Leslie LaFoy - Blindsided

“Never will be fine,” he replied, settling in beside her and crossing his arms over his chest. “There isn’t enough money in the world to get me to sign on to this disaster you call a team.”

Her heart dropped like a lead weight into the pit of her stomach. He wasn’t here to be her knight in shining armor. “Please lower your voice,” she said, desperately trying to anchor herself and hoping she didn’t sound as dizzy and queasy as she felt. Thank God she hadn’t done the grateful damsel routine. “The players will be coming out and they don’t need to hear themselves being run down.”

“They’re not stupid,” he pointed out quietly. “They know they suck.”

The choice was between crying, throwing up, or going on the defensive. “Well, they don’t need to hear anyone else say it,” she countered, lifting her chin. “That would be mean. And I happen to believe—contrary to what Carl thinks—that you don’t get people to improve by focusing on the negatives.”

“If you don’t look at the negatives, there’s no way you’ll ever turn them into positives.”

“But where’s the motivation to improve if there’s never a word of praise for the things you do right and well?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one.” The shrug that went with the concession said that he considered it a very minor one.

God, she didn’t want to ask, but she had to. Just had to. “Do they do anything right or well?”

“Well,” he said slowly enough that she knew he was searching, “they can all skate.”

“Big deal,” she grumbled.

“Actually, it is. No hockey player is ever any better at the game than he is at skating. The two go hand in hand. Your boys could stand some fine tuning, but they’re not send-’em-packing bad.”

Yes, they were her boys. And they had heart. They went out and took the beatings night after night. If they were willing to step up and keep trying, then she couldn’t do any less. Her stomach settling and her brain coming back to earth, she stared at the idling bus and asked, “So if they can skate, why don’t they win?”

“Consultants make big money, you know.”

His voice was light, his words edged with amusement. He wasn’t going to hold out on her. Cat smiled. “And the owners of struggling minor league teams don’t have big money. Could we work out a trade of some sort?”

“What are you offering?”

Her body if it were twenty years younger. “Dinner and drinks?” She sweetened the offer by adding, “At the best sports bar in town.”

He turned his head and grinned at her. “Toss in the ten dollar story and you’ve got a deal.”

“Deal,” she said, resisting the urge to stick out her hand by shoving both of them in the hip pockets of her jeans. “So tell me why they don’t win.”

“They don’t play as a team.”

She waited, watching him out the corner of her eye. He seemed fascinated by the lighting on the water tower over at the Greyhound Park. “And?”

“That’s the biggie.”

“For dinner, drinks and the story, I want the smallies, too.”

He frowned. “Are you still thinking about stepping behind the bench and coaching?”

And he’d complained about her not signaling unexpected turns? “Let’s just say that the possibility is looming large,” she replied. “You’ve seen what Carl Spady’s got going. Do you think I could do any worse?”

“Probably not,” he allowed as a smile slowly tipped up the corners of his mouth. Still studying the water tower, he said, “You’ve got two sets of problems going on out there on the ice. The first is in the technical aspects of the game. Players are often out of position, they don’t have a plan for salvaging a busted play, the lines aren’t set up to maximize skills and styles, shift changes are rough, and they’re running a playbook that was outdated ten years ago. Those are the most glaring problems, by the way, not the only ones.”

Lines. She’d read about those. Something about the five guys on the ice together. She’d look it up again and figure out how it went with what he’d told her. “What’s the second set of problems?”

“Attitudes,” he supplied, a steely edge to his voice. “You have Glory Boys, Grinders and Goons. As long as they see themselves and each other as being only one or the other, they’ll never play together as a team.”

She was trying to remember if she’d ever heard the terms before and wondering where she could get a decent definition when he added, “Hell, I actually saw Wheatley strip the puck from his own wingers three times tonight. Vanderrossen and Stover would rather take a penalty than a pass. And your third line didn’t take a single shot on goal the entire game. All they did was D—badly—to give the first and second lines a rest. Which, quite frankly, they hadn’t earned.”

She blinked, stunned at how thrilling she found his passion for the game. Found him. “D?” she asked lamely, hoping the response would take long enough for her to gather up a few of her scattered wits.

“Defense,” he replied, grinning. “Keeping the puck out of your own net.”

Oh, yeah. She knew that. “Can the problems—both sets of them—be fixed?”

His smile disappeared. “It would be a long, hard haul.”

That was the second time in two days she’d heard the expression. “Seems to be a standard description of the game,” she observed.

“Accurate, too.”

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath in the same way she did when she was getting ready to say something necessary but unpleasant. Not wanting to hear it, she deliberately cut him off. “But these boys aren’t new to hockey. They’ve been playing the game all of their lives. They have the grit to change, don’t they?”

He slid her a sideways glance and sighed. “Some do, some probably won’t,” he answered, going back to his study of the water tower. “They each have to weigh the coach’s expectations against their own and figure out if they want to give the coach what he needs. Some will hang up the skates and others will lace them tighter.”

“Is there any way to know who’s going to do which?” Please God, she silently added, let the hanger-uppers be the expensive ones.

“The Glory Boys are going to be your toughest sell. They have the biggest egos, and they tend to view themselves as God’s gift to hockey.”

Ah, a definition. She knew which ones he was talking about. She called them The Swaggerers. Glory Boys was more descriptive. And much easier to say. “It’s occurred to me,” she admitted, “that anyone playing hockey in Wichita, Kansas, isn’t God’s gift to anyone or anything.”

“You might want to remind them of that,” he said coolly as he looked into the distance. “Especially when they threaten to take their razzle-dazzle to a more appreciative team. If they do, offer to help them pack their bags. You’ll be better off without them. Nothing poisons a locker room faster than an out-of-control ego.”

If he saw her nod of agreement, it didn’t give him pause. “Your Grinders will be the next hardest. They don’t have any self-confidence. They’ve got to take some shots thinking they can actually score the goals. And the Goons are going to have to be put on leashes. You played an entire twelve minutes at full strength tonight. Your penalty killing unit was exhausted before the end of the first period and your power play unit never went out.”

More stuff to look up. More things to think about and figure out. But since she had such incredible expertise at her fingertips… Well, figuratively anyway… “Why hasn’t Carl fixed these things?”

“Good question,” he conceded with a slow nod. “Have you asked him?”

“I’ve asked him why we don’t win. He told me it was because they were no-talent bums who don’t want to win. Tom did all the recruiting, in case you’re wondering.”