Body Check (3 page)

Brent said, “I can understand that.”

Lee added, “Maybe this new coach just wants your team to stand up against more aggressive teams. Could that be what he’s saying
when he talks about being winners?”

“I guess,” answered Brent, not at all sure. “It sounds like you’re saying I should wait and see, for now.”

“Don’t you think that’s the best thing to do?” asked Lee.

Brent said, “But what if I’m right about Vic and Mr. —
Coach
Seabrook. What then?”

Lee chewed his lower lip. “Well, if it turns out you’re right, more people will see for themselves. Coach Maxwell really knows
the game. He’s still the smartest
hockey coach I ever met. He’ll know if something isn’t the way it ought to be, and so will other players. Probably some parents,
too. You’ll find that you won’t be alone in wanting something to be done to fix the problem. if there’s a problem.”

Brent suddenly felt better. “Yeah. I guess what was bothering me was I thought it was all on me, that I was alone. But if
stuff keeps happening, then I won’t be alone, will I? That’s good to remember.”

“No, you’ll have people standing up with you, I guarantee it,” Lee said. “And don’t forget, it may turn out that you were
wrong and that they’re really okay. There’s a good chance of that.”

“I hope so,” said Brent. “Yeah, Vic may just turn out to be our enforcer. I mean, he sure isn’t much of a skater.”

“It’s like I said,” his brother pointed out. “Enforcers usually aren’t fantastic skaters. Maybe his dad figures that Vic will
do better if he plays physical, aggressive hockey. That could be his whole deal, you know? He’s just trying to look out for
his son.”

Brent smiled. “I understand that, if that’s what he wants. According to Coach Maxwell, Mr. Seabrook was a defenseman when
he played. I guess it wouldn’t
hurt to have a defensive-minded coach to work with Coach Maxwell.”

“Absolutely not,” agreed Lee.

Brent stood up. “Thanks,” he said. “I feel a lot better. I’ll tell Cam what you said. And I hope that it turns out that Vic
is a nice guy who just needed a little time to get used to being here.”

“I hope so, too,” said Lee.

C
am was buckling his shin pads when Brent sat down next to him in the locker room. The two friends usually suited up together.

“Hey!” Cam said, reaching for his other pad. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much.” Brent began pulling gear out of his athletic bag. “Oh, yeah, I wanted to tell you, I talked to Lee last night.
About… you know… ”

“Yeah, I know,” said Cam. “And?”

Just then, Vic walked by with his bag on one shoulder and his stick over the other. The two watched him go. Brent told himself
to keep an open mind about Vic, but there was something that rubbed him the wrong way, even in Vic’s walk… a kind of swagger.

Brent said, “Lee agrees that I’m making too much out of too little.”

Cam grinned. “I always knew Lee was a smart guy. So, now are you convinced?”

“Yeah.” Brent sat down, keeping his voice low. “Well, actually, you pretty much convinced me yesterday. But I just wanted
to talk to Lee anyway. I mean, he knows the game better than I do.”

“So you’re not going to go around bad-mouthing Vic and his dad? You’ll give them a chance?” Cam asked.

“Right, that’s what I said.” Brent felt a little annoyed at Cam. After all, he hadn’t “gone around bad-mouthing Vic and his
dad,” all he’d done was talk quietly to Cam and Lee. It wasn’t like he’d tried to get Vic thrown off the team. But he hoped
his irritation didn’t show as he said, “I want to ask you one thing.”

“Yeah? What?”

“If you notice anything that makes it look like I was right… tell me, okay?”

Cam frowned. “You still don’t sound like you’re convinced.”

“I said I’d keep my mind open,” Brent replied. “I’m asking you to do the same thing.”

“Sure,” Cam said. “Hey, I don’t want anyone on the team who doesn’t follow rules, any more than you do.
For one thing, it’ll hurt the team. For another, I don’t like it.”

“Okay, then,” Brent said. They finished putting on their protective gear and workout clothes but left their skates off until
the team had gone through their stretching routine.

Coach Maxwell led the stretching himself. He liked to say that it was the best insurance against injury. The players gathered
in a cleared-out section of the locker room, where they could lie full-length on the floor. They went through a dozen exercises
designed to keep their ligaments and muscles flexible. Coach Seabrook, wearing sweats and carrying a whistle, watched and
once in a while said things that were meant to sound encouraging. “That’s it, work it out,” and “Way to go!”

Brent thought he sounded silly, but he decided that the guy wanted to be helpful. At one point, after Coach Seabrook said,
“Yeah! Work those hammies,” he and Cam caught each other’s eyes and just barely managed to avoid giggling.

“Okay, lace up your skates and get on the ice,” called Coach Maxwell. The workout began as it always did, with a skatearound
to warm up. The players would
take laps around the rink, first going forward and then backward. Brent smiled, remembering how tough skating backward had
been for him when he first went out for hockey at the age of seven. Lee, who was with the Badgers at the time, had been very
patient and helped him a lot.

“It’s going to feel funny at first,” his big brother had said, “but you’ll get used to it.”

“Why do I have to go backward?” Brent remembered asking. “I’m going to be a center like you, not play defense.”

“Every hockey player has to do it,” Lee had explained. “Even wings and centers play defense when the other team has the puck.
And defense means skating backward. Come on, it’s no big deal. Bend your knees, like you’re going to sit in a chair… good!
Now, use the inside edge of your right skate to push yourself backward… then straighten out your right leg, and…
oops!
Okay, you’re not hurt, get up and try again. All right, good! Now shift your weight to your left leg and use
that
skate to push yourself back, and…
uh oh!
Okay, up you go and try it again… ”

Brent’s rear end had been sore for a while before he mastered the trick, but Lee was right, of course: once
Brent got the idea, it became automatic. Not that Brent could skate backward as fast as Cam or most defensemen, who usually
skate backward more than wings and centers. Brent sometimes teased Cam that Cam could go faster backward than forward.

After the skatearound, Coach Maxwell split the team into pairs for a passing drill, focusing on lead and drop passes. One
player of each pair starts from the end of the rink, and his partner gives him a twenty-foot lead before following him, taking
the puck. The puck-handler skates to the first blue line and fires a forehand pass to his teammate, who receives the pass
and skates toward the red line that divides the ice in half before leaving a drop pass for the first man. The first player
then fires the puck at the unguarded goal. The two come back the other way, reversing roles as they do so.

Coach Maxwell watched from rinkside and made suggestions to players: “Use more follow-through on your forehand pass, Sandy,”
or “Vic, try not to shoot when your weight is on the foot closer to the puck, or you’ll have trouble controlling your shot.
Shoot when you’re planted on the other foot.”

Afterward, the coach set up a drill to work on flip
shots, where a shooter lofts the puck into the goal over an obstacle, like a goalie’s stick, arm, or leg. For this drill,
Coach Maxwell put a six-inch-wide board across the goalmouth for the team to shoot over.

“Remember,” he said, “you have to bring the tip of your blade — what we call the
toe
— close to the puck and use both wrists to flick the puck, like
this.”
The coach demonstrated, flipping the puck over the board and into the cage. “All right, give it a try.”

One by one, the Badgers tried their own flip shots. Brent did pretty well, he thought, but Coach Maxwell said, “Don’t use
the stick like a shovel, Brent. That was more of a scoop than a flip. See what I mean?”

Brent nodded and tried again. “Much better,” said the coach. “You have strong wrists, so take advantage of them.”

Next, the two coaches had a slap-shot practice. At either end of the rink a coach set up a line of pucks about three feet
apart. A player skates along the line, winds up, and smashes each puck in turn at the unguarded goal.

“More windup,” Coach Maxwell told one Badger. “Don’t just push the puck, Ted. There’s a reason it’s called a slap shot.… That’s
it! It’s not a shot you’ll use
too often, because it’s not accurate,” he told the team, “but when you do use it, you want to really whack that puck. Remember,
slap shots are for situations when there’s an opening that is likely to close up fast; otherwise, use a standard forehand
or backhand shot.”

After the shooting drill, the coach had players take a break. “Afterward, we’ll split up. Defensemen and goalies will work
with Coach Seabrook, and the rest of you, stay with me.”

“Goalies, put on all your gear,” Coach Seabrook called out. “Masks, blockers, everything. Okay?”

A hockey puck is a disk made of hard rubber. If it hits a player, it can really hurt, especially if it strikes an unprotected
part of the player’s body. Nobody has more pucks flying at them than goalies. That’s why, in games, a goalie wears a mask
to protect his face. But the mask is designed for safety and not for comfort. A goalie also wears much more other gear than
the rest of a hockey team: bulky thigh and knee pads and pants with extra padding. On the hand that holds the stick handle,
he wears a rectangular pad called a blocker, a device with which he can block shots without getting bruised forearms. On his
other hand, he wears a catching glove, like a heavy version of a first baseman’s
mitt in baseball. This, too, he uses to block or even catch pucks.

A goalie must wear this gear to keep from being injured in games and whenever shots will be coming at him, but Coach Maxwell
usually let the goalies practice without heavy gear, when pucks wouldn’t be flying at them.

Brent was surprised when Coach Seabrook told the goalies to put on their full gear. The team wasn’t going to scrimmage right
now. Brent saw that Chip, the Badgers first-string goalie, a guy who usually wore a smile that wouldn’t quit, wasn’t happy
about having to put on what he called “his suit of armor” just to work out with the defense. But he didn’t say anything. When
a coach says “jump,” you don’t whine about it, you just jump. So Chip and Max, the other Badger goalie, trudged into the locker
room to get the rest of their stuff. Max was muttering something to Chip, who just shrugged.

Cam, watching the goalies walk through the locker door, said, “There go two unhappy guys.”

“Maybe it’s good for them to work more in full pads,” Brent said. “Coach Seabrook is supposed to be
a defense specialist. He must have his reasons. Maybe they’ll get in better shape this way.”

Cam stared at his friend. Then he laughed. “Wow! You really
are
trying to give the guy a break.”

Brent didn’t see what was so funny. “I said I would, didn’t I?”

C
oach Maxwell gathered the centers and wings together after the break. “We’re going to start with something that should be
fun,” he said. “This drill is designed to help with your puck-handling and maneuvering. Let’s have five of you guys — Ted,
Gavin, Sandy, Brent, and… okay, you, too, Mick. Each of you get a puck from the bench and get into the face-off circle, here.”

Pucks in hand, Brent and his four teammates stood in the circle, which was thirty feet across.

The coach nodded. “Put your pucks down in front of you. When I blow my whistle, you’re going to try to stay inside the circle,
moving your puck with your stick. You also have to try to poke the other guys’ pucks out of the circle. If your puck goes
out of the circle, you have to bring it back into the circle.

“But,
before you can come back into the circle, you have to go around the outside of the circle, twice. When only one of you is
left in the circle with his puck, he’s the winner. Any questions? Okay, after we have a winner, five more of you will give
it a try.”

Coach Maxwell blew his whistle, and the game started.

It wasn’t easy, Brent soon realized. He had to keep watching for poke checks from the other players, while moving his own
puck and watching for opportunities to slap an opponent’s puck out of the circle. Just as he tried to jab Sandy’s puck away,
Gavin got Brent’s puck and knocked it loose. Brent chased it down and raced around the circle twice, as fast as he could.
When he got back, there were still three other players inside.

Brent was quick to see why this game was a great drill. It was really good for sharpening reflexes, and it forced you to make
lightning maneuvers on your skates and use your stick as rapidly as you could.

He was really breathing hard a minute later, when the only ones left in the face-off circle were he and Ted. His stick had
begun to feel like lead in his hands when he lunged forward to try to poke away Ted’s puck. But Ted made a quick backhanded
move to
keep his puck out of Brent’s reach and shoved his own stick forward at Brent’s puck before Brent could recover. Brent’s puck
skittered out of the circle just before Sandy got back in, leaving Ted all by himself, the winner.

“Very good!” Coach Maxwell said. “Wrists and arms feeling tired?”

Brent grinned. His wrists were aching. He didn’t often give them such a concentrated workout.

“I’ll show you guys a couple of exercises you can use to build up those arms with weights,” the coach said. “It’d be good
for you to build yourselves up a little. All right, let’s have the rest of you guys in the circle.”

While the second group did the drill, Brent looked down the ice to see what Coach Seabrook was doing with the defensemen.
At the moment, he had them practicing hip checks. A player would move forward dribbling a puck, as if he were on an offensive
drive. A second man, playing the defender, would face him, bend down, turn sideways to the line of the first player’s advance,
and throw a hip into the guy’s hips and thighs. This maneuver, if done right, would separate the offensive player from the
puck, maybe even knock him off-stride and out of the play for the moment.