Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 115838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
“Well, the fab five,” he refers to the five guys, “went above my head and straight to Brad with their demands to have you fired.” His voice, if you can even imagine, gets even tighter. “Which, I’m going to go on the record to say, it fucking pissed me the fuck off.” I don’t say anything when he trails off. “It’s one thing to come to me with your demands, but then to think you are going to strong-arm me into doing something, well now you’ve done pissed off the wrong person.”
“I don’t know if I should tell you this,” I start, “but as of the last game, I’ve started cutting the bench.”
“No shit, Sherlock. You don’t think I see the time sheet? I know how much less each are playing. It’s not enough to get them talking, but I know it’s enough for them to notice.”
“I don’t trust them to not go on the ice and fuck up the game for everyone,” I admit to him.
“You have my support,” he assures me. “Now you’d have it a lot more if you can win the next couple of games.”
“I’ll try. Thank you, by the way.”
“Yeah, now it’s not even about you,” he growls. “Now it’s about me, and him thinking I can’t do my job,” he snaps and then hangs up the phone.
When I walk into my office two hours later, I toss my keys on the desk as I make my way into the coaches’ room. I walk over to the whiteboard, making the change to the lines. Cam arrives as soon as I’m done.
“We changing the lines again?” he asks me, putting his hands on his hips. “How do you expect us to win games when you keep changing the lines?”
“I’m assuming that everyone on the ice knows how to play the game, so what does it matter who they play with?”
“Then why don’t you separate Kirby and Jaxon?”
“Because Jaxon is the top defenseman in the league, and Kirby is the second, so that means they play the first line.” I look over at him, seeing him with his jaw tight. “That’s what I thought,” I say and he doesn’t say anything back to me.
We start the game with the lines I wrote down, Vancouver scoring first. “Still two and a half more periods to go,” I say, walking down the bench. “You got this.” The guys nod their heads. “But you’d have more chances if you shoot the fucking puck,” I remind them. “If you have the shot, I want you guys to take it.”
The second period has the puck coming into our zone. Taking the shot, our goalie goes to cover it up, losing it right before but then their forward blocks him from moving in his crease, letting the puck go into the back of the net. I get on the bench as soon as they say the puck is in the net.
“Goalie interference!” I shout to the referee. He nods at me as he tells the crowd I’m challenging the goal. I look down at the iPad Eric is holding, showing me the play over and over.
“His knee is out of the crease,” Cam says. “You’ll fuck us for this and then we’ll have to put someone in the box.” He shakes his head and walks to the end of the bench.
The referee comes to the middle of the ice. “After the coaches’ challenge, it was determined that there was goaltender interference, therefore there’s no goal on the play.”
The crowd goes crazy as I call the next line, without Owen, and instead putting Aaron with Knox. Owen looks back at me and I can tell he’s pissed.
I ignore him as I watch the game, seeing them in our zone again. There is a shot on our goalie and it’s blocked, with Aaron taking the rebound and then moving the puck up the ice. He skates down the center ice and then passes it to Knox as soon as he skates over the blue line. Knox has two men on him, and he looks like he’s going to pass it back to Aaron but instead goes around the two men and then winds up his shot, with no one in front of him. The puck slides in between the pads, the horn starts and then the crowd flies to their feet.
“I guess switching up the lines helps.” I lean to Cam, who just nods at me, but it’s not a friendly look either. Four minutes later, Kirby takes the puck down the ice and finds Aaron all by himself on the side, and it hits the back of the net.
We win the game, and the locker room is buzzing with two wins in a row. I look over at Jaxon after the game, and he walks over to me. “You giving me a lift to the bar?”