Offside Read Free Page B

kept stopping them in the middle of plays, explaining how
they could put themselves in better position, and then resuming the
drill.
    “Keep adjusting your angles based on
the passes being made,” yelled goaltender coach Bob Purcell to
goalie François Letellier. “And square your body more to the
shooter.”
    Matt focused on a quick release, and
put the puck in the net several times to Frankie’s annoyance. That
just made Matt grin.
    They ended the practice with a
shootout competition that had lots of cheering and jeering. When
Matt rang one off the crossbar, he deliberately fell to the ice and
slid gently into the boards to hoots of laughter.
    He left the ice sweaty but
exhilarated. Some media guys were hanging around, including Dan
Jasper from ESPN, wanting to talk about when he was going to play.
That was a question he couldn’t answer, but he spoke to them for a
few minutes then cooled down with more time on the bike and
stretching. He wasn’t fond of stretching but had come to see how
important it was in preventing injuries.
    After a shower and dressed in his
street clothes, he lounged around in the dressing room listening to
music and shooting the shit with some of the guys.
    “Hey, wanna come to my place and swim
this afternoon?” he asked teammates Joe Barzetti, Chris Dobie and
Niklas Berglund. “Bring some beer.”
    So later that afternoon, that was
where they were, lounging around the pool at his apartment
building. Matt made himself work out before he kicked back with a
beer. After a punishing round of laps, he climbed out of the pool
dripping water all over the pool deck and walked to where he’d left
his towel on a chair. His three buddies and team mates already
lounged there in the sun, beers in hand.
    Matt rubbed his towel over his wet
hair and reached for the can sitting by his chair.
    “How many laps did you do?” Joe asked
with amusement.
    “Lost count,” Matt said. “Fuck, that
felt good.” He loved swimming. “You should try it. You need to work
out and keep your svelte figure. You’re getting love
handles.”
    “Fuck off, I am not.” Joe tipped his
face up to the sun, his dark complexion now even more
tanned.
    “I was reading the other day that love
handles are a hormonal thing,” Dobie put in.
    “Huh?” Joe turned his face to Dobie.
“What the fuck? Hormonal?”
    “Yeah. Swimming won’t get rid of them.
You gotta do a different workout to produce the hormones that will
help get rid of fat there.”
    “I don’t have fuckin’ love handles,”
Joe said.
    Niklas reached out and gave Joe’s side
a pinch. “Oh yeah, you do, man.” Joe jerked back from his touch and
shoved his hand away.
    Matt grinned and guzzled down his
beer. “Ugh. This is warm. Toss me a cold one from the cooler,
Nik.”
    The blue-eyed blond Swede unzipped the
top of the soft thermal bag they’d brought down to the pool,
reached in and then lofted a can toward Matt. Matt caught it
easily, the aluminum cold and wet in his hand. He popped it and
gulped.
    “If you’re insulin resistant, you’ll
store your fat as love handles,” Dobie continued.
    “Our resident fitness expert,” Nik
commented.
    It was true. Dobie read a lot about
health and fitness and was a workout fool. But that was cool,
because Matt had learned a lot from him. He’d lost a shit ton of
weight after he’d been hurt and he had to work hard to keep muscle
on. Six foot three and a hundred eighty pounds was pretty damn puny
by NHL standards. Sure, there were a few guys under six feet and
two hundred pounds, some damn good players. But he could battle
better in the corners and take out some bodies when he had a few
more pounds on him, and he tried to keep his weight over two
hundred.
    For some reason a memory of talking to
Honey about that eight years ago flashed through his head.
Shit.
    Now he was thinking about Honey again.
He leaned back into the lounge chair and closed his eyes against
the bright sunshine.
    He hadn’t expected that