Chapter 2: Old School
It didn't take Charlie long to gather up as many of the OGs as possible.
He, Teddi, and Henry left his house with the duck call at promptly ten in the morning, skating to the Banks' residence first. Teddi, when not worrying, was graceful on rollerblades. Her light brown hair flew behind her as she laughed with joy, following her father and brother as they raced to Adam and Julie's. No sooner were they outside the house than Charlie blew into the duck call, and Adam threw open his window.
"Hey, Banksy! Ready to play some real hockey?" Charlie asked.
"Let me grab my blades! The kids have theirs out already!" Adam closed the window with a loud bang, and soon enough, the Banks family was flying out, with even little Violette following closely behind.
"Who are we getting next?" Adam asked as they skated along the streets of downtown Minneapolis.
"We gotta get Connie, Guy, and Gordy!" Charlie said.
"What about Rose and Sammy?" inquired Teddi with a raised eyebrow.
"They're leaving them with a sitter," Charlie explained as they stopped outside the Germaine residence, twice the size as any of theirs combined. Charlie honked on the duck call, and Guy, Connie, and Gordy came flying out on their rollerblades.
It didn't take long to round up most of the others. They managed to rescue Averman from his cake-eating boss, for whom he worked as a limo driver. After that, they stopped at Peter Mark's residence; the former denim jacket-wearing street punk who'd been Charlie's partner in crime for legendary neighborhood pranks had really grown up and worked as a social worker; it was because of Peter that much of the youth stayed away from crimes and drugs. After Peter, they got Goldberg, then the Duncan siblings Tammy and Tommy, who were now dance instructors (figures), then Jesse Hall, who was back in Minneapolis for a bit of a breakaway before the season began for his minor league team. After Jesse, they managed to snag Fulton and Dean, who had the day off from working construction, much to the surprise of everyone – they rarely got a day off from work.
Those were the only ones they'd managed to gather up, but it was enough as they skated to the basketball courts, finding Orion, Bombay, Alex, and Evan, who were already waiting for them with hockey sticks and a puck at the ready. Alex sat with Evan on one of the benches, watching as Gordon and Orion did some warm-ups on the blacktop; the two seemed to be competing to see who could complete the most laps in a shorter amount of time, and so far, it looked like Orion was winning. Charlie skated up to them, grinning.
"Hey, Ducks!" Gordon said. "You guys ready to fly?"
"Hell yeah!" said Jesse.
"Okay, let's split into two teams," Orion said. "How about Gordon and I as centers? I'll take Adam, Connie, Tommy, Portman, and Cat. It'll be us versus Bombay, Conway, Guy, Hall, Fulton, and Goldberg."
"So, we each get one of the Bash Brothers." Gordon shrugged. "Sounds fair."
"Averman, drop the puck!" Charlie said, lining up next to Bombay with Guy being on Gordon's other side. Fulton and Jesse got behind them, acting as defense, and Goldberg took his spot at the goalpost. The others lined up similarly. Once everyone was in position, Averman dropped the puck.
"And here we are! What a great day for some hockey!" Averman said in his old commentary style. "Ooh, lookie here, Coach Bombay has the puck; he passes it to Spazzway – number ninety-six! Spazzway nears the goalpost, only for Banksy to steal it away. Oh, look, the cake-eater gets knocked down by Bash Brother number one, Reed lines up for the goal – Oooh, nice save from the Kitty Cat! She sends it back, Orion has the puck, and he passes it to Connie-meister –!" With that, Connie elbowed Averman and knocked him to the ground, the very act mirroring their first scrimmage at the Duck Pond when Gordon first met all of them at ages nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. "Ouch, Velvet Hammer!"
"Shut up, Averman! Give a regular commentary!" yelled Connie as she skated up to Goldberg; she took her shot, and she scored.
"And the Velvet Hammer scores! Leaving Orion in the lead one to nothing!" Averman said from where he lay on the ground, though he was laughing good-naturedly as Adam came over to give him a hand up.
This continued for a good while. Everyone was working up a sweat, skating back and forth across the blacktop until Bombay called the game over; he was rubbing his knee. They hardly remembered the score, but nobody cared to keep count. They were caught up in the fun of the game, so caught up that the pain in Bombay's knee caught him by surprise. The pain of his old injury was not helped by age even though he wore a knee brace, something Charlie silently noted as he sat beside his two children, stopping for a swig of red Gatorade as the others took their seats, grinning.
Gordon sat down, continuing to rub his knee as he stretched it out in front of him. Charlie smiled as Julie began rubbing Gordon's knee for him, her fingers expertly digging into the areas that were the sorest; having taken a few aggressive hits herself as a goalie, mainly when she played for the women's team in college, Julie understood how painful sports injuries were, and decided to become a physical therapist. However, everyone thought for sure she'd go to culinary school, because she, Luis, Charlie, and Goldberg were the best cooks out of everyone on the team; whenever they'd host Thanksgiving when they were in high school together, Julie and Charlie took it upon themselves to be in charge of the turkey, Julie having the best sense of taste out of everyone, and Charlie knowing full well how to cook a turkey, having cooked plenty of meals for his mom when it had been just the two of them. While Julie said she enjoyed cooking and baking, being a pediatric physical therapist was much more fulfilling. Most of her patients came to her with hockey-related injuries; she'd seen how Adam's wrist injury and Bombay's hurt knee affected them physically and emotionally, had witnessed Guy and Averman get knocked around by larger players, which often left them with dislocated shoulders. She'd popped many dislocated shoulders back in place when they'd played together as the Ducks at Eden Hall.
Bombay groaned as Julie's hands rubbed at a particularly painful knot in his knee. "I wish I had lavender oil on me, Coach," she said, shaking her head.
Bombay sighed. "It's fine, Jules. That feels good." He tilted his head back in relief as Julie kept up the massage; he looked like he would fall asleep right there on the bench. Julie could put just about anyone out if she put her mind to it.
"Almost felt like old times," grinned Jesse.
"Was this what it was like when you guys played?" asked Teddi as Julie finished massaging Gordon's knee.
"Very much," said Charlie, smiling. "This is the way it's supposed to be."
"Guess we forgot," Evan said, smiling sheepishly.
"And you guys can always come back to this," Gordon gestured. "This is what it's all about. Those other Ducks haven't got a clue what it means to be a Duck."
"Exactly. When we started, we had nothing," said Goldberg. "We were using The Enquirer as shin pads, and none of us knew what we were doing because we had no coach before."
"It looked kind of like this, except it was way more of a mess," laughed Connie. "Remember when Coach pulled up in a limo onto the ice, and we all thought he was a drug dealer?"
"I told him, 'Get your sorry vanilla booty outta here before I use your eyeballs as hockey pucks!'" Jesse said.
Everyone leaned over, laughing. Somehow, that stuck out more than they thought it would.
"Why would you think that?" asked Teddi.
"We thought he had a gun. He reached into his coat pocket. Slowly," said Averman.
"Goldberg almost wet himself!" snickered Guy as he ruffled his son's hair.
"I did not!" Goldberg squeaked.
"Goldberg, when your pitch squeaks, you're lying," Charlie laughed. "Remember what you said to us that day?"
"To be careful, because the puck almost hit me that time," Goldberg said, grinning.
"But, Goldberg, you're the goalie. It's supposed to hit you!" laughed Julie.
Everyone laughed again. It felt almost normal, like things were supposed to be this way. For a moment, they weren't adults with work lives and responsibilities. They were the Ducks once again, playing and having fun. And their kids saw how fun hockey was supposed to be without all the pressure of winning. Charlie cast his daughter a look.
"How about we see a two-on-two scrimmage?" he proposed. "Teddi and Gordy versus Banksy and Morrow?"
"You're gonna have us play without goalies?" asked Billy incredulously.
"Of course not." Charlie shook his head. "You and Gordon will be goaltending while Teddi and Evan play center."
"But we don't play as goalies!" protested Gordy, his hazel eyes wide with alarm.
"Today, you do," said Connie. "You've got to try different positions. For a while, Goldberg was our goalie until Julie got promoted."
"I promoted her and put Goldberg on defense because her talent was being wasted," Orion said. "I saw the Jr. Goodwill Games; that game against Iceland was one of the worst I'd seen, and I knew it could've made a difference if the Cat was put in sooner."
Julie blushed deeply at that. If there was one thing she'd always appreciated, it was that Orion believed in empowering her and Connie. Charlie managed a grin at that; even he'd grown to appreciate Orion's methods. Orion was the furthest thing from a sexist ass; he believed in giving girls an equal opportunity, and from what he heard in recent years, Orion was trying to advocate for more female hockey programs at the middle, high school, and collegiate levels, and he even wanted to push for allowing paraplegic kids to play hockey in schools; he'd seen his daughter get denied opportunities to play sports even though he'd been Eden Hall's hockey coach when she'd gone to school there. The last thing he wanted was to see disabled children and girls get sidelined from opportunities.
"Besides," Goldberg said proudly, "so what if it's your first time? I'll teach you everything I know." He slung an arm across Billy's shoulders.
"Which isn't much," snickered Peter.
"Shut up, Peter!" Tammy said, rolling her eyes as she swung at him, only for Peter to duck out of the way as Charlie got Teddi and Evan to take center court, and Billy and Gordy apprehensively took their spots at the goalposts. Charlie tossed each of the kids a hockey stick, and he watched as Teddi nervously took her position. At least she could skate today; he'd been worried about her ankle when she'd gotten hit with that stick the other day. Luckily, she hadn't gotten hurt too severely after Dalton idiotically hit her with his stick just to knock her down. He hadn't even hit her that hard, just enough to shock her. But still, if that was how he was treating his own teammate, Charlie didn't want to imagine how Adam had been treated by Rick Riley when he'd been on Varsity.
Teddi faced Evan; Charlie noted how her face seemed to drain of color. Her nerves never disappeared, even when she was supposed to be having fun. She'd inherited more than just his clumsiness from when he first started. She was also a nervous wreck who never performed well when pressured; the same went for her tests and quizzes. Charlie had to get special accommodations to let her get extra time for tests because she wasn't a good test taker. Many of her classmates made fun of her, assuming she got special treatment because her dad was one of the teachers. But that was far from the case. He'd do the same for any student struggling in his classroom. But her clumsiness didn't help matters, either; Teddi was just as clumsy on the ice as she was off, often tripping over her own feet, and when she first started learning how to skate, she fell over constantly, and she still tripped and fell. In fact, on the way to the basketball court, she'd fallen several times. But Charlie also knew she inherited his determination and work ethic; when she fell, she got back up and tried again. She was indeed his mini-me in every way.
"Okay, you guys know the game," Charlie said, holding the puck. "And if you fall, get back up again and keep going. It's hockey. Falls happen all the time. If you want proof, Adam, Guy, and Averman are exhibits A, B, and C."
"That's rich coming from you, Spazzway," teased Peter.
Charlie rolled his eyes. "All right, let's scrimmage." He dropped the puck and backed away, watching Evan and Teddi fight for it. Teddi got it first, and for a moment, it looked like she had it and was about to shoot into the goalpost, but all it took was one slip off her right foot, and she went crashing onto the pavement, her stick flying out of her hand.
Charlie sighed, shaking his head. Still, he said, "That's okay, Teddi," as Evan got hold of the puck, skating hard toward Gordy's goalpost. Gordy fell to the ground trying to block the shot, but surprisingly, it went in. Evan could be a great scorer if he just concentrated on where he wanted the puck to go.
"Good job, baby!" Alex said encouragingly as Teddi tried getting back up again, only to have her feet slide from underneath her as Billy came over to help her up. If only she could get better control of her edges and practice stopping, she'd do well.
Charlie skated up to his daughter, whose shoulders were sinking. "Keep going," he said. "Don't get frustrated. Mistakes happen all the time."
Teddi turned her blue eyes toward him, and Charlie knew she was having a lot of doubts. The kind of emotional and mental abuse she'd gotten from Coaches T, Riley, and Cole wasn't something you could easily recover from. After a month of being verbally beaten down and belittled, Teddi was going to need a huge morale boost.
Charlie sighed and wrapped an arm around her, kissing her on the top of the head. In all his years of fatherhood, he never thought he'd need to deal with this. After the passing of Cheryl last year in the auto wreck, Teddi had taken it the hardest; she understood what death was and what it meant. It didn't help that she looked incredibly much like her mother, with her soft, light brown – almost red – hair, and her petite stature, though her eyes were her own; they were like his, brilliant blue and crystal clear, and you were able to read every emotion that passed over her face like she was an open book. She had Charlie's sensitivity, loyalty, work ethic, and clumsiness; the only thing that was missing was the hotheadedness; that was Henry's department. There were times it hurt looking at her, because he was reminded of his wife, whom he missed incredibly so and hadn't fully moved on from. Before Cheryl died, they lived in a relatively large house due to her job as a real-estate broker; after her death, they moved in with Casey and had to downsize to where Teddi had to bunk with her brother. It was unfair how, so soon after her mother's death, she ended up getting a new set of hockey coaches who put her down constantly.
Charlie had promised himself that he wouldn't be the kind of father that would abandon his children. He'd known fatherlessness, having witnessed his mother get hurt countless times by a number of men who fled at the first glance of him. And then, his mother got married to his first stepdad, who just as quickly dumped them, claiming he was going on a business trip, though he never came back – Charlie got the sense that his ex-stepdad knew there was unresolved chemistry between his mom and Bombay, and it didn't help Charlie suspicions that his ex-stepdad had been cheating on Casey. The last thing he wanted was for his daughter or his son to feel like he was dumping them or just giving up. It was a father's job to love his children. Charlie considered himself lucky to have Bombay, eventually finding another father figure in Orion. If it weren't for those two men in his life, he'd never know what it meant to be a good father; that especially rang true for Orion, who raised his daughter Lucy on his own after the car wreck that took his wife, and his career with the Dallas Stars, away. Even Hans and Jan had been consistently there, all the way up until they passed away.
Charlie knelt down to his daughter's level to look her in the eye. "Do you want to try that again?"
"I don't know."
"Listen, don't worry about messing up. Just have fun. Okay?"
Teddi managed a smile.
"All right. Go have fun with your friends." He kissed her on the forehead before ushering her to retake center, and he moved to take his seat beside Orion, who offered him a rare grin as he put his knee on the bench.
"You're a good dad, Conway," Orion said, his tone unmistakably warm with a sort of pride.
Charlie smiled back. "I try. This past year has been one of the worst. First, my wife's death, which happened shortly before Teddi and the Ducks lost the state championship, which led to them getting Coach T." He shook his head as he watched Teddi fumble on the blacktop again, but she rose once more and raced after Evan, skating a little harder to catch up to him, which wasn't hard, because Evan was a lot slower on his feet than others were.
Charlie pulled out his wallet, which contained a picture of his family mere months before Cheryl died. "I miss her," he said, a little wistfully.
"Just continue being there for your kids," Orion advised gently. "Besides, you'd make a good coach. You're a better coach than you were captain of the Ducks. You could do a hell of a better job than Coach T."
"You're just saying that because you coached me."
"No, I'm not." Orion looked at him thoughtfully. "You could make a difference, Charlie. Bombay meant it when he told me you were the real Minnesota Miracle Man. So, be that man, kid."
Charlie's smile widened slightly as he watched the kids play. But he soon turned his glance to Bombay. "Coach? What days do the Ducks practice at the Ice Palace?"
"Mondays and Wednesdays since most of the games are Fridays and Saturdays," Bombay said. "Why do you ask?"
"Do you think I can have the rink on Tuesdays and Thursdays? And possibly Sunday afternoons?" Charlie quirked an eyebrow in the direction of his former coach, who smiled back at him.
"I think I know what you're thinking, Charlie." Bombay smiled at him. "Go for it. And if you want, I'll even sponsor the team and make sure you guys get the equipment you need."
"I can help with that, too," said Alex. "I'm sure Ducksworth's wouldn't mind helping out."
"And I'll throw some money in that pool, as well," said Adam, grinning as he watched Billy block one of Teddi's shots.
Charlie smiled widely. If Coach T, Riley, and Cole wanted to cut his kid from the Ducks, he wasn't going down without a fight. He wouldn't have his daughter be part of something that would lead to her feeling like a loser. And if T, Riley, and Cole told them, "Don't bother," that was precisely what they'd do: they wouldn't bother with the Ducks; they'd show those Ducks what it really means to fly by forming their own team. And win or lose, at least they'd still have their pride in knowing they'd keep the spirit of playing the game alive.