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* * *
“DRUMMER FOR A BAND?” Scott stopped lacing his skate and took his cell from where he’d lodged it between his ear and his shoulder. “Maybe I should come and check this new boyfriend out.”
He was only half teasing. He didn’t like the thought of some long-haired, drugged-out musician putting his hands on Angela.
“Da-ad.” His daughter gave a loud, put-upon sigh. “I’m twenty-one and can take care of myself. I don’t need you vetting my dates anymore.”
“Maybe not, but it wouldn’t hurt for Sean to know what will happen to him if he doesn’t treat you right.”
“I’ll give him a taste of the business end of your hockey stick, like you showed me.”
Scott grinned. “That’s my girl.”
“Got to go, or I’ll be late for class. Love you.”
“Love you, too. And if you see your brother, tell him the occasional text would be good so that I know he’s okay.”
“Will do.” Angela laughed, then hung up.
Scott tossed his cell into his bag, then tightened his laces and tied them off. He grabbed his stick, then headed out of the locker room. Three of his friends who still played for the Cats would be joining him shortly for a prearranged practice, but he enjoyed this time with the rink to himself.
Relishing the crisp air and the fresh ice beneath his blades, Scott began to warm up by skating laps. He picked up speed and switched directions, doing crossovers forward and backward in time to the pounding rock beat blaring from the speakers. Then he switched to sprints between the blue lines.
“Looking good, old man,” Rick “Ice Man” Kasanski called as he stepped out of the penalty box carrying a bucket of pucks. “Having your butt planted in a commentator’s chair all season hasn’t dulled your skills much.”
Scott stopped sharply, sending a spray of ice over his friend. “I can still skate your candy ass into the ground, Ice Man.”
“Please. You’ve never been faster than me.” Kasanski brushed aside Scott’s comment with a wave of his gloved hand. “At least, not going forward. I’ll admit you might have the edge going backward, D-man.”
“You can take that to the bank. It’s all the racing to protect the net when you cocky forwards cough up the puck.”
Ice Man swiped his stick at Scott’s legs, trying to hook his skates from under him, but Scott managed to avoid him. He gave a colorful analysis of Kasanski’s parentage in reply.
“Come on, ladies.” Chance Rivera joined them, lining up water bottles on the dasher boards. “Put those handbags away.”
“Yeah. We have work to do.” The Cats’ backup goaltender, Chaz “Monty” Montgomery, skated up, trailing a practice net behind him. “Chance and I have a small wager on how many he can get past me. He’s buying me lunch when we’re done.”
Rivera snorted. “Have your wallet ready, Net-Boy. I’ve got moves that’ll earn me a steak with all the works.”
Monty pulled on his mask. “Winning at backyard hockey with your toddler twins doesn’t mean you can beat the master of the twine.”
“Behold, the Master of the Twine,” Scott intoned in a Hollywood-trailer voice. “Fends off pucks with his mighty twig.”
“More like the Knave of the Basket. Because of the biscuits he collects in there.” Kasanski cracked up at his own joke. He only laughed harder when Monty flipped him the bird and told him where he could stick those biscuits.
Before anyone could drop the gloves, Scott corralled his friends and got them skating warm-up drills.
After a decent workout, which had them all pretty gassed, they headed to the locker room. As they showered and dressed, Chance and Monty continued their debate about whether the goaltender would still have won their contest if they hadn’t been chased off the rink by a figure-skating class. Naturally, Kasanski did his best to wind up both sides, while Scott declared himself Switzerland.
Scott was zipping up his sports bag when his cell chirped with a missed call. Picking it up, he was surprised to see the name of his former general manager.
He looked at his friends. “Any reason Callum Hardshaw would be calling me?”
Kasanski shook his head. “Not that I can think of.”
Rivera shrugged. “Maybe he wants to offer you a job.”
“He knows I don’t want to coach.” Though even that would be better than sitting on his ass at home, doing nothing.
“What about scouting?” Monty offered.
“Definitely not. I’m done with traveling the whole time. Scouting would be worse. Heading to all those junior and college teams to check out prospects—I’d never be home.”
“Team ambassador?” Chance pulled on a black T-shirt with the team’s snow-leopard logo. “You know, schmooze the sponsors and the season-ticket holders at Ice Cats events.”
“Not my scene either.” A job where he had to spend his time making small talk? No way.
“I bet Hardshaw wants you for some PR stuff,” Ice Man said, combing his wet dark hair. “Some fancy, high-dollar-a-plate dinner where you’re the big-bucks draw.”
“Why would the GM call me for that? Usually I hear from the marketing guy when they want my face or name.”
“Didn’t he move on?” Monty frowned. “To that soccer team, the Bridgers. He got pissed about the way the Scartellis kept nixing his proposals while spending crazy amounts of money on weird promotions the fans hated.”
“There were changes in the front office over the summer,” Scott said. “But I thought it was because of budget cuts. Either way, it’s a shame. The kid was pretty switched on.”
“If you ask me, those kinds of people—advertising, marketing, PR—are a dime a dozen,” Rivera said.
“None of which tells me why Hardshaw called.” Scott tapped his cell against his chin.
“You could do the obvious thing and phone him back.”
He cuffed the back of Kasanski’s head. “I know that, numbnuts.” He hit Call Back.
Hardshaw answered on the first ring. “Hey, Scotty, how’s it going?”
“Not bad. You?”
“Yeah, good. Busy. You know how it is.”
He didn’t but played along. “For sure. So, what can I do for you?”
“Any chance you could stop by sometime today? I have a couple ideas I’d like to bounce off you.”
Scott tried to read the GM’s voice but couldn’t. “I have an hour this afternoon, at three, if that works for you.” He had the whole freaking afternoon free, but he wasn’t about to let Hardshaw know that.
“Great. See you then.”
Once he’d hung up, Scott turned to his friends. “He wants to see me.” He relayed the brief conversation. “I’ve got nothing to lose by hearing what he has to say. It’s not like I have anything else on the horizon.”
Monty clapped him on the shoulder. “They say the second year of retirement is the hardest. When reality sets in. If you can get through that, you’ll be fine.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Good thing you have us around to keep you from turning into an old man—pipe and slippers and reading the paper by the fire.” Kasanski smacked Scott’s stomach with the back of his hand. “We’ll keep you from getting fat and flabby, too.”
Scott slung his bag over his shoulder. “Look who’s talking, Ice Man. You were puffing like a steam train in those last sprints. Too much fun in the sun over the summer?”
“Too much junk food and too many margaritas in Cancún,” Rivera said. “With that and J.B.’s wedding bash on the weekend, I don’t think Kasanski has stopped partying since we raised the Cup.”
“Like you’re any better,” Ice Man scoffed. “None of us are.”
“You forget, I have the twins to keep me on my toes. Running around after them is a full-time job.” Chance’s wife had suffered badly from postpartum depression and walked out on him and their babies eighteen months ago. “Especially now they’re walking, talking and into everything. It’s the terrible twos times two.”
“No joy finding another nanny?”
“The agency sent a woman who seems to be working out okay. Still, I want to spend as much time with them as I can. Especially in the off-season.”
The three friends understood how hard it had been for Chance. They’d stood by him and seen him through the worst of it.
Always the smart-ass, Kasanski lightened the tone as they walked out of the rink. “Whatever you say, you were puffing as much as me, Net-Boy and the old guy here, Rivera.”
“In your dreams, Ice Cube.”
“You wish you had my dreams.” Kasanski grinned. “Anyway, the hard work starts now and I’ll be in prime condition for training camp. If only it didn’t take so much longer to get in shape than it did when we were in our twenties.”
“Amen to that,” Scott said fervently. “That’s why I had to hang ’em up in the end.”
“Gone are the days when players used to have a drink and a smoke between periods,” Monty said sadly, even though he was too young to remember that.
“The speed some of the old guys skated at, you could have a drink and a smoke between plays,” Ice Man added, tossing his bag into the back of his SUV. “Now we have to watch calories and monitor food intake like Miss freaking America.”
“Which brings us to lunch. Good thing, because I’m starving.” Monty opened his car door. “Usual place?”
The four men agreed and headed off to the local bistro they’d been frequenting for many years. After lunch they agreed to meet up again the following day at the gym and then went their separate ways.
Scott drove to the Cats’ head office. Though he was a little early, Hardshaw’s assistant took him straight to the GM’s office.
“Can I get you a drink, Scotty?” Doreen asked.
“Ice water would be great, thanks.”
“Make that two, please.” Callum came around his desk to shake Scott’s hand. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“Your call intrigued me.” Scott took the seat his former GM indicated, while Callum leaned against the front of his desk.
“These are interesting times for the Cats. People outside the business don’t understand that the summer after winning the Cup is actually more difficult than one when you’ve lost it. Riding high on the win creates its own set of problems.”
Scott nodded. “I know you have some tough decisions to make, especially with the salary cap not going up as much as it has in the past.” Plus he’d heard the rumors about the Scartellis’ financial problems.
“Right. We have some big contracts up for renewal over the next twelve to twenty-four months. We also need to think about how to leverage our success into future strength. It’s hard to repeat a Cup win the following year, no matter how much we want to.”
It was true. Since the powerhouse teams of the ’70s and ’80s, few teams had managed back-to-back Cup wins.
“I want the Cats to be positioned to win in alternate years like Chicago and LA have done. But as an organization, we need to make sure we’re delivering for our fans, our sponsors and our owners, too.”
“For sure.” Scott still wasn’t sure where this was leading. “Having retired, I’m far enough removed to get that this is a business and the team’s performance on the ice is only one aspect—albeit the most important one—of how success is measured.”
“Exactly.” Hardshaw snapped his fingers. “I knew you’d see the bigger picture.”
“So, what can I do for you?”
“I understand that the commentating gig isn’t working out for you.”
“Yeah.”
“Frankly, that was a waste of your skills. There are plenty of other guys who can do the talking-heads thing.”
“That was the network’s view, too.” Scott made a dismissive gesture. “Can’t say I’ll miss it.”
“Their loss is my gain, I hope.”
“In what way?”
“I’m looking for a new right-hand man. One who can complement my strengths and weaknesses. Who can bring fresh insights to the organization. Who is close enough to the game to provide a player’s perspective but still understand the financial needs of a business. I think you fit that bill perfectly.”
Join the team’s management? For the first time since he retired, Scott felt a genuine stirring of interest. The sports-bar idea was a bit of fun, but this was something he could get his teeth into. “What about Brendan?”
The current assistant general manager had been with the Cats since Scott was a rookie. He was also the only one left from the previous GM’s era. Brendan was a nice-enough guy but, in Scott’s opinion, resistant to change and lacking in vision.
Callum crossed his arms. “We both agreed it was time for fresh blood. He’ll transition into one of our ambassadors, so he can still be part of the organization and we can tap into his knowledge base whenever we need it. The man has a phenomenal memory of the Cats’ history and players.”
“That’s a good role for him.”
“A win-win. So, what do you think? Are you up for a new challenge?”
Although it seemed like an interesting solution, Scott didn’t want to leap into the job without knowing more. “I’d definitely like to hear what would be involved.”
* * *
“I’M GLAD YOU’LL be part of my team. Welcome aboard.”
Callum’s simple words, when Scott signed his contract two days later, summed up what had really appealed to him. What Scott had missed since he’d retired. Being part of a team. And not just any team, but his beloved Ice Cats.
He’d discussed the job with Andy, his friends and his kids before accepting Callum’s offer. Andy had reiterated his view that Scott would do well in a business role. Angela had teased him about finding another position where he could boss people around, and Wayne had thought it was cool that his dad would be in management. Kasanski had put in a bid for a mega-millions mega-year contract, which Scott had treated with the respect it deserved—he’d ignored it.
As for Scott, he was psyched. For the first time in a year, he was eager to get started. “Glad to be here.”
Callum wasted no time throwing Scott in the deep end. After a quick introduction to the front-office staff—most of whom Scott knew from his time as a player—and a review of his induction schedule, the pair went through the issues that needed to be dealt with before training camp began.
