Chapter Text
Scott is in a slump. He’s in a slump and it’s annoying. He’s tried everything: running extra drills; going back to basics; increasing his cardio interval training; changing the way he tapes his stick; daily affirmations; and, in desperation, following a YouTube tutorial to learn to juggle, hoping it would further hone his hand-eye coordination. (It didn’t.)
So when he complains to Carter, and Carter says he definitely has a solution, he is ready to listen.
“Okay, so, it might sound a little out there, but Gloria sees this guy—”
Scott has worked very hard to keep his interest in seeing a guy under wraps.
“No, no,” Carter continues. “Don’t make that face, I didn’t even finish! She sees this guy who does her readings. When she’s stressed or whatever. Or has to make some big decision and needs some perspective.”
“Reading? Like, heart rate or something?”
“No, mano,” Carter laughs. “A card reading. Tarot?”
“You’re not seriously suggesting that I get someone to read tarot cards to see my future and fix my game.” Scott folds his arms.
“Nah, it’s not like that. Gloria says it’s like therapy that’s performed by a witch. If the witch were a nerdy little dude from Brooklyn. Here, I’ll get you his number.”
Carter pulls out his phone and sends off a quick message.
Scott rolls his eyes and returns to getting his gear on in the right order.
They lose the game to Nashville 5-1. Scott gets a message from Carter on the ride home from MSG. It contains a phone number, and a quick missive: Call Kip! Tell him Gloria sent you!
Kip. What the fuck kind of name is ‘Kip’?
Kip, it turns out, is a somewhat short, surprisingly muscular guy with curly hair and wire-rimmed glasses, who’s calmly installing himself on Scott’s couch one Wednesday afternoon. He’s got a bright, warm smile as he makes himself comfortable. The name itself is sprightly, puckish. It suits him, Scott thinks.
“I’m glad you called,” Kip says, zipping open his messenger bag. “I love Gloria. Any friend of hers, you know. Your place is beautiful, by the way.”
Scott finds the prattling charming. Too charming, perhaps.
“Oh, this old thing?” he says, leaning casually against a wall, then immediately wanting to throw himself out a window.
“Yeah, it’s, um…” He watches as Kip takes in the grey walls, the anonymous objets d’art picked out by his decorator, the lack of personal touches basically anywhere in the place.
“It’s…got great light.” Kip smiles again.
“Thanks,” Scott says. He has never had a strong feeling about his apartment one way or another until this point. It does have good lighting, though, he will concede.
“So,” Kip says, reaching into his bag and drawing out a small box and placing it on the coffee table. “Come and sit. Tell me what you want to talk about today.”
He kind of does sound like a therapist. Scott moves over to the couch and takes a seat next to Kip.
“I’ve never done this before,” he says.
“That’s okay,” Kip says. “I kind of picked that up on the phone. What do you know about tarot?”
Scott looks at him and shrugs. “Nothing, really. Are you a fortune teller?”
Kip laughs. “No. It’s more like…guidance. It’s opening your mind to think about things a little more deeply. Talk things through.”
“Right,” Scott nods. “So, no head scarf and crystal ball?”
“I do look fantastic in the head scarf, but no.” Kip grins, and Scott feels a slight tingle in his stomach. Kip is cute. This was a terrible idea.
Kip places the box on the table and raps his knuckles on it three times.
“Cleansing the deck,” he says, smiling that smile again. Scott nods like that sentence makes sense.
He watches as Kip removed the cards from the box, a thick stack of them, and shuffles them before placing them on the coffee table in a neat stack.
“What do you want to discuss today?” Kip asks. He’s looking at Scott with complete openness, not a hint of judgement.
“Umm, my hockey game is in a slump, and I guess I want to know if there’s a way I can fix it.”
It sounds stupid, saying it out loud. But Kip just nods, points to the cards, and asks Scott to cut the deck.
“I’ll do a three-card draw,” Kip says, pushing up his sleeves. “Past, present, and future.”
“Uh, okay,” Scott replies, aware that he sounds like an idiot.
“Scott,” Kip says, placing a gentle hand on Scott’s forearm.
Scott tries very hard not to think about the heat of Kip’s fingertips against his skin.
“This is really just a way for you to explore some thoughts you’re already having, even if you haven’t been able to really grab onto them yet. It’s fine. If anything makes you feel uncomfortable, we can just pack up and I’ll get out of your hair.”
Kip looks so earnest, his warm, brown eyes seem so trustworthy.
“I’m okay,” Scott says. “Go ahead.”
Kip claps his hands together. “Great! Okay. Let’s have a look at your past first.”
He turns over a card and places it face-up in front of them on the table.
The card features a naked woman, bending at the knee and pouring water from jugs. There’s a constellation in the sky behind her.
“The Star,” Kip says. “A happy and joyful future. Good luck and achievements. Fulfilment of dreams.”
“That, uh, yeah.” Scott looks towards a shelf that has his sports trophies: Lady Byng Memorial, Calder Memorial in his rookie year, Conn Smythe. “I guess you could say that’s definitely my past in hockey.”
Kip looks at him with pleased curiosity. “So you’re kind of a big deal?”
“I mean, I’ve won a lot. As a team, we’ve won a lot. Stanley Cup’s still just outta reach, though. Maybe this year, but the way my game’s been going lately, I don’t know.”
“Isn’t ice hockey a team sport?” Kip asks.
“I mean, yeah. But I’m the captain.”
“So it’s entirely on your shoulders to win?”
“Feels like it.”
“Talk to me about that,” Kip says, and it feels kinda right to just…do it.
“I have a lot of people counting on me for a lot of things. To win games, to hold the team together, to be the face of The Admirals. It’s hard to be in a slump when your face is literally on subway ads, you know?”
“Oh, I’ve seen the ads,” Kip cuts in, a small smile playing on his face.
Scott grimaces. He still doesn’t feel great about being seen.
“So is your sport—your job—just about winning?” Kip asks.
“I mean, yeah?”
Kip hums. “Tell me more about the happiness and joy this card denotes. Did you used to feel joy when you played?”
Scott thinks back to his earliest memories of hockey: the teamwork, the freedom, the feeling of flying on ice.
“Yeah,” he says, “I did.”
“And now?”
He thinks hard. He sees the grind, the endlessness of it. The pressure. The fucking podcasts ripping him to shreds.
“I don’t know?” His voice seems small. “I’m good at it, really fucking good. Isn’t that more important?”
Kip fixes him with an inscrutable look. “You tell me.”
Scott looks away and starts to chew on the edge of his thumbnail. He doesn’t answer.
“Okay,” Kip says, and that smile is back in his voice again. “Let’s have a look at your present.”
He turns over the second card: a man in a jaunty hat, holding a cup.
“Page of cups,” Kip says. “Embracing creativity, expressing your emotions. Releasing your inner child. Does that sound like you right now?”
Scott laughs dryly. “Definitely not.”
“That’s a strong reaction,” Kip prompts. “The card is calling out that lack. When we combine that with the last card—the happiness and joy you used to feel when you played—I think we’re seeing a theme.”
“That my game is shit because I’m miserable?”
“I doubt someone with a shit game would have their face on every carriage of the C train,” Kip grins.
“Okay, okay, not shit. Just…subpar.”
“We can deal with subpar,” he smiles kindly. “Why did you first start playing hockey?”
“My parents were coaches. It was basically the family business.”
“And why did you keep playing? Why did you get out on the ice every time, when you were young?”
Scott thinks back: outdoor rinks, the air so crisp, his mom doing up his laces while he rolled his eyes, eager to get out on the ice with his friends. Six years old and playing pick-up hockey with the other kids, half of whom were bigger than him, but no one was faster. Getting McDonald’s on the way back from games, his dad running through the highlights from the front seat. The feeling of utter joy every time the puck slid across the line—a feeling that’s dulled but is still there.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Kip says, his voice gentle, looking at Scott closely. “If you don’t want. But I can tell. Whatever you’re thinking right now: that’s what’s missing from your present.”
Scott’s eyes flick up to the bookshelf where he keeps a photo of his parents. Yeah, no shit, he thinks.
He clears his throat. “My future?”
Kip flips over the third card. Two men, each holding a goblet.
“Two of cups,” Kip says. “Friendship, joy, pleasure, passion.”
Scott feels his cheeks heat at the last words. He looks at Kip, the cut of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders. Probably not that kind of passion, he thinks.
“I think this is pretty clear,” Kip says. “Especially when we look at your past and present. Joy, again. That’s your key.”
“How do I do that?” Scott asks, like Kip is an actual oracle who can bestow wisdom upon him.
“That’s up to you. But think about playing, about the relationships you have with your teammates. If you focus on those positive friendships, and find a way to bring more joy to your practice, that might be the way to improve things. At least improve your outlook. And that’s probably half the battle.”
“Probably?”
“None of this is an exact science,” Kip shrugs. “But it seems like some of what the cards showed you rang true. It’s not what the cards are, but how you react to them that matters. The cards helped you find the threads. Now it’s up to you to pull on them, as much or as little as you want.”
By the time he’s showing Kip to the door, he feels a little unsettled. He knows that Kip isn’t actually a witch, or a therapist, but all the same…Thoughts had come up. Feelings. Memories that he doesn’t let out very often.
He pays Kip a crisp hundred dollar bill, and watches it get neatly folded away into a beaten-up leather wallet.
“Call me again if you want to look into anything else,” Kip says. “And I wish you all the best with your game.”
“Thanks,” Scott says, opening the door. Kip pats him on the shoulder as he slips past.
Scott closes the door behind him, and then presses his forehead against the cool of the wood.
Fun. He can have fun. Right?
At morning skate, Scott organises with Coach to play a few rounds of three-versus-three handball on the ice. Scott hasn’t done this as a drill since he was a teenager.
And it is fun: throwing the ball with a three-second rule, trying to score, trying to intercept. No sticks, no gloves, no pressure (except for the natural competition that’ll come out with a group of professional athletes doing, well, anything).
It’s just half an hour, but it’s joyful. They heckle each other, chirping playfully as they snatch the ball. Carter ends up sliding head-first, belly on the ice, into the goal net to clinch the win one round, shouting “Right in the five-hole!”
They laugh. A lot.
They beat Winnipeg that night, 4-0.