Orest Stelmach: The Boy from Reactor 4

HE CAME FROM nowhere. No one had ever heard of him or seen him before. No one knew who he was.

On the first day of tryouts for the hockey team at Fordham Prep School in the Bronx, he dazzled the coaches with speed, agility, and puck-handling wizardry that belied his age. They whispered giddily to each other and scurried for their cell phones to call friends and wives. They knew they had just witnessed the arrival of a future pro, and possibly a once-in-a-generation talent. They needed to share the news with someone. They needed to share the news with everyone.

He had the uncommon name of Aagayuk Kungenook, and he was an orphan from the Arctic Circle along the northwest coast of Alaska, an Inupiat from Kotzebue, population three thousand. In addition to their Inupiaq names, Inupiat take on a given English name later in life. This name is often based on someone the person admires. In Aagayuk Kungenook’s case, his given English name was Bobby. Hence, his full name was Aagayuk Bobby Kungenook.

Bobby made the varsity team as a sixteen-year-old walk-on. During his first four games, he scored seven goals and assisted on three others. This would have been a staggering achievement for any center or wing, let alone a freshman, but he was neither. Bobby was a defenseman. He wasn’t expected to score any goals.

Prior to this offensive outburst, his teammates kept their distance from him. At school, kids called him “Shark Bite.” Half ears jutted out from the side of Bobby’s head, with jagged, square tops that ended just above the canal. Some said a shark had attacked him while he was swimming in the Kotzebue Sound, while others insisted his father had cut them as punishment for not listening to him and then committed suicide.

Once the team opened the season undefeated, however, Bobby’s teammates stopped calling him Shark Bite. The upperclassmen began confronting anyone at school who dared speak disrespectfully to their young star. Assuming he’d taken his English name from the greatest defenseman ever to play hockey, his teammates modified it further to fit his talents. They combined a living legend’s first and last names, rolled them into one, and created a new moniker for their prodigy. They began to call him simply “Bobbyorr.”

Every December, the New York Rangers hosted their annual Ice Hockey Night in Harlem, featuring current and former players. During that event, at Lasker Rink in northern Central Park, sixteen-year-old Bobby Kungenook took on Ranger superstar Martin Gaborik in an impromptu one-lap race around the rink.

Gaborik, previously the NHL’s Fastest Skater award winner with a lap time of 13.713 seconds at the all-star game, finished with a time of 13.736 seconds outdoors. Bobby Kungenook, previously unknown, unseen, and unheard of, finished the same lap with a time of 13.573 seconds.

The conclusion was obvious yet unfathomable to everyone in attendance: the sixteen-year-old orphan from the Arctic Circle was arguably the fastest hockey player in the world.

Within a week, three videos of the race surfaced on YouTube and collected 230,000 hits around the world. The sports network aired the video on its news shows. It also dispatched Lauren Ross to the next Fordham game to interview Bobby. Lauren was determined to someday become a prime-time news anchor. She’d spent ten years in the business and had won three Emmys, but was still looking for a story to catapult her out of sports and into the upper echelons of mainstream broadcast journalism.

A standing-room-only crowd jammed The Ice Hutch in Mount Vernon for Fordham’s game against archrival Iona Prep, the first since the Gaborik race. The game began sloppily, as though both teams were distracted by the publicity. A collective murmur of expectation rose from the crowd whenever Bobby took the ice. He was about six feet tall on skates, with a body that looked as though it had been spliced together from two separate molds. Above the waist, his jersey hung loosely on sinew and bone. Below the waist, quadriceps and calf muscles bulged against the fabric of his pants, as though he’d been building up his legs since he’d left the womb.

With Fordham trailing 1–0 in the second period, a bruising Iona forward crushed Bobby against the boards. Bobby lost his balance and tumbled. Rather than get up and resume playing, however, Bobby stayed on his knees and began searching frantically for something on the ice. A necklace had fallen from his neck and spilled to the ground. During the ensuing five-on-four, Iona scored another goal to go up 2–0.

Boobirds rang from the stands. Bobby found his necklace and limped to the sidelines. The coach chewed him out and benched him for the rest of the period.

During the second-period intermission, Lauren asked her cameraman to replay the incident. Fortunately, he’d kept his lens on Bobby the entire time, even while Iona scored its goal. Lauren thought she’d seen something interesting that could distinguish her interview from others. The video confirmed her suspicion.

The necklace had broken into two pieces. The first was a long gold strand. The second was a locket that must have been attached to the necklace. It landed between Bobby’s skates. Lauren asked the cameraman to zoom in, and saw Bobby scoop up the locket. He fired a quick glance in each direction afterward, as though he feared someone were going to steal it from him.

There it was. Her edge. The other reporters wouldn’t even notice it. They’d give the necklace short study, thinking the orphan couldn’t stomach losing one of his only material possessions, perhaps a family heirloom. But that wasn’t the case. What Bobby feared losing was the locket. That meant there was something precious inside it.

With five minutes left in the intermission, Lauren went down to the visiting coach’s office. Coach Terry Hilliard looked as though he’d allowed too many sirloin hockey pucks past the crease of his lips since his days as a Rangers goaltender.

“Is Bobby okay after that fall?”

“Oh, sure. Kid’s tough as nails. Or ice picks. Or whatever the heck they use up there in Alaska.”

“So we’re still good for that interview after the game?”

“You bet. As long as I’m present and the cameras are off and you take it easy on him. He’s just a kid, Lauren. He’s been through a lot. You brought an interpreter, right?”

“What?”

“Your people told you, right?”

“Told me what? Bobby doesn’t speak English?”

“I wouldn’t say he doesn’t speak English. He’s picking it up quickly. But he’s not fluent enough to make it through an interview without some help.”

“You’re kidding me. What does he speak, then? Some Eskimo language?”

“Nope. His first language is Ukrainian. Second is Russian. English is third.”

“Ukrainian and Russian? You’re kidding me. Why?”

Hilliard shook his head. “Not entirely sure. It’s a Jesuit school. The priests only told us so much. And you don’t push around a Jesuit priest. He’s such a good kid. We don’t want to pry. The priests said the Russians discovered part of Alaska. I guess there’s some history there.”

“Huh. Interesting. But how am I supposed to conduct an interview if we can’t communicate?”

Hilliard scratched one of his chins. “Bobby’s guardian is here tonight. Her name is Nadia Tesla. She’s a young woman. From the city. Like yourself. I could ask her. She might be willing to translate.”