By the time the team joined her on the ice, Laurel was mentally prepared for what was to come. She’d done this type of thing once before, with the Olympic team she’d coached, and it had been effective. Her plan had to be slightly altered for an NHL-level team, but the concept was the same.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” She skated onto the ice and motioned for them to circle around her.
“What’s up, Coach?” As the team captain, Jake Carruthers took the lead.
“I have an exercise planned that won’t be popular, and no, Herb Brooks’ method is not what I have in mind.” Herb Brooks had been the coach of the men’s Olympic ice hockey team that won a gold medal in 1980 and one of his tricks had been to work the guys until they dropped to get them into shape. It had been effective back then, but these guys didn’t need physical conditioning so much as a change in mentality.
“Are you gonna tell us what you want us to do?” One of the players, Matt Forbes, didn’t even attempt to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
“Easy, Matt,” Jake warned him quietly. “I got this.”
“The exercise I have for you today is harder than it sounds, so listen up.” Laurel whistled and Dani led a group of young women out onto the ice. “All of you know Dani, who is an Olympic champion. Most of you should know Hailey Dobson, also an Olympic champion. Behind her are former and current college hockey players. And they’re here to play with us today.”
“What is this, female athlete daycare?” Matt snarled.
“Shut the fuck up, Matt,” Jake snapped.
“Matt, if you have a problem playing with the ladies, you know where the locker room is.” Laurel fixed him with an icy glare and then turned to the others. “Here’s what we’re doing. I’ll split all of you into two, co-ed teams. Rules are modified as follows: The ladies can hit you, but you cannot check the ladies. Hits will be based on league rules, so no funny business, legal checking only. However, if the women draw a penalty, it’s only a one-minute penalty. Gentlemen will serve standard two-minute penalties. I trust no one here today is going to do anything that forces me to throw you out of the game. I will serve as the referee, Coach Cade and Coach York will serve as linesmen. We’ll play a full sixty-minute game, with three twenty-minute periods. Anyone caught playing dirty or breaking any of my rules will be a healthy scratch tomorrow night. Any questions?”
“What the hell, Coach?” one of the younger guys, Logan Pelletier, called out. “They can hit us but we can’t hit them?”
“Correct. Two minutes in the box if you do.” Laurel had to bite her lip not to laugh at the look of confusion on his face.
“How will we know who’s who?” Jake asked. “Once the action gets going, it’ll be hard to tell the ladies from the guys.”
“Ladies were all told to wear their hair in braids, so you’ll see a braid down their back, except for the two with short hair, but you have to figure it out. They’re also wearing no-contact jerseys.”
“But the no-contact jerseys are all the same color…” Kane said in confusion, glancing at his wife, who merely shrugged.
“Then I guess you’re going to have to get to know your new teammates pretty quickly.” Laurel clapped her hands. “All right, Jake and Sergei separate everyone into two teams; the ladies will tell you their positions. Make sure you have an equal number on your teams. I don’t care how you split up otherwise. You have ten minutes to get situated.” She turned and skated back to the bench, sitting beside Marshall and Randy York, who was the team’s goalie coach.
“You’ve got an interesting approach,” Marshall murmured under his breath.
“There’s a lesson to be learned here. I can always switch to having them skate laps until they puke tomorrow.”
Marshall chuckled. “Let’s hold off on that and try your plan first.”
“That’s what I thought too.” Laurel stared out at the players, now busily trying to form two teams.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to prove,” Randy said quietly, “but you’re definitely going to piss them off.”
“That’s okay. I’m not here to be anyone’s friend. I just want to get them thinking like a team again. Firing the main coaching staff has everyone on edge, and this little exercise can work wonders. A coach did it to me many years ago in college and I did it two years ago with my Olympic team. Maybe it’s got one more shot of magic in it.”
Watching from a discreet location in the press box, Gage wasn’t quite sure what Laurel was doing. She’d somehow pulled together three women who’d played high-level hockey as well as half a dozen local female players and immersed them in the team for what appeared to be a somewhat lopsided game. She’d handicapped the male players to a degree, forcing them to play a gentler, more mental game, while the ladies were giving them everything they had. Granted, with the exception of Dani, the men skated circles around them, but he could practically feel the mounting frustration every time the ladies landed a solid hit. They were checked regularly when they played their NHL counterparts, but this was different because they couldn’t retaliate. They also had to focus on who was who, since all the women were wearing the same no-contact jerseys, regardless of which team they were on.
Laurel was either crazy or a genius, because the guys seemed lost right now. Even Sergei and Kane, who’d undoubtedly known what was coming, struggled to find their normal level of play. Ironically, it was the younger players like Logan and Mikka who’d acclimated the fastest. They were quicker to recognize their new teammates and passed to them with ease by the middle of the first period, while some of the more seasoned players avoided passing because they simply didn’t know who was who. It would have been funny if there wasn’t so much on the line, but Laurel knew what she was doing. You didn’t coach at the Olympic level without being good at it and she was.
“What’s going on?” Rose whispered as she sank down beside him.
“No idea,” Gage admitted. “You have the sales team properly enthralled with Italian food?”
“Yup, but security just called to say the coaches are here to clean out their offices, so you’ll need to get up there if you’re going to talk to them.”
Shit. Gage didn’t want to deal with them. He wanted this whole mess to be done and over with, but he still had to get through one more thing and hopefully this would be it.
“Let’s go.” He got up and followed her back inside, toward Coach Sylvester’s office.
Alan stood there stiffly, arms crossed as he waited for Gage with a security guard at his side.
“Alan.” Gage nodded at the security guard, who unlocked the office.
“Caldwell.” Alan walked inside, picking up two boxes that had been left on the floor for him.
“Will Lyndon and Duncan be joining you?”
“My attorney advised me not to have any further contact with them.”
“I see.”
“Are you going to the police, Caldwell?” Alan finally made eye contact. “I need to be prepared. Not for myself, but for my family.”
Gage shrugged. “I answered that at our meeting. My official reason for firing you was conduct unbecoming. It’s up to you where we go from here. If I hear you talking shit about me or the team, to anyone, I will absolutely make the evidence public. As long as you keep your mouth shut and stay on the straight and narrow, no one ever has to know.”
“And if the league gets involved?”
“Nothing I can do about that, but I’m not going to go to them.”
“What will you say if someone from another team calls to ask what happened?”
“Like a job reference? Nothing. I’ll say our confidentiality agreement goes both ways.”
“And if they ask you point-blank whether or not you’d give me a recommendation?”
“I’ll say no.”
The men stared each other down for another few seconds before Alan turned away. “Fair enough, I guess.”
“This is on you, Alan,” Gage said as he turned to go. “You made a choice and now you have to live with the consequences.”
“Your uncle never would have handled things this way.”
“Probably not, but my uncle trusted my judgment enough to leave the team to me.”
“You were his only heir. Who else would he leave it to?”
“He could’ve sold it. I’ve had several offers since I took over. Regardless, I do wish you the best.”
“Bullshit.”
“Think whatever you like.” Gage looked up as Duncan and Lyndon came down the hall. This was going to be the longest day ever, and something told him this wasn’t the last he’d see of these men.