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Ryan Price didn’t know why he was sitting in Brandon Wiebe’s office on a random Wednesday in November, but his friend Ilya Rozanov had asked him to be here, and here he was.
Ryan knew that meetings like this often come with airline tickets and he appreciated that the Centaurs hadn’t even mentioned that, but had given him plenty of time to drive from Toronto to Ottawa and a hotel room to stay over so he could be here rested and ready for whatever this was.
Then again, if any team in the league would be sensitive to someone’s flying… issues, it would be the Centaurs.
Ryan still didn’t know what he was doing here staring at the youngest coach in the NHL. Sure, they’d played a season together at the beginning of his career and the end of Wiebe’s, but it wasn’t like they were close.
Wiebe was a forward, Ryan a defenseman.
When they were playing together, Wiebe had just welcomed his first daughter into the world. Ryan was not someone you discussed diapers and nighttime feedings with.
Ryan sat there, nearly unblinking, waiting for Wiebe to reveal all.
For his part, Brandon Wiebe had a problem and Ryan Price was his solution. “I have a problem, and I think you’re the solution.”
Ryan hadn’t carefully cultivated his renowned taciturn demeanor to break character for Brandon Wiebe. An eyebrow went up.
“I know you don’t follow hockey anymore, but I just lost Dykstra, probably for the season, to an ACL tear.”
“I’m retired. I will not play for anyone, not even you.”
“Bodies I have. I need a brain for them, because this batch couldn’t find each other’s asses with a flashlight and GPS. Dykstra was a player coach, not just a player. And I’ve never been good with coaching defense.”
“I see two problems with this. First, I coach children at a summer camp, not elite professionals. There are real defense coaches littering the minor leagues who would kill their grannies for this opportunity. Second, even if I were a real coach, I wouldn't travel with the team.”
“Taking the second first, I don’t need you behind the bench. I can manage a game. Though I won’t say no to having you there for home games and games in Montreal. These idiots are just stupid and loyal enough to get themselves in trouble over the honor of Shane Fucking Hollander. I need you at practice teaching them to be defensemen.”
“And my first point?”
“I don’t want granny killers. In fact, those are the guys I’m trying to keep my kids away from. You’re a good defenseman. I know everyone sees you as the enforcer who was just good enough at hockey to stay in the league for a while. I’ve played with you. Rozanov has played with you. Hayes has played with you. You are a Cup winning defenseman with some of the best +/- stats around. But most importantly, you’re the guy who made it out with your soul intact.”
“That’s a little dramatic.”
“I mean it. You were chewed up by this league and spit out. But you made it out without losing your humanity. Yes, I need someone who can teach these kids how to actually stand in front of a net and not screen my goalie. More importantly, I need someone who can help them learn how to be effective without becoming thugs. Dykstra was beginning to get through to them. Right now, I need him focusing on learning to walk again and not on teaching the younglings the way of the light side of the force.”
“Star Wars, really? You’re spending too much time with Hayes.”
“A man can have interests outside of hockey.”
“A man can. I’ve played with you. You are not that man.”
“When you have children and have to provide age appropriate entertainment that doesn’t make you want to find a high window you can criticize my media choices.”
It seemed that the interview part of this interview was over. Was Ryan really about to get involved with the league again? It looked like he was.
“How is this going to work?”
“We find you someplace to stay while you’re here, and you start teaching our baby defensemen how to prevent the other guys from getting the little black thing into the big red thing with the white netting. Oh, and if they could pick up some tips on how to not fuck it up for our scorers so they get the little black thing into the other red thing with the white netting more often that’d be great too.”
After being behind the bench for a few home games Ryan noticed something. His kids (he’d almost immediately thought of them as “his”; they were inarguably kids) were supremely unbothered when Roz got hit. But when anyone so much as touched Hollzy, they were making their presence felt.
It made sense. Roz had a reputation of taking care of himself. Even when they’d played together in Boston, Roz got upset when Ryan tried to step into a confrontation. After doing that once in a game, they had a very quiet, but very intense conversation in the locker room about Roz’s expectations.
Hollzy, however, was always going to be the guy Marlow laid out in that game against Boston. Even when he was with Montreal his teammates tended to overreact.
Ryan was working on getting that behavior a little moderated, pointing out that the star center was perfectly capable of fighting his own battles. He also made sure they understood the difference between legitimate hockey play, which was on its own pretty rough, and actual abuse of star players.
A month later was the first game of the season both against and in Montreal.
In the lead up Ryan heard things that disturbed him. “Boiziau and Comeau are going to be sorry” “Roz said Hollzy would be sad if Pike gets injured, so I guess we’ve got to be careful about him.” “He’s the one who leaked the video, so maybe a sad Hollzy for a day or two isn’t too high a price to pay.”
Ryan knew he had to put a stop to it immediately. “There will be no targeting. If you embarrass me out there, there are plenty of players patiently waiting for you guys to fuck up and take your place. And let there be no mistake, any Montreal players get injured because you morons decided to hit dirty and there will be roster moves. I’m not talking about Belleville. Do any of you know where Allen, Texas is? Have you seen King of the Hill? Yeah, that’s Allen, Texas.”
The children were at least self aware enough to look chastised.
Ryan knew, however, he was still going to have to ride herd on them during the game itself.
In the first period one of the rookies, Connor Ryland took a stupid penalty cross checking a Montreal player who’d roughly checked Shane in a perfectly reasonable hockey play when the Ottawa center had the puck.
When Ryland was finally back on the bench, Ryan put a heavy hand on his shoulder. He trusted the message was received.
Ryan similarly connected with each player that seemed edgy about playing Montreal, including the unholy trio of Holmberg, Young and LaPointe. They might not be rookies, but the arrival of Hollander on the team seemed to reset their stupid back to factory settings when it came to Montreal.
By the end of the second period Ryan was confident there wasn’t going to be an incident that would break containment on social media. That’s not to say there weren’t any solid hits or penalties on Ottawa, but nothing highlight reel worthy, much less TikTok.
Afterward, while the players celebrated their 3-1 win in the locker room, Wiebe and Ryan sat in the visiting coach’s office off to the side and debriefed.
There was a lot to talk about. Even in a win there’s always something that can be done better next time, some new insight either into the team or into the opponent that can be mined for improvement in future games. And who knows, there was every chance they’d have to play at least four additional games against Montreal in the playoffs.
“You know my style. I don’t believe yelling at players does any good. I do expect my coaches to actually talk to them during games,” Wiebe reflected with a wry smile.
“I talked to them,” Ryan insisted.
“Not after that awful penalty in the first period.”
“I seemed to get the point across without words.”
“You did. How did you?”
“I’ve given them a lot of cues for my ‘I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed’ body language while we’ve been working together. Turns out coaching children for a few summers is a lot more useful than I expected it to be.”
“Too bad we can’t deploy puppies during a game. That always seems to get them focused. Rozanov is a great captain and a terrible influence”
“You say that like those are mutually exclusive. I’ve been on a lot of teams. The best captains are always the ones the rest of the team thinks has their back against ‘The Man’, and even being the youngest coach in the league, you’re The Man.”
Wiebe digested this wisdom and filed it for later conversations with his rogue(ish) captain.
On the bus ride back to Ottawa Troy Barrett sat next to Ryan. Since he’d been with the team they had formed an uneasy affiliation. They recognized that there were things Troy had done in Toronto that had deeply hurt Ryan and there was no going back and fixing. At the same time, Ottawa wasn’t Toronto, and gay Troy wasn’t the same person as closeted Troy. Besides, Ryan really liked Troy’s boyfriend Harris and if he wanted any social life in Ottawa that didn’t involve meeting new people, revolve around comic books or include studying game film he was going to have to hang out with the Barrett-Drovers.
Barrett came out of nowhere with, “I don’t know how you have the patience for this.”
“This?” another arched eyebrow.
“You know, riding herd on testosterone poisoned toddlers. I have enough problems trying to keep Rozanov from saying something that’s going to get his head literally knocked off on the ice.”
“Patience is easy. Everyone thought I had a short fuse when I played. I didn’t. I was never angry. Not being angry is a big part of what I’m trying to do with these kids.”
Troy seemed to struggle with a question, “Did I ever make you angry?”
“You didn’t make it easy to stay not angry.”
“I’m sorry. I spent so long thinking being a bad person was having a personality. I could blame my father or Kent or the toxic hockey ecosystem. I let people like them lie to me, and I lied to myself. I also have the sweetest mother who never treated me like that. I should have learned her lessons earlier.”
“You don’t need to keep apologizing. Frankly, you were the least of my aggravations during that time of my life. I’m glad you’ve found a way to be a better person, and I’m glad I got to experience that better person. But I will always like your boyfriend more than you.”
“Fair”
The two relaxed into their luxury coach seats and spent the remaining hour or so of the ride in comfortable silence.
There was a small group of partners and family waiting for the bus as it pulled up to the Ottawa practice facility. Ryan hadn’t expected Fabian to be among them.
“Hey, hon, you didn’t have to come all the way from Toronto for me.”
“You’re right, I didn’t have to. I did, however, want to.”
As they were walking to Fabian’s van (no more hauling his crap from gig to gig by hand for this diva), Ryan observed the little moments happening around him.
The hockey husbands strolling hand in hand to one of the few obnoxious sports cars Roz still owned.
Bood’s beaming wife Cassie handing their toddler son over to greet his father.
The three Chouinard children loudly competing for their father’s attention while he enthusiastically greeted their mother Selena.
Barrett and Harris having an animated conversation, well, Harris was animated. Barrett was Barrett.
Wiebe strolled over as they were getting into the van.
“You’re doing a great job with the guys. I appreciate you being here for them. I know this was more than you were anticipating in your retirement. If you do enjoy it, I think you have a career ahead of you as a coach.”
“This has been a lot of fun, Brandon. But my next career is roadie and I’ll be getting back to it as soon as the season ends.”
Fabian knew the significance of Ryan calling a head coach by his first name, even as a fellow coach. He may not have liked growing up in the hockey world, but social norms are not something you can avoid when you’re in a world, whether you want to be there or not.
As they pulled out of the parking lot, Fabian turned to Ryan, “I’m proud of you.”
Ryan grunted his acceptance of the compliment and stared at the passing Ottawa scenery as they drove off. Half his life ago he’d almost kissed Fabian on that ferry. Not for the first time, he wondered what would have been if he’d done it. Perhaps he would have been happier, perhaps not.
Sitting here, now, with the man he loved, with nothing more pressing than what they’d have for dinner on his mind, Ryan Price realized that for the first time he could remember he was content. And that was enough for him.