up. Even if they are not ready.

  That’s what Diana told me to start the year before going back to the Mariners. She’s a heck of an agent and one of the few good people in this industry, too. She cares, I mean they all say they do, but she actually goes out of her way to help the guys she represents. After losing the National Championship to Descartes University, Diana brought New York’s contract offer to my hotel room the next day. Instead of a smile, she sat on the floor of my bathroom with me while I cried into her shoulder about how I had let my team down. She earned a lifetime of commission from that morning alone. I got three pro games in Oregon after, and Gingy got a fresh start on a contender jumping straight to the NHL somehow.

  So, now I spend my days getting extra practice in and trying to avoid the other three goofs — Cude Lamoreaux, Brady Beau and Scott Tailson — while living in small city Oregon. Despite not having much of a “scene,” it is pretty easy in Olympic City. They all frequent the main sports bar and are treated like legends, even if Cude is only 20. He’ll remind you that in Quebec, where he’s from, the drinking age is nothing like it is in America and they speak a proper nguage. Being a goalie means I always have an excuse to stay on the ice, and no one will question my motivations. Who wants to tell the guy looking to get better to just not?

  “Just leaving the rink. Text me if anything happens,” I send back hoping to deflect.

  It works. The guys say they’re going to the bar that has TSN, Canada’s version of ESPN, to watch Sportscentre. The franchise bought them a cable package so that front office guys can feel closer to home. Guess being in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest wasn’t enough. The only reason New York has its UHL affiliate out here anyway is because the owner once owned a mansion by Tahoe and for some reason assumed Olympic City was close by, when our past affiliation agreement expired. That was 20 years ago. He didn’t want to be embarrassed again so he stuck with it. Even if having your minor league team 3,000 miles away creates kind of a logistical headache when calling up prospects, or getting injury repcements. Somehow, they’ve managed to not bungle that enough to get a back page in the Post mocking them. The terrible trades they’ve made the st 15 years have been more than enough tabloid fodder. Let alone the scandals when a young star gets too drunk in the NYC nightlife.

  Taking my time to pack my gear up, I figure I won’t run into anyone as I leave the rink. Good. I can keep the solitude and just focus on the only thing that matters: regaining my starting job. No outside thoughts needed, certainly no personal introspection that’s outside of hockey. Certainly not on one of the most frantic, unexpected days of the year, with implications that could uproot you to almost anywhere in the continental United States or Canada. Thankfully that team in Aska went on hiatus. Guys around the league talk, that U franchise was like a permanent banishment. What org wants to send their own franchise guys to Aska all the time? Though getting away from all of this could be nice at times. I wouldn’t have to be Jamie Marks, the responsible goalie corralling a bunch of kids as we all try to make the show. I could be whoever I wanted. Meet new people. Make new friends. Focus on my game, not worrying about needing to make the NHL and performance bonuses. Winning for the sake of winning. Not some dumb dream that is appealing, but feels like its to make everyone else around me happy.

  I snap out of it when bumping into one of the trainers, getting out of that morass of an internal monologue. I swear I knew her name, but I couldn’t pce it. I promised myself to learn everyone’s in the organization, but I am just that terrible with names. She’s always super nice to me though, even if she mostly works with the forwards.

  “Didn’t see ya there Jamie! Sorry. Staying te again?” She quipped, way too chipper for my liking. I guess when you’re not under threat of being sent to god knows where you can enjoy this day.

  “Yeah. Just getting as many shots in as I can,” I said.

  “Oh, duh! That makes sense especially now.”

  I just stared at her quizzically, what did she mean by that? Why now? Shouldn’t you always be working to get better?

  “I guess I’ll see you for the bus ride Jamie! Final push!”

  Still baffled by that comment from someone whose name I with 100 percent certainty could not pce, I somehow found myself back at my car not even remembering the walk. I mindlessly put in the keys and chose the radio instead of looking for an album to py, just trying to get home to rex as the final transactions start rolling in.

  Not checking my phone before driving home from the rink was a mistake.

  Over 200 text messages was not unheard of, but a voicemail is never a great sign on deadline day. Thankfully, it was just from my friend Jenna. We were so close in college, and I was desperate to not lose that friendship when I came out west. I figured I could hold off on checking that while sorting through texts from my mom, agent, group chat and weirdly some former college teammates I hadn’t spoken to in a minute.

  It became quickly apparent why people were reaching out to talk to me. New York traded both of its starting goalies in two stunning moves, and only got one back in return in one of the trades. Every tweet people outside the Core Four chat sent my way were specuting that either Tucker or I were going to be called up. Teammates were congratuting me preemptively, but I would have to hold out on hope and tell them to chill. Why would New York call me up when I’m pying my worst hockey of the year? Maybe they really did believe in me despite my low draft stock. Before letting my mind actually accept that thought, a text from Coach MacGuinness came in.

  “Tucker’s going up. Org promised him time so other teams can get a look. You’re starting tomorrow.”

  I always appreciated how direct coach was with us. Sure, he’s a hard ass, but he knows his stuff and unlike some other U lifers gave a shit about making sure his pyers got better. So, I’m starting again? I guess that mean’s we’re going to call up someone from the Continental Hockey League to be my backup. Coach won’t trust him at first, so the crease is mine for the time being. All mine.

  “Marksaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy”

  “Fuck Tucker anyway that guy sucked”

  “Seriously always bming your dmen for your softies is such a scrub move”

  “Marksaaaaaaaay how you doinnnnnnnnnnnnnnn”

  “Where are you dude?”

  “Answer us!!!!”

  “Do you hate us?”

  “Obviously he does”

  “Maybe he’s just not online lmao. He did just leave the rink.”

  “Oh fuck, good call.”

  The group chat was about 250 messages just like this. Asking how I was, specuting what I was doing and then commenting on the other moves other teams around the league made. I was by far the least active member in the group chat, and happy to let the guys just get their energy out talking to each other. It was like watching three puppies reacting floating dandelion seeds. Their antics would be adorable if we weren’t all pro athletes trying to fulfill some lifelong dreams, and essentially competing against each other for limited spots and pying time.

  “Hey guys, just got home. Anything of note happen?”

  That set them off for a good while, so I didn’t have to pay attention to what they were saying. Gosh, the crease was mine. The organization did me a solid and opened up pying time down the stretch when it matters most here to show my stuff. A great run here and a pyoff chase could open doors for me in New York. I really could be on a path to the show.

  Oh god, I had to get rid of those stray thoughts that pop up on an off again now, don’t I? If I lose focus, again, we’re totally screwed. I can’t go down because the org depth behind me was kind of bleak. Pyers in the “C’ fell in two categories, guys who had raw talent but no idea how to harness it and needed some prep before getting real games in the U, and guys who just did not have it. I didn’t check in on the goalies down there, there was no need. And I won’t have to now, because this was my moment. It’s my crease again. I’m ready.

  Now, on to that voicemail from Jenna. It’s odd, she never ever calls. Even when I needed to reach her in college. She was my best friend, confidante and would have been roommate if I stayed senior year. We were going to get an apartment off campus, and I would have been away from those random roommates you get in dorms. For some reason the College of Vermont did not care if you were a D-I athlete, you got put in the random roommate pool every year. No exceptions. When I signed with New York after st year’s heartbreak, she understood but was pissed. She didn’t speak to me during my move to Olympic City, and basically let me know that I was running away from her. It was incredibly selfish on her part, and she eventually calmed down, but not without a lot of tears on both our ends over the summer. Even when we fought, she refused to call me to talk. We had it out over the course of three months over text. My finger hovered over the button for a minute before pressing py.

  “Hey Jamie. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m giving you a call. I, um, never do that. Um, well I dropped out of school, and, um, am on a bus heading into Olympic City this afternoon. I didn’t know where else to go. See you soon! Um, yeah. That’s it. Bye.”

  This afternoon? Jenna? Was coming here? Why here? Why did she drop out of school? What the fuck?

  The questions came swift and would not let up. I had to py the voicemail again to be sure I heard what she said.

  “Hey Jamie. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m giving you a call. I, um, never do that. Um, well I dropped out of school, and, um, am on—”

  A rapid series of knocks jolted me out of my third listen of Jenna’s call and I realized that it was already this afternoon from which she was referring. I looked at my phone in shock and realized she called right when practice started this morning, so maybe I should have listened before spending all day at the rink. She didn’t expect to stay here did she? I have that spare empty room, but this pce doesn’t really scream “getting your life on track” so much that it screams “safe pce to sleep.”

  The second I opened the door Jenna unched herself into a giant bear hug not letting me go and kissing me on the cheek over and over. It was too much. What was going on?

  “Oh thank god you’re home. I thought when you didn’t pick up you were on a road trip or something. I don’t know. It’s been a day. Or three. I’ve lost count.”

  “Jenna, slow down. What the fuck?”

  “What do you mean what the fuck? I told you. I dropped out of school. I needed a pce to stay. I came here. I figured you’d be okay with it. You know, just us girls until I get on my feet.

  I was seething.

  “Jenna, you do realize that we’re hitting the most important part of the season right? And I told you to never mention that other part.”

  “Calm down there dy, I know its the stretch run. I may hate hockey but I’m not that dumb.”

  “Jeanna, today’s the fucking trade deadline.”

  “Oh! Are you leaving? Even better I can take the pce to myself. Don’t worry I’ll pay rent.”

  I rolled my eyes at that one.

  “No, you dolt. I need to focus more than ever.”

  “So you think I’m a distraction?”

  “You’re literally distracting me right now by being here! And you had to go and bring up that secret I told you in confidence.”

  “Oh calm down Jamie. I am not here to disrupt your precious dream. Even if you’re literally self harming in the process by chasing it. I’m here because I was completely floundering.”

  I paused for a second and realized what she was saying. She needed me, of all people in her life. Yes, it would be annoying to take on a surprise roommate down the stretch run of the season, and I’m sure coach would have words, but its not like she and I weren’t pnning on living together this year anyway. If anything, I’m repaying her for when I hurt her the most by signing.

  “Fine, get your stuff. I’m happy you’re here. Even if its fucking annoying.”

  Jenna finally stepped out of my doorway and into my apartment with the two bags she was carrying. My apartment could only be described as sparse, and that was being generous. I had a tv, a table, some barstools and a couch. Then my room had what could be described by some people as a bed, but was rather a collection of bnkets on top of a mattress and box spring on the floor. Add in an empty room, and it rounded out the cry for help vibe that was my apartment.

  “Christ, girl. What is this pce?”

  “I kept it sparse in the hopes that I got called up. Also, please for the love of god stop with the ‘girl’ stuff.”

  “No, I made a promise to you. You were drunk, but I am holding you to it.”

  “You’re really doing this huh? You show up out of nowhere and barrel into my apartment and you have to remind me of something I said three years ago?”

  “When you had lost your inhibition and confided in me that you did not think you were a boy and did not know how to handle that? Is that not something you said,” Jenna made air quotes with her fingers over that st part.

  I was stunned. I had finally managed to get that moment out of my head and here she comes prying open that container at the absolute worst moment in time. Yes, she was absolutely correct and I did promise her to hold me to it, but I was smashed. How can you keep doing this in good faith into adulthood? My st year in a half in college, it was fine. I pyed it off as a running joke the few times that someone else heard it, and Jenna then became more and more careful where she referred to me that way. We were also in the privacy of my apartment alone from everyone, no one could hear this. Before I had a second to regroup my phone started buzzing franticallywith text messages.

  “Do you need to get that,” Jenna said.

  “No, we’re having this out. You can’t do this if you’re going to be staying here.”

  “So you’re going to throw me out on the street because I actually care about you Jamie? Or should I use a different name?”

  “You are so infuriating!”

  She walked up so close to me I thought we were going to bump foreheads together. If we hadn’t spent so much time together in school and become so close ptonically I’d entertain the idea she was about to kiss me just to get me to stop spiraling.

  “No. You’re just self harming again,” she pointed a finger into my chest and pushed me back. “I’m doing what someone should have done a long time ago and help you confront this.”

  There was that buzzing again.

  “Are you sure you don’t need to get that?”

  “Feel like you walking into my life and demanding to treat me like a girl is more important. Don’t you?”

  Jenna just ughed at that.

  “God, Jamie you’re so dense.”

  “No, I’m not dense. I’m practical. I’m on a fucking professional hockey team. I can’t go around telling people ‘oh I used to go out with my friend Jenna in college dressed like a girl.’ I wouldn’t just lose my starting spot, I’d lose my job. Plus, I’m the starter for the rest of the year. Coach confirmed.”

  That made Jenna pause again.

  “Okay a lot in that statement. Going to have to deconstruct that another time. What do you mean you’re the starter again?” She did the air quotes again.

  “New York traded their starting goalies and needed to call up someone from our team.”

  “Okay, and…”

  “And you think I’m dense? You can’t just walk into a professional hockey pyer’s home — a pyer that you’re best friends with, mind you — and have absolutely no idea about anything regarding the sport.”

  “I mean, I can. And I do.”

  “It means I’m the only starter left down here and we’re trying to win a championship, so I’ll be basically pying every game between now and the pyoffs. And I need to be fully dialed in.”

  “And that’s…?”

  “Its fucking incredible Jenna. It’s an opportunity someone like me could only dream of. If this goes well I’m in the NHL next year!”

  “And you’re sadder than ever. Got it.”

  “Sadder than ever, in New York.”

  Even Jenna had to ugh at that. She’s had this back and forth with me more times than either of us can count. It infuriated her that my NHL dream trumped the fact that I was drowning nearly every day in a body that I reviled and in an identity that trapped me in an industrial grade lockbox.

  Every time she got me to admit that my dream was ultimately hurting me, I found a way to either stifle that conversation or point out that I had pledged that I was going to be a pro hockey pyer before I even understood gender existed. Being in rural Vermont, that line of thinking shut her up fast, but she never fully let it go. I think she wanted to make sure I didn’t fall completely into a singur focus with hockey and lose myself in the process. I assured her as a goalie that was impossible. While there is a team mindset at all times, I’m stuck guarding a small rectangle of real estate and have plenty of time alone when my team is pressing forward. You can get lost in the game and in your team, but the intense focus you need to not let anything slip? That’s personal. It is quite literally impossible to get lost in yourself if you’re focused enough on winning. Or that’s how I viewed it anyway.

  “Plus Jenna, the st time I indulged any of these conversations I lost my starting job after pying my worst hockey four games in a row.”

  “You know I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “And why is that, friend?”

  “Ugh, you’re right. I’ve been absent. But in my defense —”

  I cut her off. She gave me an opening.

  “In your defense you were busy not returning any of my texts and dropping out of school?”

  “Well when you put it like that I sound like a giant bitch.”

  “Your words, not mine,” I said smirking.

  The phone started buzzing again. Clearly the final hour of the deadline was proving the entertainment the networks demanded.

  “Are you sure you don’t have to pick that up?”

  “Did we finish this conversation?”

  “You really are a girl, because that was incredibly bitchy.”

  “Bitchy or not, I do want you here. There just have to be some,” I paused hoping to not sound like a total terrible friend with what I’m about to say. “Some boundaries. And I mean this. This isn’t some therapy speak joke. The next two to three months could basically change my life forever. I want you to be affirming, but this is a small town in the middle of bumfuck Oregon. You can’t just call me a girl everywhere.”

  “You fucking moron. You really thought I was going to come into town and just announce in the town square that you’re a cute little trans girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be real.”

  “Look! I have worked hard to not dwell on this, and now I really need to not dwell on it. Can you bme me?”

  “Absolutely. The excuses you gave me in college for why you couldn’t be a girl would have been so funny if there wasn’t any heartbreak behind it all.”

  She was right, and I knew it. Even with hockey the twisted logic I would throw at her to say I was really just a cis man — a word I had no idea existed until Jenna informed me of what I was feeling — would make anyone’s head spin. I used every tortured metaphor in the book to just say this was a fetish, phase or an appropriation and deny my own identity. It did not help that I went from a middling prospect to a bonafide star my sophomore year when everything flooded out. A weight was lifted and I saw the game clearer than I ever had before. Then junior year, we had our run to the National Championship Game and had even less space to explore who I was, much to Jenna’s chagrin. After that I signed as a pro and was shuttled across the country while my best friend was left to fend for herself. I was such an idiot. No wonder she dropped out of school. She had her support system ripped apart.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you apologizing for you dolt. You’re right there should be some boundaries, I just want you to be gd to see me.”

  “Jenna, you being here is probably the best thing to happen to me this year. Just, just, try not to make a scene about me, okay?”

  “Can’t promise that,” she smirked and gave me a wink. We were going to be alright.

  “We can talk about this ter, now that you’re here. First, you owe me a little more information on how you got here.”

  “Right, boss. Of course. But not to deflect. I promise. But, your phone is still going off.”

  I had ignored the constant buzzing of messages trying to avoid a panic attack brought on by the sudden gender identity discussion, but Jenna was right. Something was up.

  Looking through my messages it seemed the Core Four was in shock. Clearly another trade happened that impacted our team.

  “How funny would it be if I just got traded right when you showed up?”

  “Jamie, I would fucking kill you. But seriously, what’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure, let me pull up one of the live blogs or something. I feel like Diana would have called if something was up.”

  There it was pstered over every hockey news site: New York officially went into a fire sale. Two trades were made, one to clear some cap space long term and another that was so out of left field that my stomach started doing flips. We had traded our top forward, and longest tenured pyer, out West to LA for a package of multiple first round picks, a middle six forward on an expiring contract and the best defensive prospect in all of hockey.

  Before I could even process what just changed our team, I dropped my phone when it started ringing. Coach was calling. And I had no idea why.

  There was one thing I did know: we had traded for Brock Lazenby. The guy was lighting up the UHL in Boise. He also ended my college career.