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“Aw man, this is fantastic,” Hayden exclaims, thumping the boards. He leans forward against them and has the same look of youthful glee he had almost 20 years ago, when Shane first met him and the NHL was this new shiny thing for them to explore.
They watch Ilya bark orders at the group of seven- to nine-year-olds, all clad in Ottawa Centaurs kit. He and a fellow coach are running them through a 2v1 drill which should end with a shot on the goaltender.
None of Hayden’s kids really got into hockey. Ruby and Jade played in rec leagues when they were younger, and Jade carrying on a little in high school but both of them dropped the sport in favour of other hobbies. Amber loves figure skating, she’s good at it too—last winter she was chosen to train with the Olympic development squad. Shane knows how proud of her Hayden is, how proud he is of all his kids. But Shane also knows this is still a sore subject for him.
“How’s Arthur doing with the chess stuff?” Shane asks.
Hayden’s returning smile is fond, if a little sad. “He’s loving it, has another competition soon. God, I do kinda wish he liked hockey though.”
“Ruby and Jade played,” Shane points out.
“And they’ve quit now.”
They watch the ice, shoulder to shoulder, as a bunch of kids skate back and forth with increasing confidence, while Ilya and two other coaches attempt to teach them.
“You can’t force him to like hockey, Hayd.”
“But you love hockey,” Hayden sighs. Shane gives him a look. “What?”
“Just because Arthur and I are similar in a lot of ways, doesn’t mean we have to like the same things. He’s good at chess, and even if he wasn’t, he loves it. Encourage him in the things he wants to do.”
“Jeez, when did you become such a dad?”
As if on cue, Katie—Shane and Ilya’s two-year-old daughter—begins to wail. Katie has been sleeping peacefully in a stroller next to them. As usual for their tornado of a toddler, she had fallen asleep in the car five minutes after leaving the house for the rink. While Ilya had herded Danny and all their hockey gear inside, Shane had managed to successfully transfer her from the car seat to her stroller without waking her. It was achievement that almost rivalled scoring a goal in the NHL—oh, how his life had changed.
“When I had kids?” Shane sends Hayden a quizzical look.
He bends down in front of the stroller and extracts Katie from her prison on wheels. He holds her against his chest and rubs her back in soothing circles. The moment she’s in his arms, the ear-piercing screams subside and she fists Shane’s hoodie in her chubby hands. “Those are some big feelings, huh?”
Katie tolerates Shane pressing a succession of kisses against her cheek. While Danny has Shane’s expressions and his darker features, Katie is a carbon copy of Ilya. Her sandy blonde curls escape from the loose plait Ilya had done that morning. Tired blue eyes blink heavily at him.
“Such a dad,” Hayden grins, shaking his head.
Shane watches Ilya bark orders at the group of kids that barely come up to his waist, even in skates. They follow him around the ice like ducklings.
“Danny,” Katie mumbles around the thumb she’s jammed in her mouth.
“You see Danny, huh?”
Katie nods.
Danny, Shane and Ilya’s oldest, is part of the group Ilya coaches.
After retiring, when Danny was two years old, Ilya was invited to become an Assistant Coach for the Centaurs. Ilya loved coaching, almost as much as he loved playing. He was excellent at it, too. But the reason Ilya wanted to retire was to focus on Danny more, he was still travelling with the team as much as he was when he was playing. As much as being apart from Shane was difficult, being away from Danny when he was changing all the time was far worse. The final straw came when Danny said his first word when they were away in Tampa.
Yuna and David tried to pretend it was brand new when Danny screamed ‘duck’ across the kitchen table when Shane and Ilya returned from a long travel day, but neither of them were great liars. Ilya appreciated the sentiment, the attempts they went to to be kind to their sons, but he still handed his notice in that same week. He agreed to work until the end of the season, taking the Centaurs to their second cup win in a row, an achievement they had never reached before. He was also the first player in the league to win two consecutive cups as a player and as a coach.
During the following summer, in the middle of an Irina Foundation camp, Ilya got a call from the GM of the Centaurs. Given the roaring success of the team, they were looking at starting a hockey academy for promising young players, and would Ilya be interested in being on the coaching team? It was the easiest yes, next to marrying Shane, Ilya had ever given.
Danny had been scouted last season. Shane and Ilya put him in a local rec league at six, even though they had been teaching him to skate since he was three. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Danny was a complete natural. All of Shane’s raw talent and love of the game, mixed with Ilya’s tenacity and fearlessness, was a dangerous combination. Of course, the Centaurs were keeping an eye on him, even at six-years-old. So it was no shock to anyone when he was invited to attend the academy.
Danny is thriving on the development team. He was never the loudest kid. He was much more subdued like Shane. He was gentle in his own way: kind to everyone around him, always looking out for the other kids, and that’s what made him so likeable. He was always calm and took everything in his stride—Shane couldn’t be prouder.
Across the ice, Ilya is talking to Danny. The number 81 on Danny’s jersey gives away who it is, even if Shane couldn’t see the dark hair poking out from under his helmet. Ilya is saying something to him, then gesturing toward where Hayden, Shane and Katie were watching. Ilya taps his son’s shoulder.
Danny skates over to the boards with a practiced ease. It makes Shane’s chest constrict seeing his son excel at something he cares about so much. So maybe he does understand why Hayden is upset none of his kids were interested in hockey. Ilya and Shane decided they were never going to force hockey on Danny and Katie, but a small part of Shane would have been sad if both of them had no interest in the sport that gave him and Ilya everything. And knowing Ilya was the one who taught Danny, makes Shane beam.
“Dad, please can you hold something for me?” Danny asks from underneath his mask. He holds a gloved hand out in front of him.
“Sure, bud,” Shane agrees, offering his own hand out to take whatever his son needed him to hold onto. It wasn’t uncommon, a few years ago they couldn’t walk a few feet down the street without Danny finding a bug or a rock that he wanted his dads to hold onto for him. The first time Danny dropped a worm into Shane’s hand, he had almost gagged before realising just how important it was to his son that he held onto the wriggling creature.
For an unknown reason, the last thing Shane was expecting Danny to hand him was—
“Is that your tooth?” Shane grimaces, looking at the small white lump in his palm.
“Yeah,” Danny shrugs. “Papa said it’s just a baby tooth, but I don’t want to lose it ‘cause I won’t get to put it under my pillow.”
Shane blinks at his son. He looks so grown up in his Centaurs jersey. And then he says something about not wanting to miss the tooth fairy and all Shane sees is the tiny baby boy they brought home, who changed everything he and Ilya thought about life.
“Alright kiddo,” Hayden cheers, he pushes Danny’s shoulder. “You’re a proper hockey player now.”
“Thanks, Uncle Hayden.”
“Are you ok?” Shane asks. “Take your helmet off.”
“Dad, is fine.”
“Is fine? It’s fine,” Shane corrects. “Don’t copy Papa’s grammar.”
“Ugh, Dad!” Danny huffs.
“Hey,” Shane says sternly, grabbing the face guard on Danny’s helmet. He doesn’t pull him, doesn’t force him, but it’s just enough to refocus Danny’s attention. “I love you.”
Danny holds his eye contact for a moment and then he grins, the same way Ilya does, a childish joy radiating from him. “Я тоже тебя люблю."
Shane releases him and taps the side of his helmet affectionately, “go on, Papa’s calling you over.”
“Bye, Katie,” Danny waves at his little sister and then skates away back to his group.
Shane watches proudly for a minute and then looks down at the tooth he’s still holding.
“This is what you’re really sad about missing out on?” Shane asks Hayden, holding out the tooth to him. On closer inspection, it looks like there’s a bit of gum stuck to it. Shane’s trying to remember if he replaced the empty hand sanitiser in Katie’s diaper bag.
“Oh my god, yes. I’d give anything for one of my kids to spit their gross, bloody tooth into my hand.”
“What the actual fuck, Hayden?”
Hayden grins delightfully, then nods at Katie who is playing with the string of Shane’s hoodie, blissfully unaware. “Swear jar.”