Someone Special

Niklas was curled up in his hotel bed, trying so hard to settle his shaking body. Today was not only the day of his first NHL game; it was also the 10th anniversary of his father’s death.

Niklas’s father, Hasse, had died of a heart-attack when Niklas was 11 years old. Niklas had been in the room watching his father die and it had traumatized him. It had been the worst day of his entire life.

Suddenly, the door burst open and in stepped Niklas’s mentor, Brett Hull, with a tray of hotel dinner foods. Brett had already mentored Niklas’s close friend, Pavel Dastyuk and had helped mentor Niklas’s close Swedish friend, Henrik Zetterberg. It was of no surprise, then, that the organization had picked Brett to mentor Niklas.

“Come and eat, kid. We’ve got to leave in about three hours,” Brett said softly, placing the tray on his bedside table.

Niklas made a whimpering noise reminiscent of an injured puppy and hid his face in his satin pillow.

“Not hungry, Hullie. Not hungry.”

Brett’s forehead furrowed as he stalked over to the bed. It wasn’t like Niklas, who was only 21, not to feel hungry. This kid could eat anything that came his way. He proved that at training camp every single time they had a meal, so this worried Brett.

“Are you sick, Kronner? It’s not like you to not be hungry,” he commented, laying his hand over Niklas’s forehead.

Niklas gently pushed the hand away and buried his face deeper into the cushion.

“No, I’m not sick. I’m just not hungry,” Niklas mumbled as his hand jerked on the tassels surrounding the pillows on his bed.

The lines in Brett’s forehead were only made deeper by Niklas’s behavior. All throughout training camp, Niklas had kept everyone entertained (and a little bit irritated) by his enthusiastic manner. Every single day when he entered into the locker room, he was bouncing off the walls with his energy. There were a few times Brett had to force his rookie to kneel to help him rein in his liveliness so that he didn’t hurt himself or someone else.

“Is there something bothering you, kid? This isn’t like you,” Brett asked, settling himself on the bed beside Niklas and tugging away Niklas’s fingers before they could do any damage to the pillows he was yanking on.

“I’m just tired,” he grounded out through clenched teeth, hoping Brett didn’t see through that lie.

Unfortunately for him, Brett saw through the lie like it was created out of clear plastic. He’d been in the league and had been a mentor long enough to know when rookies weren’t totally being truthful. Sometimes they would lie to avoid trouble. Sometimes they’d lie to have a joke at someone else’s expense. But, most of the time, at least in Brett’s mind, rookies lied to their mentors because they didn’t want to be seen as a burden. This, as one might expect, made Brett sad because rookies weren’t burdens. Rookies were, to Brett, his hockey children. He was there for them through thick and thin.

“Lying isn’t going to make your situation any better, Kronner. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

Niklas, with a sigh, rolled up onto his back to face his mentor.

“Brett, I’m not lying. I’m really just tired,” he squeaked, straining to hold back the tears, which, despite his hardest effort, spilled down his cheeks anyway.

His mentor shook his head and focused his attention on stroking the hair out of Niklas’s eyes.

“You’re crying because you’re tired? Don’t try to force feed me that crap because I know it’s not the truth, kid.”

When Niklas made no reply to this statement, Brett snatched a pillow off the bed and tossed it carelessly on the floor in front of him.

“Kneel for me, Kronner.”

Not wanting to disobey Brett, since he knew doing that was only going to get him into hot water, Niklas pushed himself off the bed and dropped onto the pillowed floor before his mentor.

Brett slid his fingers through Niklas’s long, brown, tangled hair and nodded in approval.

“Now, tell me what’s going on, Kronner. It’s my job to help you, so let me do that job by telling me what’s wrong.”

Deciding to tell Brett one problem at a time, since doing both at once would overwhelm him, Niklas bit his lip hard enough to taste blood and cocked his head up to stare at Brett.

“It’s the day of my first game, Hullie. I’m nervous,” he confessed, fingers fiddling with the carpet.

Brett’s eyes widened and he mentally slapped himself. He’d totally forgotten that Niklas hadn’t played his first game yet. Now Niklas’s strange behavior made sense!

“You don’t need to be nervous, kid. You’re going to do just fine. Just think of it as like a practice but with more people. I know that helped me when I played my first game.”

Niklas, gnawing on his lower lip, dwelled over the advice for several minutes, turning it over from all sides to see if it made sense from every angle.

Brett remained silent during that time and continued to comb his fingers through the mop of thick hair in front of him, untangling it as he went.

“That’s fair enough,” Niklas admitted at last, nuzzling his cheek into Brett’s knee as a “thank you” gesture.

One of Brett’s hands massaged the nape of Niklas’s tense neck while the other cupped Niklas’s chin and tipped it up so that their eyes could lock. He could tell, through some 6th mentoring sense that he’d developed over the years, that something was troubling his rookie. A problem he hadn’t yet solved.

“Something else is bugging you, kid. I got one problem solved already, but there’s another mystery I need to figure out. Tell me what it is.”

Niklas struggled for a few long minutes to maintain his composure, not ready to have a breakdown in front of his mentor, but eventually, that battle was lost. He hid his face in Brett’s thigh and crumbled into a waterfall of tears as Brett held his shoulders in a steadying grip.

“Today…it’s been ten years since my…my dad passed away,” Niklas choked out through his tears.

Brett froze on the spot. He literally froze. He knew his rookie didn’t like talking about his dad, since every time the topic was brought up in conversation, Niklas was quick to change the subject. Brett had always assumed that Niklas’s dad had abandoned him and his mother, but he now understood it was much worse.

“Kronner…oh my gosh…I’m sorry, kid. You were only 11. How did this happen,” Brett wanted to know, his tone soft and compassionate.

Niklas sniffled and wiped away the snot with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“Heart attack. I was in the room with him. I watched my father die.”

Brett picked up Niklas by his under-arms and settled him against his lap, pulling him against his chest for a soothing hug. Tears were in his eyes as well, but he was quick to wipe them away, his attention turning to his crying rookie, who was currently hiding his head in Brett’s shirt.

“Kronner, I don’t know the right words to say to you. Just know that you are so strong. I’m sure your father encouraged you to play hockey and when he died, you wanted to give up that dream for a while, didn’t you? Yes, I know you did but you couldn’t do it. That was the only connection you had left to your father. You wanted to make him proud, didn’t you? I know you made him so proud and I know he’s up there somewhere watching you right now. If you ever need to talk to me, I’m here for you, kid.”

Niklas only nuzzled his face deeper against Brett’s chest and cling to him like a baby. He wasn’t crying now, but the tears were still in his eyes.

“He’s still here, in my heart, after all of these years. I can never forget about him.”

Brett’s lips twitched into an affectionate smile as he gave a playful tug to Niklas’s earlobe and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.”