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We all know what and who Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov were doing in July 2010.
But what were our other friends up to?
Eric - 31
Eric Bennett and his wife Holly sat chatting and sipping coffee in a small cafe off the Boston Commons.
They’d stayed in Cambridge a little bit after their ten year Harvard class reunion to experience Boston as tourists instead of as constantly stressed college students.
Eric had been particularly interested in the museums and art galleries. He’d even purchased a couple of pieces for his burgeoning art collection.
Shortly they would trek out to Tanglewood to experience John Williams conducting the Boston Pops playing some of his beloved repertoire. Eric liked music, classical included. Holly was passionate about it.
Eric saw the four hour round trip worth giving Holly something to be excited about.
They’d been married eight years and Eric sometimes wondered if his schedule put too much strain on Holly. At the beginning, him arriving home from a road trip inspired some very enjoyable moments together.
It’s not like they’d stopped having sex, but they lately seemed more caught up in the mechanics of their household and less concerned with enjoying each other’s company.
Sitting in the Boston sunshine, enjoying both her company and the coffee, Eric felt like they were back, not only geographically, but to a relationship that would stand the test of time.
Fabian - 22
Fabian Salah walked out of Peter Oundjian’s office with a massive load lifted off his shoulders.
He’d spent the prior week agonizing over his decision to resign from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. An orchestra he’d only been accepted into two months ago.
Fabian wished he’d realized the arduous commitment playing with an orchestra the caliber of Toronto's represented before he’d started the audition process. He also wished he’d realized that as a musician his creativity was not compatible with their process.
But all that was behind him now. He had no idea what the future might bring.
What he did know was his life was becoming a pattern of removing himself from situations where he wasn’t comfortable. First it was the combination of his family and the hockey community. Now it was the classical music world.
There were things left behind he later discovered he missed. His sister, oddly the city of Halifax, Ryan Price - the bruising hockey player he’d resented for months, but who’d turned out to be a real person rather than yet another hockey automaton his parents dragged home.
Fabian still couldn’t believe he’d almost kissed Ryan on that ferry.
He wondered what he would look back on and miss from this time in his life.
It certainly wouldn’t be the long hours and demanding colleagues and patrons.
Looking forward, Fabian was more convinced than ever that his future held making music on his terms.
Ryan - 22
There were ample signs Ryan Price would find himself traded at some point during that summer.
Instead of dwelling on it, he was back in Ross Harbour, Nova Scotia sipping iced tea with his sister Colleen and their folks. Ryan enjoyed the laid back life of the off season. It meant no airplanes, for one thing. He didn’t think he was ever going to get used to flying.
Ryan recently decided the closet no longer applied to him. Ever since he’d nearly kissed Fabian Salah the beautifully mysterious son of his billet family on the Halifax-Dartmouth ferry that closet had been creeping open.
Now he was no longer interested in living in it. Not that he expected anyone other than his family to ever know he was gay.
None of his teammates had ever shown the slightest interest in any part of his life that didn’t involve hitting people. Ryan only hit people when he was being paid to.
This meant off the ice his teammates were on their own. Some guys expected the team goon to have their backs when hitting on other guys’ girlfriends at the bars hockey players inevitably found themselves after games (every league is a beer league if you try hard enough).
Ryan couldn’t be bothered. His contract (implicitly) stated he was to protect the expensive merchandise on the ice. It said nothing about off.
Once everyone realized Ryan wasn’t going to support stupidity in their personal lives, they lost interest in his. No one noticed he never had a WAG. So far he hadn’t been on a playoff team, so no head WAG had bothered him for jacket size information.
But just because he wasn’t in the closet didn’t mean he had anyone to bring home to meet his family. In his darkest times Ryan was convinced he missed his one and only chance at happiness on that ferry.
This summer was not a darkest time, but he still wondered - what could have been?
Scott - 22
Scott Hunter was on a new adventure. Enjoying his second off season as an NHL player, he’d finally had the time and resources to put a plan he’d been contemplating for a long time into action.
Disembarking at the Mykonos Airport, Scott was looking forward to discovering the (in)famous gay life of the Greek Isle. Just walking around the airport, Scott was surrounded by exactly the type of man he was here to explore: swarthy, hirsute, knowing absolutely nothing about ice hockey.
A travel agent who, as far as he could tell, had never heard of the NY Admirals booked Scott into a very expensive and exclusive resort. She had assured him it was on the largest gay beach in Greece, much less on the island.
Checking in Scott definitely appreciated the view from the hotel. The beach was nice too.
Initially, Scott was overwhelmed by the buffet of men available to choose from. Not only were the locals hot, but gorgeous gay men from around the world paraded around the resort and its beach wearing very little. There were twinks, twunks, cubs, bears, otters and daddies a plenty.
Eventually, Scott’s diffuse attention coalesced around a type, at least physically. He was immediately drawn to the guys riding the twunk/cub line. They tended to be compact, fit and covered in enticing hair he wanted to run his fingers over. Add a little five o’clock shadow and he could barely restrain himself.
Communication started as a bit of a barrier for Scott as English was largely their second or third language, where it was Scott’s only language.
However, he quickly learned you didn’t have to communicate with words in order to have a good time. Considering he was looking for sex and not a husband - stubble, a solid chest and a large cock was going to be more than enough for him.
Scott saw many years of returning to places like this in his future. He couldn’t imagine any other way he could possibly find the pleasure he’d been seeking. And, more importantly, he couldn’t imagine it ever getting old.
Kip - 19
Kip Grady’s parents were a little worried about their second child’s social life which was, as far as they could tell, nonexistent. Taking classes in the summer and working any catering job he could get was taking up all his time.
19 was too young to disappear from the world.
Kip, on the other hand, had a plan for his life and he knew getting done with his undergrad as quickly as possible while saving up as much money as he could would make the endgame of his plan much more accessible.
“Professor Grady” was a title Kip really, really wanted. His love of history and his passion for sharing it with others made teaching his ideal job. So he would study as hard as he could and work as much as anyone would offer to get there as quickly as possible.
For Kip, the future was bright. Obama was the President, thanks to the ACA Kip could now graduate and remain on his father’s health insurance, gay marriage was legal - at least in Massachussetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire and DC. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
And contrary to his parents’ belief Kip did have a social life. He regularly hung out with his buddies Chuck and Jimmy. Yes, he occasionally missed a hang or two because a last minute catering gig came up. That was just the price of being young and ambitious.
Most of their hang outs were Monday anyway. Who hosts a catered event on a Monday?
Chuck and Jimmy were in the business school and gave Kip grief about how unmarketable a history degree was going to be. Kip couldn’t be shaken. He wasn’t in it for the money, though having a job with regular hours was something to look forward to.
What Kip had to admit to himself in the depths of the night while trying to fall asleep was that there was no room in his life for anything resembling a sex life, much less a romantic one.
He’d come to accept he wouldn’t sow wild oats when most of his peers were. But Kip was convinced of the aphrodisiac properties of the tenure track.
Shane & Ilya - 19 & 19
Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov were staring at each other in a locker room shower in Toronto.
They later spent some time together in room 1410.
Kyle - 16
Working for his father wasn’t an ideal summer for Kyle Swift, but it kept him busy and provided more money than it should have for the rest of the things he wanted to do in the summer.
Living in small town Vermont limited Kyle’s options for the summer. In the winter he had both school and skiing to keep him occupied.
His ski coach probably wanted him in the gym more, but Kyle was a naturally gifted skier. He’d long been able to get good results with minimal effort.
Instead, he was in his father’s legal office doing data entry and filing. No one in his family or at the office was under any misapprehension that this was going to be Kyle’s entree into the legal profession. It was strictly transactional.
Kyle’s father needed a lackey and Kyle had nothing better to do.
One of these days he’d get out of this town, go to college, study something he was actually interested in. His father didn’t think ancient history and the literature of mythology was a realistic degree plan, but his father was not a man of imagination and passion.
Regardless of what he would be studying, Kyle was pretty sure he’d be studying it at an Ivy League school. He had a bad feeling he’d be shunted over the border to Dartmouth, but he had hopes of going to Penn, the farthest Ivy from home.
On his best days, Kyle dreamed of the bustle of New York City and Columbia University.
Troy - 15
Once again, Troy Barret was doing whatever summer program his father thought would make him faster, more accurate and, most importantly, tougher.
This summer it was a hockey camp in Winnipeg, of all places. His father said it would mean no distractions of home or a bigger city.
For Troy, it meant boredom and more time with the idiots who were never going to make it in hockey, but whose parents had the money to sustain the delusion they would.
His roommate this summer was a kid from Toronto named Connor Colton who was never, ever going to make it anywhere in hockey. He had all the best gear, had been training with the best coaches, but there’s no way you can be an elite hockey player if you don’t have the reflexes.
This poor kid consistently reacted fifteen seconds after something happened, a lag that was going to keep him in juniors until he aged out and beer leagues the rest of his life. None of the people making money off his presence in camps like this were ever going to tell him, or heaven forfend his parents, that very basic truth.
He’d probably have a very happy life with a corporate job, a pretty wife and a bunch of kids, but he was never going to play in the NHL, no matter how much money his parents poured into it.
Troy realized he’d been staring at the boy sleeping in the bed next to his for an unreasonably long time pondering Connor’s future.
While Connor was an unremarkable hockey player, at 15 he was quite the specimen of the adolescent athlete. Troy’s father probably would want Troy to get all the tips he could from Connor on workouts and diet.
Troy was in shape, but nowhere close to the chiseled frame Connor sported. Even at 15 Connor had already developed deep v-cuts along his torso leading down toward… not that Troy was noticing where they were leading.
Troy resolved to get to know Connor better and talk to him about workouts and performance diets. Because that’s what his father would want him to do, and no other reason at all.
None.
No reason other than that.
Troy was sure of that.
Harris - 15
A pediatric unit is a lousy place for a 15 year old to spend any part of their summer. So much of Harris Drovers’ life had been spent in these places. Three years ago it had been during the hockey season, so he got to enjoy a visit by the Ottawa Centaurs. As hospital stays go, it was a highlight.
Even when his favorite team wasn’t visiting, doe eyed 12 year old Harris found the medical process itself interesting in the abstract. Jaded 15 year old Harris was more focused on his bed being too short for him - though just barely as Harris, even at 15, wasn’t one of the taller kids on the ward. There was a 13 year old already three inches taller than him.
Harris was anticipating a particularly dreary summer. He didn’t even get to enjoy bunking off school.
As a consolation, Harris’ parents bought him the latest iPhone. Well, the iPhone 4 had just been announced so it was actually an almost obsolete iPhone, but there was no way to get the 4 before the planned hospitalization, and Harris’ aging iPod wasn’t going to make it to the release date.
In deference to the other children on the ward and the staff, his parents did include top shelf ear buds with the phone.
Harris had loaded the new phone with his library of Aretha Franklin, Usher, Lady Gaga, Gloria Gaynor, Katie Perry, Britney Spears, Diana Ross, and as much else that he could stuff into the 8 GB (there was no way his parents were springing for the extra storage).
If his music tastes weren’t enough to make his sexuality clear, at 15 Harris was beginning to discover the allure of being around guys. It was a weird context to realize how much the touch of a male hand could excite a young man on the brink (at least in Harris’ mind) of adulthood.
So far Harris had avoided anything truly embarrassing. However, when you’re a cardiac patient everyone pays attention when your heart rate elevates even a little bit. A very observant nurse named Doug did spot that Harris’ rate varied just enough to notice depending on the gender of the person measuring it.
Toward the end of Harris’ stay at the hospital, Doug took a rainbow pin off his lanyard and gifted it to his young patient.
Harris’ eyes got very wide, shocked that anyone could have possibly clocked him.
Doug smiled and patted Harris’ hand “Your secret is safe with me, but I don’t think it will be safe with you much longer.”
Luca - 10
Life in Zurich was idyllic if you were a preadolescent hockey prodigy.
While his coaches would prefer he spent a little more time on drills and conditioning exercises in the off season, Luca Haas’ parents wanted a normal childhood for their son.
Hence an outing to Conny-Land for the opening of the brand new Cobra roller coaster, which Luca had assured his parents he could handle. Considering at 10 Luca already towered over the 4’3” height requirement by a good six inches, it was easy to believe.
Luca had been excited for weeks about the impending adventure. He was going to ride all the rides. He was going to eat all the foods. He was going to finagle his parents into buying him expensive tchotchkes.
But most importantly he was going to ride the Cobra. Not just Switzerland’s, but Europe’s biggest coaster. He was going to ride it and it was going to be the best experience of his entire life, until he gets drafted into the NHL, which he knew was at least five years in his future, but that he could be patient for.
The anticipation of riding the Cobra was literally killing him. If he had to wait one more moment, he would be dead.
When all was said and done, Luca was convinced ice cream was the best thing in the entire world.