The A

Coach Rimer did not believe in speeches.

This was something you figured out fast if you played for him. Other coaches gave you the fire-and-ice thing before a season… big vision stuff, talk about legacy, maybe a quote from someone famous that they'd googled the night before. Coach Rimer walked into the locker room on the first day of real practice, put his clipboard on the bench, looked at us like we were a grocery list he was mildly disappointed in, and said: 'Skates on. Ice in five.'

That was it every year and we loved him for it.

So when he kept me after practice on Tuesday and said 'Ellis, a minute,' I ran through a quick mental inventory of everything I might have done wrong. Shot selection, yes. My backcheck on the third line rush had been lazy. I'd been late to the defensive zone twice and Coach had definitely seen it because Coach saw everything, which was a gift and also a curse depending on which side of it you were on.

He waited until the rest of the team had filtered out. Danny shot me a look on his way through the door, the specific look that meant 'I want to know everything and I will wait exactly as long as it takes.' I gave him the look back that meant 'yes, obviously.'

Coach picked up his clipboard. Put it back down. He did this sometimes when he was deciding how to say something, like the clipboard was a prop he hadn't fully committed to.

'I'm announcing the A before the opener,' he said. 'Wanted to tell you first.'

I waited as my heart did something complicated.

'It's yours if you want it,' he said. 'Assistant captain.'

I'd wanted this since I was fifteen and I had enough self-awareness to know I wanted it, which had made the wanting slightly embarrassing because what kind of person sits around hoping for a letter on their jersey. Apparently me. Apparently this kind of person.

'Yes,' I said. Possibly too fast. 'I mean. yeah. Yes. Thank you, Coach.'

He nodded once, like that was the expected answer and we could all move on. 'You've got good instincts out there. You read the ice. What I need from you this year is for that to be contagious.' He finally picked up the clipboard and held it. 'Webb's going to have a distracted season, I don't know details but I can tell. Cho's got more to give than he thinks he does and he won't push himself unless someone pushes him. You know these guys.'

'I do,' I said.

'Then do something with it.'

That was it. That was the whole conversation. I walked out of the locker room with a letter I didn't have yet and a job description that was essentially 'be the person you already are, but louder,' and I stood in the hallway for a second and did not embarrass myself.

Then I took out my phone.

I should note that I did not text my mom first. Or my dad, though he lives in Portland now and we have a fine relationship conducted mostly through occasional phone calls and him showing up to two or three games a season with the energy of someone who is trying very hard and I try to meet him there. I didn't text Danny, which he would consider a personal offense when he found out.

I texted Nora.

[Jordan]: hey so

[Jordan]: coach just told me I'm getting the A

Three dots appeared immediately. Then:

[Nora]: JORDAN

[Nora]: JORDAN ELLIS

[Jordan]: please don't

[Nora]: I am going to be so annoying about this

[Jordan]: I know

[Nora]: this is the best news I've heard all week I'm actually so happy right now

[Jordan]: it's tuesday

[Nora]: I'm aware. it's been a good week

Then:

[Nora]: wait hold on I need to think of a nickname

[Jordan]: you don't need a nickname

[Nora]: I absolutely need a nickname this is non-negotiable

[Jordan]: Nora

[Nora]: what about A-minus

I laughed out loud in an empty hallway, which was a little embarrassing but no one saw.

[Jordan]: why am I A-minus

[Nora]: because you're not quite captain yet

[Jordan]: that's extremely rude

[Nora]: you love it

I did, actually. I loved it immediately and completely, which was also a little embarrassing, but again… empty hallway.

[Jordan]: I'm telling Danny before you do

[Nora]: I'm already texting him

[Jordan]: NORA

[Nora]: too slow, A-minus. also he's very excited. he says and I quote 'obviously, it was always going to be Jordan, Coach just needed to catch up'

[Jordan]: tell him that's the nicest thing he's ever said about me

[Nora]: he says 'don't get used to it'

[Jordan]: that tracks

There was a pause. Then:

[Nora]: seriously though. you deserve this. you've been the heart of that team for two years already. the letter is just the rink catching up

I read that three times standing in the hallway. I wasn't sure what to do with it so I just held it for a second.

[Jordan]: thanks

[Nora]: don't get weird about it

[Jordan]: I'm not getting weird

[Nora]: you went quiet for like thirty seconds which is your version of getting weird

[Jordan]: I was composing a thoughtful response

[Nora]: sure. go call your mom, A-minus

[Jordan]: yeah

[Jordan]: hey Nora

[Nora]: yeah

[Jordan]: you're the first person I told

The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

[Nora]: I know. go call your mom.

Mom cried a little, which she would absolutely deny if asked. I could hear it in her voice even though she was doing the thing where she talks slightly louder to cover it up.

'That's my boy,' she said, twice, which meant she meant it.

Dad called twenty minutes later, which meant Mom had already texted him, which was fine. He said 'that's huge, bud' in a voice that was genuinely warm, and we talked for about fifteen minutes about the season and what I was hoping for and whether I thought we had a shot at the playoffs. He asked good questions. He always asked good hockey questions, because it was the language we'd always spoken most comfortably, the one with the least static.

'Your mom says you've got a good group this year,' he said near the end.

'Yeah. We do.'

'Nora still playing?'

'She's the best goalie in the division,' I said.

'She always was.' A pause. 'It's good that you've got her in your corner.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'It is.'

After we hung up I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at the Mites jersey still on my desk. Seven-year-old me had no idea what was coming. Not the work it would take, not the team that would become like a second family, not the girl with the purple helmet who would turn into the most important person in my life so gradually I barely noticed it happening.

I picked up the jersey and stuck it in the bottom drawer of my desk instead. Felt like the right move.

Thursday practice was the first one where it really felt like a season.

That's hard to explain to someone who hasn't played a team sport, but there's a difference between early-September skating and actual-season skating. Early September is everybody finding their legs again, rediscovering the language, the systems, the feel of moving as a unit. Then somewhere around the third or fourth full practice, something clicks. The passing gets sharper. The transitions tighten up. Guys start calling for the puck before they're open because they know it'll be there.

Thursday was that practice.

Coach ran us hard with full systems, both ends, then a long scrimmage at the end where he shuffled the lines and watched what happened. I ended up on a line with two juniors I didn't know as well, which I suspected was the point. By the end I had a decent read on both of them: the left wing, a kid named Callum, had a tremendous shot and absolutely zero patience, the  center they put me with was a sophomore named Reyes who was quiet on the ice but somehow always in the right place.

'Reyes,' I said during a water break. 'You've got good positioning.'

He looked surprised, like he was checking to see if I was making fun of him. 'Thanks.'

'Where'd you play last year?'

'JV. First year on varsity.'

'You play like you've been here longer.' I meant it. He nodded once, processing that, and when we went back out he played a little taller. Worth doing.

Danny caught me after the scrimmage, already unwrapping a granola bar, focusing like a man who has his priorities in order.

'A-minus,' he said.

I stopped. 'She told you.'

'She told me immediately.' He took a bite. 'I like it. It's accurate.'

'I'm going to be a great assistant captain.'

'Obviously. That's what A-minus means. Almost perfect.'

'Danny.'

'I'm kidding.' He grinned. 'Mostly. Congrats, man. For real.' He held out the granola bar like a toast. I did not bite it, because I had standards, but I appreciated the gesture.

'Coach said you've got more to give than you think you do,' I said.

Danny paused mid-chew. 'He said that?'

'More or less.'

He chewed for a second, looking at the ice. 'Huh.' Then he said, 'I mean. Obviously I do. I've been saying that for years.'

'Danny.'

'What?'

'Just… this year. Give it.'

He looked at me for a second with an expression I didn't see on his face very often, something more real than his usual performance of himself. Then he pointed the granola bar at me. 'You're already doing the captain thing.'

'Assistant captain.'

'Same energy.' He finished the bar. 'Annoying energy, by the way, just so you know.'

'Noted.'

'But good annoying.' He crumpled the wrapper and shot it at a trash can six feet away. It went in. He absolutely did a small fist pump. 'Let's have a season, A-minus.'

I brought real food on Thursday, as promised. Nora approved of the apple slices and peanut butter situation and only mildly complained about the container being difficult to open with cold hands.

'You could have just brought a bag of chips,' she said, wrestling with the lid.

'You said real food.'

'Chips are real food. They exist. They're tangible.'

'That's not what real food means.'

'Says who.'

I took the container and opened it and handed it back.

We were in the alcove again, on the bench under the clock. Not because it was first practice, it wasn't… just because it was Thursday and we'd ended up here, the way you end up in the same spots in a building you know well. Muscle memory. ‘Load-bearing.’

'How was your extra session?' I asked. She'd texted me earlier that she'd put in another hour in the afternoon.

'Good. Hard.' She picked up another apple slice. 'I've been working on my five-hole response time. My new coach at the academy… she sent me some drills.'

She said it carefully, like she was testing the words. Like she was still getting used to saying 'my new coach' out loud.

I let a second pass.

'Does she know how good you already are?' I asked.

Nora made a face. 'She's seen footage. She knows I'm capable. That's different from knowing what I can actually do.' She looked at the peanut butter. 'I want to show up there and be someone who surprises them. Not someone who just meets expectations.'

'You've never just met an expectation in your life.'

She smiled at that, but it had a complicated edge. 'I've never started from zero before. Every team I've been on, I've had history. People know me, I know them, there's context. Over there I'm just…' She stopped. 'New.'

'You were new here once,' I said. 'You fell on me and told me your name from the ice.'

'That was different, I was seven. It's easier to be brave when you don't know yet how much things can go wrong.'

I thought about that.

'You fell down every four minutes that first day,' I said. 'And you got up every time with this face like you were personally offended by gravity.'

She looked at me. 'You remember that?'

'I've never forgotten it.' I said it simply, because it was simple. 'That's you, Nora. That's been you the whole time. The distance between here and there doesn't change that.'

She was quiet for a moment. Not the uncomfortable kind of quiet, the kind that meant she was actually sitting with something.

'A-minus,' she said finally.

'Don't.'

'No, I mean it.' She bumped her shoulder against mine, brief and warm. 'That was genuinely good. You're going to be an annoyingly good assistant captain.'

'That's the second time today someone called me annoying.'

'High praise from this team.' She stood up, stretched, checked her phone. 'I should go. Early start tomorrow.'

'Me too.'

We walked out together. In the parking lot, the evening had gone fully dark, the kind of blue-black September dark that still surprised me every year when it showed up, summer light one week, this the next.

'Hey,' she said, at her car.

'Hey.'

'The first person you told.' She said it looking at her keys, not at me. 'That means something to me. Just so you know.'

I didn't say anything for a second. I was too busy figuring out what to do with the warmth that moved through my chest at that, which was new, or maybe not new, maybe just newly acknowledged.

'Yeah,' I said. 'Good.'

She got in her car. I got in mine. I waited until her headlights swept out of the lot before I started the engine.

Then I drove home with the radio off, which I only do when I've got too much already in my head and music would just crowd it.

The letter was going on my jersey in four days.

The season was starting.

Something else was starting too, probably, in the way things start when you're not deciding to start them.

I was going to need to deal with that at some point.

But not tonight.