"You were awesome Sunny! You were the fastest skater out there," Aubrey praised him as his mom handed him his water bottle. He took a big swig from it and looked around the room. Everyone was getting a drink and was being praised by their parents or friends, except for one.
Victor.
He was standing alone with a blank stare. He was also mumbling something to himself that Sunny couldn't make out. It was highly unnerving.
"He was the second one to finish," Sunny heard his mom say behind him. "I would say about a smidge slower than you."
Sunny nodded along to what she said. He remembered Alec's stories about Victor having a great shot but never mentioned anything about his skating. He started to wonder why but realized he never struggled with skating as he did with shooting so there were no reasons to hear about Victor's or anyone else's skating abilities.
Coach B blew his whistle and all the players started taking to the ice. Sunny began to follow them until he felt someone grab his arm. He looked over and saw Aubrey giving him a supportive smile.
"Before you go, I want you to know you're doing great, and remember to breathe when things get overwhelming."
Sunny nodded and skated back onto the ice. He took a spot next to Alec, who gave him a light friendly punch on the arm. He turned his attention to Coach B and I who were standing by some cones.
"Goaltenders, follow me," Coach Ivanov ordered. The goalies followed him over to the other side of the rink, leaving the skaters with a lot of ice to work with.
"I said we'll be doing some skating drills so let's start with something simple. Skate in and out of these cones that we set up," Coach B then demonstrated what it should look like. "We're gonna first try this without pucks, but after a while, we'll bring them out. Now line up and be ready for my signal."
The skaters did what Coach B told them. Sunny lined up in the middle, behind Rudy. Sunny took the opportunity to look over at the other end of the rink to watch the goalies. They were dropping to the ice and quickly getting back up. It was something he'd seen JJ do during his training.
He then heard Coach B's whistle and saw Alec doing the drill. He did it fast and well, and when he finished he took a spot at the back of the line. Alec made sure to give some fist bumps to everyone on his way there.
Sunny was starting to get closer to the front. He felt his heart beating fast, but he took a deep breath to calm himself. He was going to do a skating exercise. Skating was something that he was confident in himself doing well.
There was nothing for him to worry about.
"Don't mess up," he heard someone say in his ear. Sunny turned around and saw Luke, giving him a cocky smirk. "This is the easiest drill of the whole tryout. If you mess up here then you'll never make the team."
Sunny swallowed hard and his heart was beating faster than before. It sounded like someone was playing the drums in his head. He tried to breathe, but he felt that it made it worse. He heard some yelling and laughing, but his heartbeat was so loud he couldn't decipher where it was coming from.
He felt himself blindly moving forward with a loud ringing filling his ears every five seconds. He felt like he should know what that ringing was, and he did, but he couldn't remember what it was for. It had to be for something important because it kept getting louder the more he kept moving forward.
At one point it got so loud that Sunny thought his ears were going to bleed. It wasn't until he felt someone nudge his back that he saw he was at the front of the line. He looked over and saw Coach B giving a mixture of a confused and worried look.
"You there, Sunny? I've blown my whistle five times now."
Sunny heard some of the others snickering behind him and he looked down in embarrassment. He readied himself and Coach B blew his whistle. He slowly weaved in and out of the cones, making sure he didn't mess up. He finished and slowly made his way back to the end of the line, knowing he was the slowest to finish the drill.
"Hey, what was that back there? I know you're a lot faster than that," Rudy told him when he reached the end. Sunny tried to answer when he was interrupted by Luke who just got to the end of the line.
"Are you sure? From what I've seen he's been nothing short of trash."
"Shut up, Luke!"
"Hey, I'm just saying what I'm seeing," Luke said in a faux defensive tone. Rudy grumbled while Luke snickered in his face.
Sunny felt himself panicking again and Rudy was quick to jump in and calm him down.
"Don't listen to him. He says nothing that's worth listening to," Rudy said, which got Luke to stop snickering. "Coach B likes to do his drills three times so just kill it with your next two attempts."
Sunny nodded and took a deep breath. He soon found himself in front of the line with Coach B ready to give him the signal. Sunny heard the whistle and he skated much faster on his second attempt than his first. He felt the confidence in him building when he reached the end of the line and Rudy gave him a fist bump.
"Yeah! That was awesome! Do that again and you're on the right path!"
Rudy's praise wasn't enough to distract Sunny from seeing Luke slowly skate to the end of the line. He could tell from the frustrated look he had that Luke didn't do good on his second attempt. Sunny tried to give him a supportive look but Luke glared at him. Sunny flinched, turned his attention away from the angry boy, and prepared himself for his final attempt.
When it was his turn again he shot off like a bullet when he heard the whistle. He weaved in and out of the cones as fast as he could. He was doing good until he felt one of his skates slip underneath him and he fell onto the ice. He quickly dusted himself off and finished off the drill the best he could.
He returned to the back of the line with a dejected look. Out of his three attempts, he only did well in one of them. Rudy patted him on the back to make him feel better.
"Don't worry about it. You're not the first person to crash onto the ice and you won't be the last. Just kill it for the rest of the day and you'll be fine."
Sunny slowly nodded to what he said. The day wasn't over and they still hadn't done this drill with pucks yet. He just needed to calm down and prepare for the remaining drills. Besides, skating was something he was good at.
Sunny groaned after he finished his last drill. He wasn't having a good day and Luke wasn't making it any better. Whenever he messed up, Luke was always there to mock him afterward. It was annoying.
He didn't have a good time with the skating drills, something he was disappointed in himself for. Then there were the passing drills. Luckily, he didn't humiliate himself like he did earlier, but he didn't think he impressed either coach with his ability.
The only solace that he could take from the day was that he wasn't the worst skater. There were plenty of other guys that messed up as well. Some lost their pucks and others fell on the ice as he did. Sadly, Mikhael was one of those players.
Sunny knew going into today Mikhael wasn't going to perform well, but he thought he would have performed better than he did. He wasn't smooth in any of the skating drills and almost fell onto the ice in all of the drills. He felt really bad for him.
"Hey, is everything okay?" Alec asked after skating up to Sunny. He didn't answer and kept his eyes on Mikhael who was talking to his mom. It didn't take long for Alec to figure out what was on Sunny's mind. "Oh, you're worried about Mikhael, aren't you?"
Sunny nodded. He wished there was something he could do to help him. Maybe with the upcoming shooting drills, he could make Mikhael look good somehow.
"Hey, forget about Mikhael for a second, and let's talk about you," Alec said, breaking Sunny out of his thoughts. "What was going on earlier? You're looking like a completely different player than you did during training."
"Luke's getting in his head," Rudy said while coming up behind them. Alec sighed and rolled his eyes.
"That's all? Look, Luke is all talk. People like him have no skill so they try to get into players' heads and mess them up," Alec told him. Sunny then saw Luke talking to a boy who wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. "See, look at what he's doing. He's not letting what Luke says get to him. You need to learn to do that because every team that we'll face this season will have a Luke, except they're actually good at hockey."
Sunny nodded. He made a promise to himself that he wouldn't listen to the insults that Luke or anyone else would make about him. He needed to worry about himself and try to make the team.
"And if you're still worried about Mikhael I'll go talk to him and give him some tips. Maybe if he shows out in the shooting drills it'll sway the coaches' decisions about him," Rudy said before skating over to Mikhael. Sunny was about to go prepare for the shooting drills when Alec grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close.
"Don't do anything that will hurt your chances to make this team by helping Mikhael. If it comes down between you and him make sure it's you," Alec whispered, taking Sunny by surprise. "I'm telling you right now, Rudy is telling him the same thing I'm telling you. We're all competing for a spot so you can't do anything to give someone else yours."
Alec broke away, leaving Sunny frozen.
Coach B blew his whistle and everyone gathered around him. He then signaled over to Coach I who ordered one of the goalies to move in front of the net.
"Alright, we're gonna now practice some zone entries. I want the forwards to form two lines. One over on the side of the center line and the other in the center face-off circle. I also want the defencemen to line up on the neutral zone face-off dot facing the line on the left," Coach B instructed. Everyone followed his orders with both coaches moving some skaters around to make the lines more even. Sunny was in the center line with Alec, and luckily Luke was in the other one.
"Watch closely. We're going to show you what to do," Coach I said. He then passed the puck over to Coach B and skated over to the left side of the rink. Coach B then passed the puck back to him and he skated into the offensive zone with Coach B behind him. Coach I then passed the puck behind him to Coach B who shot the puck and watched it fly into the back of the net.
"After you finish the drill alternate lines, so if you're in the center ice you move to the line on the left and vice versa. Defencemen, your job is to either stop the forwards or make it hard for them to get a shot off. You're gonna have to do this once for each goalie, so make sure you make it count, and remember to enter the zone with speed," Coach B told them before backing off. He blew his whistle and the first skaters in line went off.
This time, Sunny paid attention to what was happening. He studied all the other skaters and what they did so he wouldn't mess up. He watched Alec deke pass a defenceman and Mikhael surprisingly made a stop. Luke, on the other hand, messed up the pass which allowed the defencemen to intercept the puck.
Soon, it was his turn to do the drill. He looked over and saw that his partner was Victor and then in the net to see the goaltender wasn't JJ. He then looked at the defencemen and gulped hard when he saw it was Rudy. He managed to skate past him during the lessons, but after what Alec told him, he knew this was going to be hard.
Coach B blew his whistle and he was off. Sunny first passed the puck to Victor and then skated as fast as he could. He watched Rudy try to stop Victor, but he managed to get the puck past him and back to Sunny. Sunny then used the rest of his energy to build up speed to enter the zone with Victor behind him. Sunny then passed the puck back to Victor and watched him snipe it into the net.
Sunny was proud of himself. He managed to do the drill correctly on his first try. He looked over at Victor who had an unamused look on his face as he got back in line. Sunny was slightly taken aback by it but brushed it off as he went to the other line, giving Alec a fist bump along the way.
After a few more skaters took their turn Coach B blew his whistle and signaled for the next goalie to get in the net. Sunny looked and saw JJ moving in front of the net. Sunny took a deep breath to calm his nerves because he knew this would be the biggest challenge of the day.
And he was right.
It didn't matter who was up or who was defending, JJ was a brick wall. Everyone in his line couldn't get one shot past him, not even Alec. Mikhael couldn't get a stop this time, but JJ was there to back him up with a glove save. Then it was his turn.
He watched JJ doing his stretches and Rudy getting ready. He was so caught up in what they were doing he didn't hear Coach B's whistle. He felt the puck bounce off his stick and before he could react, Rudy stole it. Sunny tried to apologize to Victor, but he gave him a frustrated look before skating away.
For his third attempt, it was exactly like his first attempt. Sunny didn't bother to try and acknowledge Victor this time around, but the boy stopped him and whispered in his ear.
"Bounce the puck off the wall this time."
Sunny was confused, but Victor skated away before he could ask any questions.
It was time for his last attempt in this drill and he made sure to pay attention to both Coach B and Victor this time. The second he heard the whistle he felt the puck on his stick. He saw Rudy charging him and before he got close enough to poke the puck away he bounced it off the wall and saw it go straight to Victor. He followed behind him and when Victor passed him the puck he put all his power into his shot and watched it fly into the net.
Sunny heard his mom and Aubrey cheering for him and saw Coach B giving him a nod of approval. Rudy then skated over to him and congratulated him by giving him a pat on the back. Victor just rolled his eyes and got out of the way so the other skaters could take their turn. Sunny followed his example and received a fist bump along the way from Alec.
With his spirits at an all-time high, Sunny felt confident for the rest of the tryouts.
Sunny was exhausted. After finishing the final shooting drill, Coach B wanted them to do the first exercise again to finish off the day. He felt ready to collapse on his bed the second he got home.
He finished changing and just about everyone already left. Luckily, Luke didn't stick around to chastise him, even though he wouldn't have a reason to after he did better than him during the shooting drills. Mikhael also left early because he was too tired to stick around and chat. Only him, Alec, JJ, and Victor were left in the changing room.
"I gotta say, you got me on that one drill," Rudy praised him. "I would've never expected someone like you to do something like that."
"Yeah, that's something we expect Victor to do," Alec then turned to Victor, who was finishing packing his bag. "That's what you told him to do after your third attempt, right?"
"Yeah, but it wasn't like I did it to help him out. I only did it so the coaches could see me do the assist part once," Victor huffed as he left the room. Alec, Rudy, and JJ shook their heads at his actions.
"At least he's not as moody as he was weeks ago," JJ commented after packing up.
They all left shortly after and met up with their parents. Sunny's mom and Aubrey praised him for his hard work as they were walking to his mom's car. The sun had already set and it was way past the time his mom would usually make dinner.
"How about I pick up a pizza for dinner? You can join us if you want, Aubrey," Sunny's mom suggested.
"I don't want to be a bother," Aubrey responded.
"It's fine, and I'm sure Sunny won't mind."
They then looked over at the boy to find him passed out against the car window. The two had a nice laugh at the site of it.
"If you insist, I'm sure I can stay for a few slices."
"You can stay the night if you want. I can give you some of Mari's old clothes."
Aubrey thought about her offer. Her mother was most likely passed out drunk and her father would probably be working late. It also would be nice to sleep in a house that didn't have holes in the roof and reeked of alcohol. She could also use a new set of clothes because the ones she did have either had holes in them or she was starting to outgrow them.
"I'd like that," Aubrey said as Sunny's mom drove off.
