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When I woke up at about 6 a.m. I still had a headache. I called Richie, who came to my room and told me he wanted me to go back to Boston to see our team doctor, Jack “Send 'Em In” Wynn. A team doctor is about the last person you want to see when you're hurt. Team doctors are hired and paid by the club, which most of us see as meaning that the Hippocratic oath gets twisted around so that the phrase “but first do no harm” becomes “but first don't lose your gig with the club.” I think if my head got knocked off of my body and was spinning around in the face-off circle the team doctor would retrieve it, sew it back on, and tell management I'd be good to go in two or three games. It's only rookies who don't seek out independent doctors and get second opinions. But my contract says I have to see old “Send 'Em In,” so I flew back to Boston via Toronto, arriving too late to see anyone. Thursday morning I took a cab to Massachusetts General Hospital, where Doc Wynn shined more lights in my eyes, did some other tests, and surprised me when he said: “You've got a slight concussion; you're out until the headaches are gone for at least five days. You could be out a week. Maybe more. That said, it's only ten a.m., so you've got plenty of time to go get your second opinion.” No matter what they say, no doctor likes it when a patient gets a second opinion. But I think the fact that Doc Wynn knew I
always
got a second opinion is what kept him honest in the first place. It's a crazy game but you have to play it. I ignored his remark about a second opinion and asked him, “What's the story on internships here? Good program?”

“Mass General is one of the best hospitals in the world, JP; getting an internship here is like being signed by the Yankees or playing Carnegie Hall. Why? You making contingency plans in case Hattigan doesn't sign you?”

“My girlfriend graduates from med school this year,” I said. “She might intern here.”

“If she's lucky,” Wynn said. “We're highly selective.”

“So's Faith McNeil,” I said, heading for the elevator.

*   *   *

I didn't want to drive because of the headache and blurred vision, so I called Faith and invited her to my place. “Bring your little black doctor's bag,” I said. “I need a second opinion on this alleged concussion.”

“I could've made that diagnosis off of TV and this phone call,” she said. “You've got blurred vision, you were throwing up, and you still have a headache. Textbook concussion.”

“I'm sure it'll feel better if you come over and rub my head.”

“Ha! Which one?” she said.

I tried for a quick nap after I'd talked to Faith but the phone rang. It was Denny calling to tell me that the Mad Hatter had rescheduled the meeting to discuss my contract. Hattigan wouldn't meet with Denny for another two weeks. “You get hurt. The meeting gets delayed. All part of the negotiations game, JP.”

“I think we might be losing the game,” I said.

“Haven't lost one yet,” Denny said. That was true. Denny had always negotiated good deals for Cam and me. But I was getting a bad feeling about this one. Denny also told me he was taking my mother to dinner in Portland. I suggested Pat's Café on Stevens Avenue, a restaurant I'd come to know on trips to Portland during my days in the AHL. “Great food and a lot of tables set in little nooks and corners. Good place to talk, which is all you're going to be doing,” I said.

*   *   *

I watched on TV as we beat the Islanders 4–3 in one of those new tie-breaking shootouts where three players from each team take turns skating in alone on the goaltender just as they would on a penalty shot. Rinky stopped one of the Isles' three shooters, and Jean-Baptiste, Gaston, and Taki scored for us. I began to wonder if Rinky was at the point where he could be a number one goalie. My thinking went like this: He's good, he's younger than I am, and he'd come cheaper. And at this point in his career he's either going to have to win my job outright, resign himself to being a career backup, ask for a trade, or wait until his contract expires next season and become a free agent. I think his first choice would be to win my job. My getting hurt gave him a good chance to do that.

*   *   *

A lot of injured players like to watch the game on the dressing-room TV or to see it live by standing in the runway near our bench. They think that if they go up to the press box they'll be fair game for writers and broadcasters. But I don't mind talking to the media. I know whom to avoid (most of the writers in New York, a few in Toronto, and any gossip columnist) and whom I can trust. I see writers as a link to the fans and not as people looking for dirt to dish. Most of them are as professional about their jobs as I am about mine.

Before I went to the press box I stopped by our dressing room. I told Rinky to keep track of the 'Canes big center Ned Croutty, who likes to one-time the puck from the slot and who's strong and determined enough to take the beating routinely handed out to guys who like to hang in front of the goal.

It's true in all professional sports that when you're hurt, you don't feel as though you're part of the team. So as soon as the guys went out for warm-ups I took the elevator to the press box and started walking to the players' seats. I didn't get far. A Channel 3 TV producer asked me if I would do an interview between the first and second period, and our radio analyst, Spence Evans, asked me to go on air with him between the second and third periods. I said yes to both. I don't worry about broadcast interviews. The questions are usually softballs. But if Spence Evans is a belt-high marshmallow over the heart of the plate—“I'll bet you're eager to get back out there, JP,” is a typical Evans nonquestion—the print journalists, especially Lynne Abbott, are tougher. As soon as she saw me, Lynne said: “Excuse me, JP, but why is Kevin Quigley playing like a wuss?”

“I haven't noticed he is,” I said, lying to protect Quig.

“I don't know what it looks like from down there but from up here he looks like Disney's Princesses on Ice.”

“Quig will be there when we need him,” I said.

Lynne said that was what she'd thought at first “but he's been playing soft for more than a month.” I didn't know what to say so it was lucky that Lynn changed the subject and asked about my concussion. I said the headaches were gone and that I'd probably miss only one or two more games.

*   *   *

I sat at the end of the press box with a couple of guys up from Providence, both of whom were healthy scratches. The main thing I noticed watching from a press box was that you have a fraction of a second more than you think you have when you're on the ice. I think that's the difference between good players and great players; great players have a higher panic point; they use that extra millisecond. And the immortal players—Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Gordie Howe—seemed to have no panic point. If an opponent did X they did Y. Sort of like the talking cobra in Kipling's
The Jungle Book:
“If you move I strike. And if you don't move I strike.”

The other thing I noticed was that Kevin Quigley was in fact playing like a wuss.

“Jesus, Quig, you've got to drill him on that play,” I said to myself as Quigley took a curving route into the Hurricanes' left corner and tried to stick-check the puck from a Carolina defenseman. The play there is to staple the defenseman to the boards and either take the puck or leave it loose for a teammate to swoop in and pick up. Instead the defenseman kept possession and skated a few strides before sending a home run pass up the middle to Ned Croutty, who skated in alone and slid the puck under Rinky for a 1–0 Carolina lead in a game they'd win 6–2. Packy benched Quig for two shifts but that didn't do any good. Even when Kev came back he still played softer than cashmere.

“See what I mean,” Lynne said as I walked past her on my way to the broadcast booth for my TV interview.

For the rest of the game Quigley played so poorly I was embarrassed for him. I wanted to talk with him but it would've been easier scheduling talks with the North Korean government. He'd been a different guy ever since he hooked up with Nan O'Brien.

“Cam's the captain. Can't you get him to talk to Kevin?” Faith asked me as we drove back to my place after the game.

“We've tried setting up a lunch, we even invited him to a couple of Celtics games, but he's always got some reason he can't go. And that reason is usually Nan O'Brien. Was she at the game?”

“Saw her in the Family Room,” Faith said, using the new, politically sanitized title for what used to be the Wives' Room. “She's at all the home games.”

A light snow fell as I pulled Boss Scags into the tiny garage behind my condo. I was looking forward to catching the NHL highlights on TV while enjoying some postgame pasta and a glass or two of wine, a nice overture to what I hoped would be some relaxing late-night sex. That hope lasted until we took off our coats and Faith hit me with the buzz kill: “I've decided on my internship,” she said. “I'm going to Vermont.”

Hurt

I knew what it was as soon as I felt it. It happened in December of my first season with Vermont. It was early in the first period of a game at Northeastern. I was on my knees and off balance at the left post with a Northeastern forward about twenty feet in front of me looking at a mostly empty net. He shot and I stuck out my right leg in a desperate move. The pain was as if someone had strung a hot wire high on the back of my leg from below the butt to above the knee. Hamstring. I made the save but that was it for the night. Our trainer, Bobby Breyer, helped me to the dressing room.

I was on the trainer's table when the guys came into the room after the first period.

Coach Indinacci glanced at me but talked only to Bobby. “How long's he out for?”

“Hard to say. I'll have a better idea tomorrow,” Bobby said.

Coach walked away.

On the trip back to Vermont I sat on the left side of the bus with my right leg stretched across the aisle and resting on a right-side seat. About ninety minutes into the trip one of the assistant coaches had to use the bathroom at the back of the bus.

“Excuse me, JP,” was all he said as he stepped high over my outstretched leg. On his way back to his seat he didn't say anything.

You spend more time at the rink when you're hurt than when you're healthy. I cut a few classes to get some early-morning treatment. I was on the trainer's table one morning when Coach Indinacci came in.

“Morning, Coach,” I said.

“Bobby around?” Indinacci asked.

“Right here,” said Bobby Breyer emerging from a supply closet.

Indinacci and Bobby stood about five feet from me as they reviewed the injury report.

“Knowles?” Indinacci asked.

“Good to go,” Bobby said.

“Schaeffer?”

“No contact for another week.”

“Savard?”

“Another week at least. Maybe two.”

Indinacci didn't say anything. He turned and walked to his office.

“Was it something I said?” I asked Bobby, confused by Indinacci's coolness.

Bobby didn't answer.

Even when you're hurt you have to show up during practice hours. Players would come in, see me on the trainer's table, and ask me how I was doing. I had a bunch of them laughing one afternoon as I explained how my hamstring started killing me during sex with a puck fuck. “Had to abort the mission. Freaking embarrassing,” I was saying just as Indinacci walked up to our group.

“All right, guys, that's it. On the ice in ten minutes,” he said, clapping his hands. The group around me dispersed and I was again alone on the table.

The cold front lasted for about a week. None of the coaches was rude to me. No one tried to rush me back. No one implied I was faking it. But they spoke to me only if I spoke to them first.

One day after practice I went into Indinacci's office.

“Talk to you, Coach?” I asked.

“Talk,” Indinacci said.

“I didn't get hurt on purpose. I got hurt making a save,” I said, getting to what I thought was the bottom line.

“I know. Hell of a save, too,” Indinacci said.

“Then why am I all of a sudden a nonperson?” I asked.

Indinacci leaned forward over his desk. “You're not a nonperson, JP. You're a nonplayer.”

“So that means I'm chopped liver?”

“No,” Indinacci said. “That means you're irrelevant.”

I didn't make the weekend trip to Orono for two games against Maine. I started practicing on the Monday after that series. That week we had a rare Thursday-night home game against New Hampshire. “You think I can play?” I asked Bobby.

“Probably. But if I were you I'd give it another few days. Play on Saturday,” he said. On Wednesday Coach Indinacci came up to me at the end of practice.

“What do you think about tomorrow?” he asked.

“I can play,” I said.

Eight

I spooned puttanesca sauce over two bowls of linguine. “Isn't puttanesca supposed to be an aphrodisiac?” Faith asked.

“When Bruno gave it to me he said it gets its name from
puttana,
the Italian word for ‘whore,'” I said. “Bruno's grandfather told him that some Italian ladies in the whore industry made puttanesca sauce because they thought men were aroused by the smell. Maybe it's the anchovies.”

“Gross.”