Pee Wees

by Rich Cohen

  Over time, the proclivities of the parents become as clear as those of their kids. Most of them watch the games with other parents from the bleachers, but a few sit by themselves. Jerry Sherman can’t tolerate a crowd when his daughter Broadway Julie is on the ice. He stands at the far end with one or two handpicked confidants. He does not want to be overheard talking smack about coaches or kids.

  Some parents watch only from ice level, while others sit up high, as if assuming the vantage of God. Judd Meese sat by himself in the top row of the bleachers. Jocko and Camille Arcus set up behind the goal. When the teams switched sides between periods, so did they. You could chart their position as you chart the phases of the moon. Becky Goodman’s mother, Roz, waited in the car—she said she couldn’t stand to watch. Now and then, her husband, Bill, would go out with a cup of coffee and an update. Duffy’s father, Parky, watched from the corner. “It’s the only spot that lets you see the entire ice without turning your head,” he explained. I like to watch from the offensive zone.

  Some parents dressed for games in business casual, but most wore gear, Bears hats and Bears sweatshirts. Some mothers—hockey moms—had pins that showed their child in action. In the way of a high school girlfriend, Sue Campi wore one of her son’s old jerseys to the games.

  The parents convened in the lobby after the final horn to wait. The girls seemed to change faster than the boys. They were in street clothes before the boys had taken off their skates. The coach exited next, avoiding eye contact as he headed to his car. He’d wave off anyone who tried to stop him, saying, “Twenty-four-hour rule.” Then came most of the boys, nodding and accepting congratulations. A half hour after the rest had changed, the stragglers emerged, three or four kids who took forever. Micah was always among them, usually accompanied by Joey and Tommy McDermott.

  The drive home is a melancholy mood. Dark roads, towns in the distance. Best is when you come upon your own house in an unusual way, as if by accident. You don’t recognize it at first. You sit confused, appreciating your life as you appreciate a thing that belongs to someone else.

  * * *

  The Bears had their first really physical game in late September in Northford, Connecticut, a few miles outside New Haven. To get there, you take the Merritt Parkway, a beautiful highway built in the 1930s, the age of the Chrysler Imperial. Ten minutes from Northford, the Merritt goes beneath a small green mountain. That tunnel marks the transition from Fairfield County to the rest of the world. Before it, lush suburbia. Beyond it, smokestacks and factories. The Bulldogs wear Yale jerseys, but are in no way affiliated with the school. After games in Northford, Ridgefield parents often talk of writing a letter to the president of the university: “Dear Mr. Salovey, do you know what sort of sportsmanship is being practiced in your name?”

  Before warm-ups, our parents stood along the boards examining the Northford players: No way that kid is under fifteen! Parky made the usual joke about grabbing a beer with one of the Bulldogs. A debate ensued: Are the Northford kids big, or are the Ridgefield kids small? We split fifty-fifty on the question. “It has nothing to do with DNA,” Sue Campi said. “It’s nurture, not nature. There’s no McDonald’s in Ridgefield. Northford has two. And a Burger King. And a Popeyes, Dairy Queen, and Wendy’s. Fast food. That’s the difference. The hormones in the meat trigger puberty at age nine or ten. Demand birth certificates and you’ll see. According to the calendar, these kids are kids, but when it comes to biology, they could be serving in the army.”

  Parky had a different theory. “I’ve been through the tunnel enough to know what they’re doing,” he said. “Their best players are always their smallest, and the biggest can never skate. Isn’t it obvious? The Bantams who don’t make travel play in Pee Wee, and the Pee Wees who don’t make travel play in Squirt.”

  When an especially big Bulldog waddled out of the locker room, Terry Stanley whistled through his teeth. It was the sort of whistle you hear on the observation deck of the Hoover Dam.

  “Look at him!” said Sharon Rizzo. “Why should our kids even play this game? They’re gonna get creamed.”

  This made me think of Exodus, when Moses, knowing the freed slaves will have to battle their way into Canaan, sends ahead some scouts. They return with an alarming report. Converted into hockey-parent vernacular, it’d go like this: “Look at them! No way those kids are under fifteen! Maybe they can lend us their razors! Why even play this game?” God condemns the Hebrews to forty years in the wilderness. This is Jehovah as a hockey coach, blowing his whistle. The Hebrews do not have the courage to fight so must wander until those born as slaves die. What Sharon Rizzo said wasn’t even true. In hockey, size is no match for speed, skill, intelligence. As long as we played fast and smart, we’d be fine, but some of our players overheard Sharon. Kids are suggestible. If you tell them they don’t have a chance, they don’t.

  Tommy McDermott lined up against the Northford center—Meacham, number 88—for the opening face-off. It was one of those funny disparities you get in youth sports: tiny versus massive; kale versus Big Mac. It began just as you’d expect. Meacham sent Tommy reeling, took the puck, and plowed ahead. The parents quickly gathered into enemy camps: home and away, us and them. Insults were exchanged, but it was mostly them insulting us. It was a culture clash. Before the game, a stranger warned me: “Be careful—these people are insane.”

  The Ridgefield parents, players, and coaches were soon mad at the referees. I’ve told Micah this is silly, that the refs have nothing against his team, that they don’t care who wins. “The idea that they choose a side is idiotic,” I said, though that’s not always what I believe. In Northford, the refs did indeed seem to let the home team get away with a lot. If they did not call roughing or tripping, then size really would be the only thing that mattered. Northford’s first goal came halfway through the opening period. A Northford defenseman uncorked a slap shot from the blue line. It hit Dan Arcus in the face mask. You could hear the clank across the rink. He stumbled. Players from both teams fought for the rebound. As Dan reached for the puck, that big Meacham kid knocked him down. Another Northford player then shot the puck into the empty net. Goal. Horn. Bedlam. Only it shouldn’t have counted. The goalie had been interfered with, which, instead of a goal, should have meant a two-minute penalty on them.

  How had the ref missed it?

  Coach Pete called a time-out. I could not hear him, but I knew what he’d be saying: “Don’t let them take you out of your game. Fight back, but keep it clean. Don’t get angry. It’s what they want. Just win, baby.”

  Some of our kids responded appropriately. Leo fought for position in front of the net. Barry lowered his shoulder into a kid trying to take him out. Becky cleared their forwards away from our crease. But others acted inappropriately. Duffy lost his head completely. By the end of the first period, he was reeling around like a popped balloon, a drunk looking for a fight. Coach Pete scolded him. Coaches Rizzo and Hendrix admonished him. He didn’t care. To play with edge means convincing yourself the kids on the other team are not merely trying to win but trying to annihilate you. It feels personal. Duffy was like a frontier sheriff who becomes a bigger threat to the town than the bad guys. He had that righteous hockey thing, only too much of it. The job of a coach is to recognize and redirect such energy, make it clear to a kid like Duffy that scoring is the only revenge. If this point was ever going to be made, here was a perfect opportunity. That way, even if we lost—we were going to lose—a positive would come out of it. But that’s not what happened. Duffy instead went from cursing to shoving, from shoving to hitting. Coach Pete should’ve sat him down and told him to cool off, but simply let him play until the inevitable happened. It came at the end of the first. Three players were battling in the corner, Meacham among them. You could see that big number 88 hunched over, head a foot from the boards. Flying from the blue line, Duffy hit Meacham in the back, launching him into the corner, where he crumbled, then lay inert. The ref blew his whistle, skated over, and looked
down. He motioned to the Northford bench. Parents on both sides got quiet. The kids on the ice took a knee, as they’d been taught. A Bulldogs coach shuffled out in Timberlands.

  What Duffy did is called boarding—when you hit a defenseless player, a player who can’t see you coming, into the boards from behind. It’s among the worst penalties in hockey because it’s among the most dangerous. That’s how kids are paralyzed. Everyone applauded when Meacham finally stood. He missed the next shift but was back in the second period, playing as rough and dirty as before. Which was not the point. Duffy had transgressed—that was the point. He was heaped in shame and driven out, ejected from the game. He skated away slowly, sadly, then reappeared beside his father in street clothes, looking surprisingly harmless and small.

  The Bears were given a “two and ten” penalty. For two minutes, we’d have only three players to face their five. One of our kids would have to sit in the box for two minutes, and another would have to sit for ten. Coach Hendrix called for Roman and Micah, waving them into the cooler. Roman would sit for two, Micah for ten. The shame of serving another man’s sentence! The injustice! Had we really traveled all this way for Micah to miss nearly a third of the game? It infuriated me. I tried to hide my emotions—someone had to serve the penalty, after all—but I had a hard time doing it.

  Northford scored on the power play, then scored again, then again. It had been 1–0 when Micah went into the box. It was 4–0 when he came out. It was 8–1 at the end of the game, a serious blow to the algorithm. Our players consoled their goalie, Dan Arcus, then went listlessly through the handshake line. Some of the Northford kids, instead of saying “Good game” as they shook hands—that’s the custom—said, “Good scoreboard,” which led to pushing and shoving.

  The Ridgefield parents gathered in the lobby to commiserate. I’ve been in the Chicago Cubs locker room after the team’s eighth straight loss. This was even worse. Anger. Confusion. Depression. Everyone wanted an explanation. Was it Duffy’s fault? Did Coach Pete fail us? Do we need to put our kids on a starch-heavy diet? Or maybe we just had to get that one serious thumping out of the way.

  I asked Coach Hendrix what he thought, but wish I hadn’t. He had only bad things to say about our team and our players and our style. He spoke with terrific intensity. His face turned red, his words came faster and faster.

  “It’s only one game,” I reminded him.

  “Don’t give me that,” he said. “We’ve been getting by on individual play. We’ve now hit the wall. If we continue to play like this, we will lose and lose and lose.”

  When I asked about Duffy’s penalty, he cursed and said, “He’s a bad kid.”

  “You’ve got to channel his energy,” I said. “You can teach him.”

  “Teach him what?” said Coach Hendrix. “How to be a good person? If his parents can’t teach him right from wrong, how can I?”

  Broadway Jenny was at her father’s side, head down. Grace Hendrix was on the phone a few feet away, keeping an eye on everything. I complimented Broadway Jenny on her hustle. She looked up and smiled, but her eyes were bloodshot.

  “You want to meet us at Dairy Queen?” I asked.

  Coach Hendrix snorted.

  “No thanks,” he said. “We’re going to Newington.”

  “Why Newington?”

  “We play them next week. We’re going to scout.”

  “Scout?”

  It was the first I’d heard about Coach Hendrix’s scouting. He’d apparently been traveling all over Connecticut to check out each team we’d play. He was the strange adult sitting alone in the bleachers. “Does anyone know who that man is?” He’d write the name and number of every ten- and eleven-year-old in his notebook beside evaluations of speed, style, shot, and demeanor, strengths and weaknesses. He might go back to see the same team two or three times, even if it meant crisscrossing the state. If he could not attend in person, he’d watch the game on one of the apps—LiveBarn, HockeyTV—that stream from various rinks, freezing on particular plays, watching them again and again. He’d then brief Coach Pete. “This kid is good, but he can’t take pressure,” he might say. “If we get someone to chirp at him—Duffy? Tommy?—it’ll wreck him.”

  Parky and his son Duffy were at Dairy Queen when Micah and I arrived. Duffy was drinking a shake. Parky was eating a Blizzard. The boarding penalty, the ejection—it had been a stressful afternoon for Parky, who, like millions of Americans, self-medicated with food. He would put on at least ten pounds in the course of the season.

  Micah talked about the officiating all the way home.

  “Cahoots” is the word he used.

  “That ref was in cahoots.”

  “Why would the ref care who wins?” I asked.

  “It was a Northford ref,” Micah explained. “A hometowner!”

  “Don’t make accusations without evidence,” I said.

  “I do have evidence,” he said, hair damp, eyes shining.

  “Fine. Let’s hear it.”

  “The ref got confused and skated to the Northford bench and asked, ‘What period is this?’ And one of their kids said, ‘It’s the third period, Dad.’”

  * * *

  I had trouble calming down when I got home. The violence of the thrashing and the anger of Coach Hendrix stayed with me. I texted a handful of parents, who, in their return texts, revealed themselves to be equally irritated. This marked the beginning of the postgame exchanges that would keep me company through the season. I texted with Duffy’s father, Parky Taylor; Patrick’s mother, Sue Campi; and Barry’s father, Judd Meese. But it was Broadway Julie’s father, Jerry Sherman, who became my hockey confidant.

  From Rich Cohen to Jerry Sherman, September 28, 9:33 p.m.:

  RC: Such bullshit. The playing time is all out of whack. Should I say something to the coaches?

  JS: Saying anything to these guys will be like peeing into the wind.

  RC: Well, I’ve been known to empty my bladder into a nor’easter.

  RC: Hey, I just tried to call you.

  JS: Sorry, I was getting lectured.

  RC: By who?

  JS: My wife. Seems I’ve been too loud at games. Do you think Barry’s father heard me? I’m sorry, but that fucking kid doesn’t pass! And the lines! I get situational hockey. I don’t get playing favorites. Hendrix’s kid played 38 minutes! My Julie had two shifts under 20 seconds. My fear is that we are the only people who see it. I know Hendrix and Rizzo know it. I think Rizzo does what he’s told, and Coach Pete is intimidated. I get it, those parents are assistant coaches, but Hendrix’s kid being on the ice for the final 3 minutes and no one else getting out is horseshit.

  RC: Intimidated by who?

  JS: Hendrix. You’ve got a 25-year-old coach and a 50-year-old insane parent screaming on the bench. I feel sorry for Coach Pete.

  OCTOBER

  Autumn really begins in October. The hills look like a fire in the distance, the wind blows and the branches sway and the leaves drift down and you say to yourself, “So this is why they call it ‘fall.’” Everything is dropping, drifting, falling. It’s the world preparing for sleep. God will soon hammer a lid over the sky. Most years, it happens slowly. Each day is a little shorter, bleaker, darker. You don’t even notice until someone points it out. Or it can come in the course of a night. You go to sleep in the summer. You wake up and it’s fall. The leaves have turned. You drive beneath a golden canopy. The lights in the stores come on early. The cakes glimmer in the windows of the gluten-free bakeries.

  It turned out to be a complicated month for the Pee Wee A Bears, Micah, and me. What started in freewheeling, high-scoring joy was grinding into something else. Micah worked his way up to the first line by the fourth week of the season, which meant skating with better players and getting more ice time. It had only been a few games, but he was having success with Tommy at center and Leo on right wing. Though scoring and creating plays, Micah was also struggling with his new role as a wing. He was often out of position, too deep in
his own zone or caught offside. He could not deal with any kind of double team. I told him he needed to create space. When he asked how, I showed him clips of the Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane deploying my favorite decoy: the fake slap shot. “You wind up like you’re going to blast one,” I explained. “It freezes the defense, same as a pump fake in football. Then gather the puck and skate around. It works every time.” I did not know if Micah was even paying attention, but sure enough, in the third period of the next game, with two defensemen closing, he faked a slap shot. The players froze. Micah went around and scored. It was a special moment, because, for the most part, no one ever listens to me.

  The Pee Wee A Bears had their first “showcase” game—this is when they get looked at by prep coaches; none of our kids were ever recruited—at the Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts, which is two hours north of the Winter Garden. You take the Taconic State Parkway, which winds through the foothills of America’s oldest mountains. There’s a tattoo parlor in every town, a donut shop and CBD dispensary. Iron bridges cross the cold streams. The Berkshire School is beautiful, a jewel centered by an NHL-quality ice facility. It was too nice. The glory and big-time nature of it intimidated our team. You wanted Coach Pete to go out on the ice with a tape measure and show the kids that the distances were all the same as those back in Ridgefield, but that was not his style.