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Ben Tremblay couldn’t wait for the summer to start. It was only the beginning of May, but he was very much done with the school year. What was the point in learning math and how to write essays when eventually he would join the NHL and would make enough money that he could pay others to do all that for him? He wanted to play hockey, but the season for the Junior League was over, and that meant that even training was taking a step back.
And so, his parents kept haunting him now about concentrating on his schoolwork. There was no excuse Ben could come up with anymore about having more important things to do, and so he had to spend his afternoons learning useless Math, English and Science from tutors because his parents kept insisting he had to make up for the things he had missed for training and games earlier in the year. The only reason Ben put at least a little effort into it was that his parents had made solid Bs in all his classes a condition for him to attend the Game Changers Hockey Camp again. He had attended the camp in Montreal for the past two years, and he wouldn’t let the chance to learn from real NHL stars pass him by.
But for this afternoon, he had escaped his tutors after completing their boring tasks, and that meant he could finally go down to the park where Jordan was already waiting for him. The funny thing was that even a year ago, Ben would’ve never spent any time with Jordan Glencross, but somehow being made to have a competition about standing on one leg and then jumping on one leg by hockey legend Ilya Rozanov had created a friendship that Ben was pretty sure nothing could break.
“What happened?” Ben asked as soon as he saw Jordan, sitting at the edge of the skate park, his skateboard lying beside him, and staring with a dark look at the other teens—most of them a little older than Ben and Jordan, who really could only start calling themselves teens this year.
“Dad cancelled my registration for the Game Changers Camp.”
Ben frowned. “But your grades are way better than mine!”
Jordan huffed. “Dad doesn’t care about my grades. That’s your parents.”
“So, why wouldn’t he let you go?” Ben asked, confused. “You’re learning more in that week than in the whole year from him!”
Ben’s parents had made Ben change the sports club after last summer, just as dissatisfied with Coach Glencross’ decision not to move him to the A team as he had been. And maybe that was part of the reason why he was such close friends with Jordan now. They weren’t fighting for a place on the same team anymore and were instead only competing when their teams met on the ice. Ben’s parents didn’t really like that he was friends with Jordan, but they were classmates at school, so they at least had a reason to be friends.
“Because of Rozanov and Hollander, of course!” Jordan snapped.
“What?” Ben asked, still as confused as before. “They’re the best hockey players in the league.”
“And fags,” Jordan muttered darkly.
Ben punched his shoulder. “Don’t say that! That’s an ugly word.”
“It’s what they are, isn’t it?” Jordan shook his head. “It’s all Dad has called them since that video!”
“Your Dad is wrong,” Ben said. “Just as he was wrong making you A team over me and over Noah!”
Jordan pulled his shoulders up, but he didn’t protest. Noah’s parents had made him change clubs, too. And just as Ben, Noah had made A team in his new club right away. But it had only been halfway through the season that Jordan had admitted to Ben in a quiet moment that the longer he played on the A team, the more he recognized that he really hadn’t deserved that spot. With the distance he had now, Ben was even able to feel sympathy for his friend, who was forced to play with teammates who were all much better than him and who couldn’t even tell anyone that maybe he didn’t want to play A team yet, after all.
“Don’t call them that again,” Ben said. “They’re good people. We know Roz and Hollzy! Your Dad’s opinion isn’t worth more than our memories of them!”
Jordan shrugged and murmured, “It’s just … He and Mom keep talking about … That guys like them are dangerous for us. For kids in general, I mean.”
Ben shook his head. “Your parents suck!”
“You really think they’re wrong?”
“Yeah. I really think your parents are super wrong, Jordan! And they’re gross. So what if Hollzy and Roz like each other? What’s that to do with the camps? Or with their hockey? Your Dad also thinks Hollzy tripped on purpose. We watched every clip available of the game a dozen times. There was nothing ‘on purpose’ about it. It was your everyday stumble, as happens in every game, multiple times, to multiple players!”
Jordan sighed deeply and nodded.
“You aren’t going to say that word again, right?” Ben asked quietly, warily. Maybe there was something that could ruin his friendship with Jordan after all.
Jorden looked at him without really looking at him. “Yeah, okay. I won’t.”
“Good.”
“Maybe the camp here in Montreal won’t take place at all,” Jordan whispered. “Dad says the Voyageurs would be stupid to let them use their training facility like they did the last couple of years.”
“There are a ton of rinks in the town,” Ben said with a huff. “If the Voyageurs are really that stupid, the camp will move to another rink.”
He was sure Rozanov and Hollander wouldn’t let something like one rink being unavailable be the ruin of the camps. If Ben had learned anything in the two years he had been at the camps, it was that they really meant a lot to all the coaches who would show up.
Jordan shrugged.
Ben frowned. “How much money do you have on your own?”
“What?” Jordan shook his head. “Why are you asking that?”
“If your parents won’t pay for it, maybe we can pay for your place at the camp together,” Ben suggested. “I’m sure my parents would be happy if I got a job. They’d sign any form needed for that. At least your mom would do that, too, I think.”
“Yeah, probably,” Jordan said slowly.
Ben grinned. “That’s a plan then! Don’t worry, you won’t miss camp just because your parents are assholes!”
***
It wasn’t quite as easy to convince his parents to let him work, though at least Jordan got his permission pretty easily. But Ben managed to convince his parents that he could offer the older neighbours his help, and so Ben ended up splitting his time after school between working with his tutors and mowing lawns, cleaning windows, repainting fences and all other kinds of things all through May and June.
At the beginning of July, Jordan and he had just enough money put together to pay the fee for the camp. So would Jordan sneak out of his home, and take the bus to the new rink where the camp would take place—because the Voyageurs had actually proven they were even more stupid than everyone already thought after driving Hollzy out of town. On the drive to the camp, comfortably sitting in the backseat of his parents’ car, Ben wondered if next year there would be a Game Changers Camp in Montreal at all. Because there were a lot of assholes like Jordan’s parents in town.
That fact was only driven home very deeply when they arrived at the rink, and there was a group of people on the other side of the street to the parking lot. Ben watched them from the car as they passed them by, reading the signs with all the bad words he had only learned over the past couple of weeks because they were everywhere in hockey now, and his parents kept telling him he was never allowed to use them. For a moment, Ben worried that Jordan’s parents might be in the group and ruin their whole plan, but thankfully, he didn’t spot them.
“Ignore these people, honey,” Mom said and turned around to smile at him after she had parked the car. “You’re here to learn hockey from some of the greatest hockey players currently in the NHL. Those people over there are hateful idiots, nothing more, okay?”
“Coach Glencross is one of them,” Ben said quietly.
Mom frowned. “Has Jordan been talking badly about Hollander and Rozanov? Or any of the other coaches here?”
Ben’s eyes grew wide, and he shook his head violently. “No! I told him not to use the bad words, and he hasn’t since! But his dad pulled him from camp this year!”
Mom sighed, and her smile returned, but it was sad now. “They’re his parents, and for the next five years or so, they still have a lot to say about what he does. Just as Dad and I have a lot to say about your life.”
“It’s not fair!” Ben said darkly.
“Probably not,” Mom agreed. “But you’re here, and that’s the important thing for you. You’ve been talking about this camp for a whole year. Come on, let’s get you signed in. I’m sure there’ll be other kids around who you already know from last year.”
Ben nodded and left the car, following his mother’s advice not to look over at the group of people protesting against the camp. They made him feel uncomfortable, and he hoped they wouldn’t be there every morning. But as soon as they stepped inside the rink and the door closed behind them, Ben couldn’t hear them anymore, so that was a relief.
“They’ll stay on the other side, right?” Ben murmured quietly and leaned a little into Mom.
Mom sighed and carded her fingers through his hair. “They aren’t allowed to cross the street. Don’t worry about them, they won’t bother any of you.”
Ben bit his lip, feeling silly to have asked that question at all. He followed Mom to the desk to the right of the entrance. First day of camp always started with signing in because everyone wanted to make sure no one other than the right children and only the parents or guardians belonging to those children would be at the rink. As in the last two years, Yuna Hollander was sitting at the desk and greeting every single child attending the camp personally. Last year, she had even remembered his name right away, even though Ben had only been at camp once before then.
This year, she was getting help from a man who clearly wasn’t a hockey player; he didn’t really look as if he was spending a lot of time making sport. Ben felt himself blush and pulled his shoulders back. Just last week, Dad had lectured him about judging other people’s bodies like that, so he pushed that thought away hastily. Then he noticed the pins the man was wearing on his denim jacket, all of them very colourful. Ben thought he recognized some of them from the Pride flags his parents had explained to him after the video of Hollzy and Roz kissing had been everywhere. Ben really didn’t remember a lot of them.
The only thing he had really gotten from the whole conversation was that liking someone else was clearly very super complicated. So he had come to the conclusion that it really wasn’t worth the effort or the distraction from hockey.
“Ben! How great to see you again this year,” Mrs. Hollander said with a smile as she gave Mom some forms the adults always had to sign on the first day of camp.
Ben grinned widely. “I’ve been waiting the whole year for the camp!”
Mrs. Hollander laughed. “I hear you have also been busy playing for your new team.”
Ben’s eyes grew wide, and he asked awed, “You have?”
Mrs. Hollander nodded and winked at him. “I’m keeping an eye on the Junior Leagues.”
Ben blushed and didn’t know what to say to that. His new team had made the playoffs in his league, but it wasn’t really anything big. He only played on an A team in his age group, after all, not on any of the really good teams. Ben knew he’d still have to work a lot to be noticed by the scouts for the NHL, but he also still had a couple of years to get there.
Thankfully, that was the moment someone else stepped to the table, so Mrs. Hollander’s attention was drawn away from Ben. He turned to the newcomer and grinned brightly as he saw Jordan.
“You made it!” Ben said excitedly.
“Jordan?” Mom asked, confused, and placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
Ben turned his head to look at Mom. “Jordan and I put our money together so he can still come to the camp even though his dad is an … uhm…” He bit his lip and ducked his head under his mom’s stern gaze. “An idiot?”
Mom sighed deeply and exchanged a look with Mrs. Hollander and the man beside her, which made Ben frown. She didn’t look happy. Or proud. He really had expected his parents would be proud once they learned why he had spent all his free time working for more than two months now. They always said standing up for your friends and helping them was important.
Jordan nodded and put the box on the table they had used to store the gathered money in. “I have counted it three times; it’s all here.”
Mrs. Hollander smiled, but she didn’t really look happy. “Jordan, do your parents know you’re here?”
Jordan frowned. “No. Of course not.”
Mrs. Hollander nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought. You and Ben did a great thing, working to gather the money for you. But that’s not the main problem here, Jordan. You are only thirteen. We need your parents’ permission to have you attend our camp.”
“Why?” Jordan asked, sounding irritated. He pushed the box with the money further onto the table. “I can pay!”
Mrs. Hollander sighed and exchanged another look with Mom.
Ben asked, “Can’t you give permission for Jordan, Mom?”
Mom sighed. “I’m not Jordan’s parent, Ben. My signature wouldn’t mean anything. I’m really sorry, but as long as your parents don’t agree with you taking part, I don’t think there is a way for you to participate this year.”
“But that’s not fair!” Jordan shouted.
“No, it’s not,” the guy beside Mrs. Hollander said with a sad smile. “It’s really fucking unfair.”
Mrs. Hollander sighed deeply. “Harris…”
Harris just shrugged. “Sometimes we can fight against life being unfair. And sometimes we can do nothing but grit our teeth, hunker down and wait until we’re finally in a position to fight back.”
Ben frowned and exchanged a confused look with Jordan.
“I promise you, it means a lot to everyone here that the two of you clearly worked very hard so that Jordan could still take part in the camp this year,” Harris continued softly. “Jordan is not the only one who was already registered to come to the camp this year, including his fees already paid, just for the family to cancel that registration a couple of months ago.”
Jordan huffed and crossed his arms er over his chest. “Dad told everyone on my team they’ll be off the team if they come to your camp!”
“What?” Ben asked angrily.
Jordan shrugged. “I’d rather have the week here than stay on that team.”
“I’m really sorry that we can’t do anything to help you, Jordan,” Mrs. Hollander said.
Harris nodded slowly and leaned over the table, looking at Jordan intensely. “Right now is one of those moments where neither you nor we can do anything to fight against things being unfair. The law says you’re too young to make this decision yourself. And the law also says that we would get into a lot of trouble if we still let you participate. The kind of trouble where we would never be able to have another camp at all.”
Ben bit his lip, suddenly fighting against tears of frustration. Jordan and he had sacrificed every single free minute so he would have the money to come to camp, too, and now they were told it didn’t matter?
“It might also not be the time for you to argue with your parents,” Harris continued cautiously. “We don’t want you to get in trouble with them, right?”
Jordan huffed and lowered his gaze. His shoulders were shaking suddenly, and Ben wondered what he was missing.
“But it’s not that long anymore until you’re a grown-up, and then you will have options to make those decisions for yourself.”
“I can’t go to camp as a grown-up!” Jordan protested weakly.
“Not as one of the kids training here,” Harris agreed. “But we always need help. It’s just as fun for the adults as for the kids, you know? Once you’re 18, we’ll be happy to have you here as one of the guys helping out. And I’m sure there’ll be more than one chance for you to still be on the ice with the coaches.”
“Harris is right,” Mrs. Hollander said. “We’ll recognize your name if you sign up for something like that in five years or so. I promise you, I’m going to look out for your name to appear on the list of volunteers.”
Ben gave up at that moment. He still helped Jordan argue a little while longer, just to have his friend’s back, but he already knew they had lost.
***
The hockey camp turned out to be fun even without Jordan there, but Ben wished every day that his friend could be there. His resentment for Jordan’s parents only grew every time he saw the group protesting the camp on the other side of the street. On the third day, Ben even spotted Jordan’s parents among them, but thankfully Jordan wasn’t there with them.
Right after the week of hockey camp was over, Ben’s family went on vacation. So it was three weeks before Ben had a chance to meet Jordan again at the skate park. But Jordan had come there without his skateboard, and as soon as Ben sat down in the grass at the edge of the path beside him, Jordan pulled out the box where they had gathered the money for the camp.
“What’s this?” Ben asked, confused.
“I didn’t need it, so it’s only fair to give it back,” Jordan said.
“Maybe next year—”
“No,” Jordan interrupted him. He stared at the skaters, and his voice was strangely void of any emotion. “You’re a better friend than I deserve, you know?”
“Bullshit,” Ben said, feeling inexplicably angry all of a sudden. Something was off again, and once more, he didn’t know what.
“Dad’s sending me to a boarding school,” Jordan murmured. “A hockey school. He says I’ll learn real hockey there. Hockey for actual men instead of…” He trailed off with a shrug. “It will suck so much.”
“I hate your dad,” Ben said because he didn’t know what else to say.
“Yeah, me too.” Jordan sighed.
“Where is that boarding school?” Ben asked.
Jordan shrugged. “Don’t know. We’re gonna fly there. Day after tomorrow. I really don’t want to go. I don’t even know if I still want to play hockey like that.”
“You could run away,” Ben suggested and held out the box with the money to his friend. “You should keep the money for that.”
For a moment, Jordan smiled. “Yeah, maybe I should run away.”
“At least we have phones. So we can keep texting no matter where you end up. Either after running away or at the fucked up boarding school.”
Jordan shook his head. “No phones allowed at the school.”
“What?” Ben looked at his friend in horror. “What is this? Prison? You really need to run away!”
Jordan chuckled listlessly. “I don’t think running away is so easy.”
Something was very, very off with Jordan, but Ben didn’t know how to ask about it. Ben was used to Jordan being angry about all kinds of things his father did, but now he just looked tired and exhausted.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked eventually.
Jordan shrugged and never answered that question, not even after they had shared Ben’s skateboard and spent a couple of hours practicing some jumps and tricks. It was the last time for a long time that Ben heard anything from Jordan, and he could never shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong with his friend.
***
Life moved on for Ben, but he never quite forgot about Jordan. Sometimes he saw Coach Glencross, mostly if Ben’s team faced his team before Ben moved on to the AA team halfway through the next school year, but he didn’t see Jordan again. He also didn’t dare to ask Jordan’s dad about him because he had a distinct feeling that would only get Jordan in trouble.
During that summer, Ben hadn’t understood yet what the problem around the Game Changers Camps was, but he learned over the next several years.
He learned about the hatred and bigotry that had made fifty people gather every day for a week in front of a hockey camp for children; he learned about the threats that group had shouted at them, which the coaches and parents had so carefully kept away from all the children; he learned about the security hired to keep the group far away from any of the kids. He learned to remember what all the pins on Harris Drover’s jacket meant and how much half the NHL sucked because they kept saying the right things but never actually held up any of it. He learned that even in the Junior League, more coaches encouraged the kind of language Jordan had nearly learned from his parents than reprimanding it; and he learned that being the one to talk back against that behaviour in the language meant he was overlooked more than once for placement in important games or on better teams.
Ben learned that the world was a bitter, hateful place after the summer in which he lost a friend he had been convinced he would never lose. He also learned that you could bring changes to that world if you were lucky, if you kept trying, and if you didn’t let the world beat you down. But he never forgot the moment where Jordan had to leave the rink that summer instead of walking to the locker rooms at Ben’s side, and Ben always remembered that most of the time, you weren’t lucky enough to change the world.
Ben watched for years as the hockey world fought against any kind of change despite the work of the coaches that he had the honour of meeting during the Game Changers summer camps. He had the fortune to attend the camps for another year before he was too old for them, and he never gave up on the dream of being eventually drafted to the NHL himself. But he also reached the understanding that there was more than playing hockey, even in the hockey world.
So when Ben wasn’t drafted for the NHL despite making Team Canada for the World Junior Championship in 2025 and 2026, he went to college with the goal to actually get a degree in physical education with a minor in economics, even if he should still be drafted to the NHL after proving himself a little more while playing for his college’s team.
His second year in college started with being made first line wingman on his team, and a scout for the NHL contacting him directly, telling Ben that maybe the next draft would finally be his year. But that was not what made the start of that second year special.
On the second Wednesday of the semester, Ben was just leaving the library when he was suddenly grabbed by the shoulder. He turned with an irritated frown because he just wanted to get back to his dorm to catch some sleep, but all irritation vanished in a moment when he saw the young man who had stopped him.
“Ben?” Jordan asked, visibly unsure if he wasn’t mistaken. “Ben Tremblay?”
“Jordan!” Ben shouted excitedly and didn’t care that he dropped his bag when he pulled Jordan into a hug. “Fuck, what are the chances we’d end up at the same college?”
Jordan laughed. “What are the chances you’d end up at college at all?”
Ben grinned and punched his shoulder. “I’m not 13 anymore. I did learn to value getting an education. But I haven’t given up on the NHL yet.”
“Are you playing for the school’s team?” Jordan asked.
Ben nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’m left wing on the first line now! Wanna grab something to eat and catch up?”
“That would be great,” Jordan agreed.
An hour later, they sat in Ben’s dorm after picking up pizza and some soda from a place that gave the students at the college a discount. Ben hadn’t even known the place yet, but Jordan seemed to get a lot of meals there, considering he had been greeted by name by everyone working there. By the time they reached Ben’s dorm, they had already talked about both of their classes, and Ben had learned that Jordan had cut any contact with his parents as soon as he had turned 18 and was going to school on a scholarship.
“I did try running away,” Jordan said with a regretful grin. “Didn’t work out very well for me. I was back at the fucking boarding school after less than a week.”
“I had some pretty stupid ideas when I was 13,” Ben admitted.
Jordan shook his head. “Desperate kids will do desperate things. And I was pretty fucking desperate at the time.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t notice,” Ben murmured.
“Nah.” Jordan shook his head. “We were kids. Wasn’t your job. I think someone at the Game Changers Camp noticed. Or maybe your parents. We had a social worker coming by the week after that camp I wasn’t allowed to be part of.”
Ben’s eyes grew wide. His parents had never mentioned something like that, but he could see them notifying the authorities if they were worried about another child. Maybe he needed to ask them the next time he talked to them.
Jordan shrugged. “Was part of the reason they sent me to boarding school. I mean, I didn’t tell the social worker anything, and I know today that was a missed chance. But back then, I had no reason to trust them.”
“What did your parents do?” Ben asked quietly.
“A lot of things I was convinced were absolutely normal and that every kid had to get through,” Jordan said. “Do you remember what Drover said to me when they had to send me away that morning?”
Ben frowned. “You mean about volunteering to help with the camps?”
Jordan laughed. “No. Wow, you still got a one-track hockey mind even if you do put effort into school now, huh?”
“Did you go to volunteer, though?” Ben asked.
“I did,” Jordan said. “In Ottawa last year. And this year in Ottawa and Boston. No one will make me go back to Montreal. You?”
Ben shook his head. “I want to, eventually. But I had training camp myself the last two summers. Still working for my spot in the NHL, you know?”
Jordan grinned. “I really hope you’ll make it. I always knew you really wanted it. That you weren’t just talking shit like I was, because I knew it was expected. I think my only good hockey memory by now is that year I went to camp with you.”
Ben made a face, not sure what to say about that.
“Drover told me that sometimes we aren’t in a position to fight back, so we have to hunker down and make sure we survive until we are in a position to fight back. Sometimes I think holding onto that advice was the only thing that got me through the next five years at the fucking boarding school.”
“I’m glad you made it through those years,” Ben said quietly. “If I don’t make the NHL, I’ll become a hockey coach. For kids. And give at least some of them a place where they don’t have to endure the bullshit your father pulled on you and everyone else he was coaching. Or, you know, if I do make the NHL next year, hopefully, then I’ll do that once I’m done with the NHL.”
“Yeah?” Jordan asked with a soft smile.
Ben nodded solemnly. “Sport’s not gonna change if there aren’t people working for it. Like Hollzy and Roz do, and all the guys Hunter has gathered around him. We need more good coaches in the Junior Leagues who work for that.”
“I’m getting a law degree,” Jordan said. “I think with 13, I should’ve had the right to tell people that I didn’t trust my parents to make decisions for me. And that people should’ve honestly looked into that, even if I wasn’t cooperating with the social worker. I mean, she talked to me with my father standing right beside us. Of course I didn’t fucking tell her anything.”
For a while, they fell into silence, and Ben tried to sort through some of the memories he had from this year of friendship with Jordan. Until the moment Jordan had been forbidden to take part in the hockey camp, Ben had never thought there was something bad going on for his friend. He couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he could’ve made a difference if hockey hadn’t been the only thing he had been interested in at that age.
“I’m glad you recognized me earlier,” Ben said. “I missed you. I’d really like to be friends again.”
Jordan grinned. “Yeah, me too.”