Called Again

Multicolored and horridly-patterned sweaters aside, Bill Cosby once said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

My feet had been dragging all practice like I’d suddenly forgotten how to skate. My legs hadn’t worked properly since I laced up and took the ice and if I’d done anything right no one had noticed. My teammates continually asked what was wrong but I brushed them off; if I ignored the problem maybe it’d go away. Coach wasn’t as easily brushed aside and benched me until I “learned how to fucking play hockey again.”

It was embarrassing. Hockey had been my life for as long as I could remember and this was how I repaid my hard work: by making myself look like an idiot who’d never stepped on resurfaced ice before? The draft was only a few months away. No one would want me if I kept playing like this.

“Couture, what the fuck are you doing out there?”

For a hockey player, I’d never been exceptionally confrontational. It made my palms sweat and my stomach churn uncomfortably, which was why I never got in many fights. I preferred to let my accomplishments on the ice speak for themselves, but they’d suddenly gone mute. Coach stood in front of me with an expectant look on his face and all I could do was shrug.

“I’m sor—”

“Sorry isn’t gonna cut it here, kid. If you wanna make it in the big league you better get your shit together.”

If I’d acquired any sort of ego over the last few years, someone had chosen then to stuck a pin in it and deflate it. No one had ever questioned my ability to play in the NHL before. I’d always had the skill and raw talent; a few years in juniors to hone my craft and I’d be good to go in no time. Somewhere along the line I’d lost whatever it was that’d always brought hockey to me naturally. Some would call it passion. I just called it a headache.

“I know, Coach, I just—”

“Don’t give me excuses,” he scolded, like I’d just been caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar. “I know what your problem is and I want it fixed by next game.”

A few of the guys had always joked about not being allowed to date while on the team. The 67’s were notorious for keeping its’ players on lockdown, as we liked to call it, which meant that our heads were to be kept solely in the game. We were allowed out on weekends and allowed to go home for holidays and during the offseason, but that was it. During the regular season and if we made it to playoffs, one slip-up could cost us our roster spot.

I’d been made aware of all that the second I’d been drafted, yet somehow I thought I could beat the system. As much drive and passion I had for hockey, how strong my desire was to make it to the professional level, I was not immune to the charms of a pretty girl. Especially one who knew who I was and seemed equally enthused about me as I was about her.

Girlfriends and junior hockey didn’t mix. There were too many practices, too much stress, and not enough attention. What we didn’t get from NHL scouts we looked for in girls. Trust me, they weren’t coming in flocks. Most of them spent their time in bars looking for a Senator; who could blame them? We were junior hockey players. We lived with billet families and drove whatever cars our parents could afford and definitely had no money to take a date to a five-star restaurant in the heart of the city. The Senators were the polar opposite. Of course they’d get the girls.

I was naive enough to think Olivia would be the solution to all my problems but she only brought about a batch of her own. Granted, only seeing each other twice a week strained our doomed-from-the-start relationship, but I was convinced I was good enough to have my cake and eat it, too.

Ashamed, I packed my gear and headed home, dreading what I knew I had to do. My relationship had never been particularly great, just something I kept to make me feel like a real person. My entire life had been dictated by practices and drills and games—I’d never had time to be a real teenager. Olivia was my one shot at normal. Clearly that was something I would never be allowed.

Part of me wanted to feel bad, but I knew it would only be one of many times I’d have to sacrifice something for my career. If I ever made it to the NHL and was faced with the same situation there’d be no contest. I wasn’t sure if I felt bad because it was my first time dumping someone or because it was Olivia.

Olivia Porter wasn’t as bad as I made her out to be. She was nice and easygoing and her younger brother nearly dropped dead on the floor when he found out I played for the 67’s. Her mother had a never-ending supply of fresh pies and her father was always quick with a joke. The Porters were a real family—a place in which I definitely did not fit in—and I’d quickly fallen in love with the idea of belonging to a family that did more than just wear the same jersey logo.

But with the good came all the bad: the arguments, the added stress, the commitment she wanted so badly that I wasn’t at liberty to give. I’d fallen for her so quickly and stupidly that I let her get in my head. When we fought, it showed on the ice. At first I was able to chalk it up to being nothing more than a headache or that I was just having an off day. Now that Coach and the rest of my teammates were growing old of that excuse and able to see right through me, I had to do something. I couldn’t risk my future to save a relationship I was never supposed to have.

Her phone rang twice before she answered.

“Hey, babe.”

I cringed at the smile audible in her voice. “Liv, hey. What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she answered. “Didn’t you have practice at noon?”

Glancing at the clock on my dashboard, I cringed again. She knew my schedule better than I did. “Yeah, listen, about that—”

“Logan, are you okay? You sound weird.”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Sure. I can meet you at—”

“No, that’s okay,” I answered hurriedly. I didn’t want to do this at all, much less in public. “Is it okay if I just come over?”

“That’s fine.”

I told her I’d be there in ten minutes and hung up. Those ten minutes gave me time to think, and I thought about a lot of things. I thought about what was going on back at practice, about Coach being disappointed in me and my teammates working their asses off for something that may never happen. I thought about my parents and how disappointed they’d be if they knew what had gone on. I thought about Olivia and what it was about her that completely pulled the rug from beneath me, but I came up empty. I wanted to believe there was something there, something like love or infatuation, but there wasn’t. Our relationship was hollow, based solely on keeping appearances and the occasional romp because that’s all I’d allow it to be, and it was finally time I came to terms with that.

Still, I’d never broken up with anyone before. Olivia was my first real girlfriend because the one I’d had in the second grade didn’t count. Olivia was my first real everything, really. I’d kissed girls before and took them on dates to the movies because I was the last of my friends to make out, but I’d never had anything more than that. Even though I swore I didn’t care about her as much as I should’ve, those things counted for something.

“Hi, Logan!” Quinn, her brother, shouted as he opened the front door. He gave me a high-five and my stomach fell to the floor. “Liv’s in the kitchen.”

Quinn abandoned me at the door and I walked the familiar route to where Olivia was. There was a note taped to the refrigerator in Mrs. Porter’s handwriting explaining she had to run errands during the afternoon but she’d be home in time to fix dinner. Olivia’s father always worked until six; I was beyond thankful I didn’t have to do this in front of her parents, too.

“Hey,” she smiled, pressing a quick kiss to the side of my mouth. “Hungry?”

“Not—not really, no.”

“Are you sure? Do you want something to drink then?”

I cleared my throat, which was itchy from dryness. “Water would be fine.”

She nodded and fetched me a bottle, sliding it to where I sat perched on a stool at the island. I wanted to ask her why she had to choose then of all times to wear fitted jeans and a loose, flowing top that definitely left little to the imagination in the cleavage department. Instead, I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to think up ways to get her to break up with me instead of vice-versa.

“Logan, you seem really off.”

“I’m not,” I rushed. “I mean—I’m not really off, just—”

“Logan…”

“I think we should break up.”

Immediately, I squeezed my eyes closed. For all I knew I’d just spoken Greek; what I’d said sounded like six words jumbled together and put through a paper shredder. No one in their right mind (or without a translator) would’ve known what I’d meant to say. Even a translator would have trouble, probably coming to the conclusion that I’d just dumped my girlfriend in whatever language made me sound like the biggest douchebag.

It took her a few seconds to gather what I was saying, but once she did I wished I could’ve taken it back.

“Are you serious?”

“Olivia, listen—”

“Don’t Olivia me, Logan Couture!” she shrieked. “We’ve been together for six months and all of a sudden you think we should break up?”

“Liv—”

“Shut up! Just shut up, Logan!”

I jumped off the stool. “Let me ex—”

“No! Spare me the bullshit and just leave!”

I walked over to her, holding her in place with my hands on her shoulders, and tried again. “Olivia, listen to me, please.”

She finally cracked. Her eyes spilled over with tears and her chin quivered. I wanted to die. I’d never made a girl cry before. Not even Lainey, my next-door-neighbor back home who I’d accidentally hit in the mouth with a slapshot when I was seven. Now Olivia was standing in front of me, sobs racking her tiny body, and I didn’t know what to do. I could recite the player’s handbook but no one had ever told me what to do when you made your goddamn girlfriend cry.

“Why, Logan?”

“I just—”

“Is it because of hockey?”

I nodded. “I’ve been playing like shit lately, Liv. Coach is threatening to cut me from the team and—”

She stopped crying and stared me dead in the eye. “And I’m the weakest link, right? You think cutting me out of your life is going to miraculously solve all your problems? Poof, my girlfriend’s gone, maybe now I’ll score a fucking goal!”

“You know how much this means to me,” I reasoned.

“Of course I know! Why do you think I put up with your team’s bullshit rules about only seeing each other on weekends and girlfriends can’t go to games so you don’t get distracted and god forbid two teenagers have sex!”

I shook my head, ashamed once again. “I didn’t want it to be like this.”

“Like hell you didn’t,” she spat. “You could’ve made it work. You could’ve pulled your head out of your ass and played hockey like you had some damn common sense.”

“I tried, Liv.”

“You gave up is what you did.”

“What do you want me to do? It’s you or hockey!”

“That’s my point, Logan: it’s always been hockey. I just wish you wouldn’t have started something you couldn’t finish.”

“Please don’t hate me for this.”

“Ha,” she scoffed. “Good luck.”

“You deserve better, Olivia; someone who will put you first and not throw you away as soon as you become inconvenient.”

She cracked again and the tears streamed down her cheeks. “I know I do, but I still wasted my time with you.”


“I just need to be me right now,” I said softly, praying she’d understand. “I need to know how to live my life as I’m supposed to, bullshit hockey rules included.”

She laughed quietly and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Whoever drafts you, I’m rooting for the rival team.”

“I can live with that.”

“I hope you get picked dead last.”

“I can live with that, too.”

She sighed and pressed her forehead to my shoulder. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

I realized then that I was in love with her; I had been for months. No one else put up with my shit the way she had. No one else let me sit on the phone with them for hours in silence after a loss. No one else fought to be with me the way she had. As soon as I walked out the door, Olivia Porter was going to be the one that got away.

God forbid I didn’t make it to the NHL.


“With the ninth overall pick, the San Jose Sharks are proud to select, from the Ottawa 67’s, Logan Couture.”

I was sure I was dead.

I faintly remember hearing someone scream before my mind went blank. My mother yanked me out of my seat and was the first to hug me; the rest of my family followed suit. She shoved me toward the stage but once again my legs stopped working. I couldn’t remember where I was let alone how to walk properly.

I held up my new jersey and smiled, temporarily blind from the hundreds of camera flashes that went off simultaneously. I wanted to cry but convinced myself to keep my composure. No one else had cried. Not even Patrick Kane, the first overall pick, had cried, so I figured I wasn’t allowed to. But I’d finally made it to where I wanted to be. All of my hard work paid off. I was going to be in the NHL.

My face hurt from smiling and my hands had been shaking steadily for two hours. Even after the draft winded down and no one paid me anymore attention, it still felt like my name was being called on repeat. I relived that moment over and over, asking myself each time if it was real or if I was back in Ottawa with a sick case of hallucinations. But it wasn’t a hallucination. I was really, truly, finally going to be a professional hockey player. No more juniors, no more excuses, no more hoping and wishing.

My phone buzzed in my pocket for the millionth time that afternoon. Teammates and coaches old and current had texted me their congratulations and I tried my best to reply to each one. Family members who couldn’t be in attendance followed suit. They all said the same thing: they knew I’d make it. I didn’t have the heart to tell them there’d been a time when I wasn’t so sure.

From: Olivia
Sent: 22/06/07 @ 6:49p
Congratulations, Logan.

For the record, that was the first time all day my heart had stopped beating.

The guilt came in waves. She was probably back in Ottawa cursing the sight of me on the television. But I did what I’d promised her I'd do: I made it to the NHL. Me throwing her away and breaking her heart hadn’t been in vain. Somehow I’d make it up to her. Someday she’d realize she’d always meant more to me than a casual fling. Eventually I’d tell her I’d spent six months trying to convince myself I didn’t love her, only to realize that only made me love her more.

From: Olivia
Sent: 22/06/07 @ 6:53p
PS - just bought a Bobby Ryan jersey. Go Ducks!

One day I’d do all those things, but it wasn’t today.