Line Change

by W. C. Mack

  “I can say what I want,” Colin told me. “My dad says he’s already screwing up our season.”

  “Well, you and your dad can just wait till Saturday’s game. You’ll be eating those words.”

  “Whatever, Nugget,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  The guys let go of me and I was disappointed to see that most of the team seemed to be siding with Colin. They didn’t even make eye contact with me.

  “I’m serious,” I told the whole locker room. “Saturday’s game will be a massacre.”

  No one said anything, but at least Patrick Chen gave me a high five when he and a couple of other guys left.

  Pretty soon it was just Bosko and me in the locker room. Again.

  “I can’t believe the guys don’t get what Dad’s trying to do,” I said.

  “I can,” Bosko said, with a smirk.

  “What do you mean?”

  Bosko shook his head. “They’re different from you and me, Nugget.”

  I stopped what I was doing. Him and me? Bosko thought we were the same? “Really?”

  He leaned on his stick. “All these guys care about is scrimmages and Saturday games.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Of course,” he said, laughing. “But I care about the championship too. And next season, and the season after that.”

  “So do I,” I said, shrugging.

  “Exactly. And we care about getting into Junior, right?”

  “Well, yeah, because if we don’t play Junior —”

  “We never make it to the NHL,” he finished.

  I smiled. Bosko had the same dream I did. “Right.”

  “I don’t want to just play hockey when I’m a kid and then grow out of it.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I want it to be my life. My career.”

  “Me too,” I told him. “I want to be Jean Ducette.”

  “Oh yeah?” He laughed again. “Well, I want to be Eddie Bosko.”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, I want to be me, but —”

  “Eddie Bosko, starting right winger for the Chicago Blackhawks.” He smiled enough to show some of the teeth I used to think were fangs.

  “Nugget McDonald, starting right winger for the Vancouver Canucks,” I said, smiling too.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. We’re the same.”

  “The same,” I said, nodding.

  “And that means we both know that we have a lot of work to do,” Bosko said, shrugging. “I’m not going to whine about training if it means I end up a pro. Get me?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, suddenly understanding why the guys had voted him team captain.

  “We’re the ones who want it most,” he said.

  And he was right.

  I knew in my heart that I was more dedicated to hockey than most of the guys on the team.

  I wanted it more.

  And so did Bosko.

  So, how could we convince the rest of the Cougars to play along?

  Chapter Twelve

  I was still thinking about Friday’s Math quiz when I woke up on Saturday morning. As usual, I had no idea how I’d done, and Mr. Holloway was going to mark the stupid thing over the weekend.

  As if he needed two whole days!

  Even though I knew he had to mark everybody’s quizzes and he wasn’t trying to punish me, I wished he’d just whipped through it on Friday afternoon and saved me the torture.

  I thought about it all the way to Esquimalt, and that was a long ride.

  Three of the other team mums had gotten up early that morning to drive us to the game in a minivan caravan. Mum drove the fourth van, with me, Dad, Kenny and Bedhead McCafferty as passengers. The other guys slept most of the way there while us McDonalds talked.

  Dad was ready to play us in our new positions, and I was worried.

  An hour of practising a totally new position didn’t seem like nearly enough. It was like teaching a kid how to doggie paddle and tossing him in the Pacific.

  And new positions during a game?

  “Today is the perfect time to try them out,” Dad had told me. “You’re playing a much weaker team. It’s almost like a practice instead of a game, anyway.”

  I leaned back in my seat and sighed.

  Thinking about it kind of made my stomach hurt.

  Especially when I pictured Bosko at centre and all the goals he could score.

  He would beat me in the competition, he’d already beaten me for team captain. What if he ended up being the season’s MVP?

  I was starting to get a headache.

  For once, I didn’t want to think about hockey, so I daydreamed about the growth spurt Mum kept promising instead. I stared out the window, wondering when I’d at least break the tie between me and Ella Patterson for shortest kid in grade six.

  Mum and Dad started going over their plans for new carpet in the living room and pretty soon I was asleep too.

  I mean, who could talk about carpets for longer than forty-five seconds?

  When I woke up, we were pulling into the Esquimalt rink.

  “Ready?” Dad asked, as me and the guys stretched and yawned.

  I didn’t have to think too hard about that. Dad was right about Esquimalt being weaker than us. They were the lowest ranking team in the league, which meant we were practically guaranteed a win.

  And the guys couldn’t complain if we were in the middle of a winning streak, right?

  “Definitely ready,” I said, jumping out of the car.

  Judging by the chatter in the locker room, which was mostly about how we were going to wipe the ice with the Eagles, it seemed like all of us were ready.

  But it turned out that we weren’t even close.

  * * *

  The funny thing about the Eagles was that they weren’t only the worst team in the league, but the weirdest looking. Most of the guys in our age group were about the same size (except for me being a shrimp and a guy like Bosko looking like a gorilla), but the Eagles were all over the place.

  They had a goalie who was built like a toothpick and constantly had pucks whizzing by his skinny arms. Then they had a great big centre who couldn’t skate if his life depended on it, and a couple of slouching wingers who always looked more interested in watching the game than playing in it.

  When you added their green and brown uniforms, the whole thing just looked ugly.

  Just before game time, Dad told us we’d be starting off in our new positions. I took a deep breath, waiting for the guys to try to change his mind, but they kept pretty quiet. Maybe they’d decided it wasn’t such a bad idea.

  At least that’s what I thought until I heard Jeff talking to Colin about Dad picking favourites by keeping me at right wing. I didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  He wasn’t playing favourites. After all, Bosko was the one who’d end up being a scoring machine.

  I had to keep up with him, so I knew I had to play one of the most awesome games of my life.

  Again.

  So I did, from the second the puck was dropped.

  But the rest of the guys? They stunk like week-old garbage.

  Bedhead was so bad as a goalie, we would have been better off with an empty net.

  Seriously.

  Kenny wasn’t aggressive enough with the Eagles’ offense, and they kept blowing past him like he was a ghost.

  A whiny ghost.

  And the biggest surprise was Bosko.

  As worried as I was about him being in prime goal-scoring position, I’d found a silver lining. I’d thought about great NHL partners, like Robitaille and Gretzky or Detroit’s Production Line, who I read about in Shoot! Volume 1.

  Bosko at centre could actually be a good thing.

  I’d convinced myself that we could become an awesome duo too, so I was half relieved and half disappointed when he couldn’t get it together at all. It was like he was playing for the first time.

  “What’s your deal?” I asked, near the end of the first period, when we were bo
th back on the bench to catch our breath.

  “My deal? I’ve never played centre in my entire life.”

  “I can tell.”

  “What did you say?” he growled.

  “I said —”

  “Say it again and I’ll pop you one, Nugget.”

  “Okay, okay. Look, it’s just like playing right but, you know … in the middle.”

  “Thanks for the update, genius.”

  “I’m just saying —”

  “If you think you could handle it, trade me.”

  “Trade you what?”

  “Let me play right wing and you mess around in the middle.”

  “I can’t just switch,” I told him. “Dad … I mean, Coach put me here.”

  “How convenient,” Jeff said. “You’re the only guy playing your normal position.”

  “And I’ve scored three goals,” I reminded them.

  I was four ahead of Bosko for the season!

  He hadn’t scored once.

  “My point, exactly,” Bosko grunted.

  The guys never got their momentum going in the new positions, and the fans who’d travelled to the game started to get pretty loud about it.

  “You need to put Colin back at left wing!” Mrs. Bechter yelled. “That other kid doesn’t know which end is up!”

  “And move Chris back into goal,” Fullerton’s mum shouted. “He’s way better than the guy you’ve got in there.”

  “No, Mum,” Chris begged from the bench, happy to be out of the net.

  “This should be a slaughter,” his mother said.

  “We’re winning,” I muttered. Barely, but winning.

  “Bosko hasn’t had a single goal,” Kenny said. “That’s a pretty good sign that something’s gone haywire.”

  “Your dad isn’t going to switch everybody back to their normal positions, is he?” Chris asked, looking worried.

  “He’d better,” Kenny said.

  “I think so,” I told them. “But I don’t know when.”

  “Maybe once you’ve scored double digits?” Bosko asked.

  “Very funny,” I said.

  “No,” Bosko growled. “Not funny at all.”

  Colin’s mum showed up behind the bench to talk to Dad.

  “Why is your kid still in position?” she asked.

  “Because that’s where I put him,” Dad told her.

  “But —”

  “I’m not going to argue with you,” Dad told her, crossing his arms and turning back toward the game.

  Even though I was playing awesome, I started wishing Dad would move me somewhere else, so I could be as crummy as everyone else.

  The guys thought I was getting special treatment, and I hated it.

  So why didn’t Dad just switch me?

  In the second period I was back in the game, which was great. Except for the fact that the better I played, the worse I felt.

  Dad finally moved everyone back to their old positions late in the period, but it was too late.

  Even back where they belonged, the guys couldn’t get it together. They were so frustrated by how things had gone in their new slots, they couldn’t get their heads in the game.

  When there was only a minute and a half left on the clock and the game was tied up, Bosko kind of lost it.

  One of the Eagles blocked his shot and Bosko charged him.

  “It’s déjà vu all over again,” Dad said, as our gorilla was sent to the box.

  Geez, if Dad’s strategies didn’t sink the team, Bosko’s temper would.

  We only had four guys left on the ice and the Eagles scored again.

  It was the shock of the century when we lost the game, 5–4.

  Just before we left for the locker room, Colin told my dad, “Didn’t someone tell you once that it’s about hockey, not humiliation?”

  Dad didn’t say a word.

  * * *

  When we got home, after a long, mostly silent drive, the answering machine was flashing eleven messages.

  Five of them were from Colin’s dad, wondering why his kid wasn’t playing the right position.

  Two were from Kenny’s dad, asking what on earth Dad had been thinking and threatening to call Coach O’Neal.

  Three were Kenny’s mum, trying to talk louder than his dad, who was still yelling in the background.

  The final message was from Coach O’Neal, asking Dad to call him back.

  “I waited too long,” Dad said, with a deep sigh. “I should have switched everybody back sooner.”

  Obviously!

  “Why didn’t you?” I asked.

  “Because they’d done so well at practice. I just kept waiting for things to click into place.”

  “But when the worst team in the league was catching up to us …”

  “I know, Nugget,” he said, shaking his head. “But my plan really should have worked.”

  Dad went upstairs to call Coach from the phone in the office and I was glad I didn’t have to overhear it.

  * * *

  “So?” Mum asked when he came back downstairs, twenty minutes later.

  “He’d heard from some parents,” Dad told her.

  Uh-oh.

  “And?” Mum asked.

  “He thinks the position changes are a good idea, considering the hole that was left in goal when Jason moved.”

  “That’s good,” Mum said, nodding.

  “He’d heard about the ice time too, so I explained that we get make-up time at the Wednesday practices. He was fine with that.”

  Mum smiled. “This all sounds very positive.”

  “It was, until we talked about today’s loss.”

  “Oh.” She frowned.

  “Let’s just say Coach O’Neal was disappointed that we lost to such a low-ranking team.”

  I’m glad I didn’t hear the actual words he used.

  “What’s the verdict?” Mum asked.

  “He told me to tone down the changes. He said it’s too much at once.”

  Great. That meant even Coach was mad at Dad.

  “If that’s what Coach wants, you should probably —” Mom began.

  “Don’t worry, hon,” Dad interrupted, giving her a squeeze. “I know what I’m doing and I’m going to show everybody.”

  Those were not the words I wanted to hear.

  Everything was so messed up, I wasn’t even hungry for dinner. I barely ate any of my chicken, and my corn on the cob, which I usually wolfed down, just sat there on the plate.

  When Dad invited me to watch the Leafs game with him later that night, I just shook my head and started toward the stairs.

  “It’s a game, son.” Dad called after me. “Sometimes you lose.”

  Yeah, right.

  But not to the freakin’ Eagles.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mondays were always rotten, but knowing I had practice right off the bat made it a thousand times worse.

  I hated the fact that the parents had ganged up on Dad and ratted him out to Coach. And I hated the fact that Dad didn’t seem to be giving up on his master plans.

  We didn’t talk much during breakfast and I could tell he was thinking about all kinds of stuff.

  I was doing the same thing.

  What stunk the most about how things were turning out was that I’d been so excited about Dad coaching the team. I was tired of the guys giving him a hard time and even more tired of Dad doing his own thing.

  And losing to the Eagles?

  That was the worst of it.

  I had to do something.

  “Dad, can you please just go back to practising like Coach did?”

  He took a bite of toast. “There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.”

  “Except it’s not working,” I said, getting frustrated.

  Why couldn’t he see that?

  “I disagree, Nugget. And even if it wasn’t working right away, we’d still need to give new ideas time to see how they developed.”

  I took a deep breath. “W
hat’s developing is really mad parents.”

  Dad stopped chewing and stared at me. “I know what I’m doing, son, and I’m not about to start taking orders from a bunch of spectators who don’t have a clue.”

  “But when Coach O’Neal —”

  “I appreciate Coach’s advice, but —”

  “It wasn’t advice, Dad. He was telling you what he wants you to do.”

  Dad sighed. “Look, Nugget. Coach is from a different era in sports, an older generation. They did things differently back then. Soon enough, he’ll see that what I’m doing is helping the team and he’ll appreciate it. Plyometrics and position changes could be the ticket to the championship.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say and he obviously wasn’t going to listen, anyway.

  Fine.

  I’d tried really hard to support him, but was I supposed to sit back and let him destroy the team?

  * * *

  When I got to the locker room that morning, it was pretty obvious that most of the guys were siding with the angry parents.

  Kenny even caught a ride to practice with Colin instead of us that morning. While we got changed, he was looking anywhere but at me.

  Other than Bosko, who hadn’t shown up yet, only a couple of guys were siding with Dad, and they were the ones who didn’t say much, like Patrick Chen and the Watson triplets. Geez, I wasn’t even on Dad’s side anymore.

  “Let me guess,” Colin said, with a smirk. “Plyometrics today, Nugget?”

  I shook my head. “We’re running.”

  “So, the Glitter will be using our ice time again?” Kenny groaned.

  “You know we’ll get a two-hour practice on Wednesday, just like last time,” I reminded him.

  “For practising the wrong positions,” Colin said.

  I was pretty sure running was the worst decision Dad could have made. Up until the nasty phone calls, he’d been planning to spend Monday’s practice on the ice. He’d even told me there would definitely be a scrimmage because he wanted the guys to get more comfortable in their new positions.

  But that plan was out the window (and run over by a Mack truck) because midway through the Leafs game, he got the phone tree started, letting everyone know it was an off-ice practice.

  I wished he could see that giving in to what everybody wanted wasn’t the end of the world. Geez, he and Mum were always talking about compromise.