Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley Page A

flat on the table. “Folks,” he said. “First, I’d like to apologize for a little lapse in communication. It’s a new season. You’re all welcome to come watch practices. If the boys forgot to mention that, that’s my fault.” Outside, we snickered; Coach hadn’t said a word to us about lifting the practice ban. “Second, no-puck practices will be more the exception than the rule this year. Your sons are all fine athletes, but, let’s face it, they weren’t in the best physical shape. Maybe too much of the pop and potato chips, eh?” He winked. “Hockey takes a lot of stamina, and the only way to build that stamina—the only way I know—is skating. This year, though, the kids’ll be seeing more pucks. After all, you’re right, the puck’s a pretty big part of the game.” A few parents chuckled.
    He stood. “As for the various other ways we’ve approached the game, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to apologize.” His smile melted slowly away. “I’m going to be a little bit blunt with you now, folks. Please don’t take it personally. I really love this town and the lake and how you’ve all welcomed me here. And I love your boys, every one of them, even the one—
especially
the one I had to cut from the roster.” He was moving slowly around the room now, looking at each parent, one by one. “I don’t come from here. Don’t have kids of my own. So I don’t have all that—that
emotion
you have tied up in watching your kids. I think I can be a little impartial, if you know what I mean. I’ve won a few championships in my time, and I think I know what it takes.”
    “Come on, Jack, we all want to win,” Champagne piped up. “But why do we need players from Timbuktu to do it?”
    Coach steepled his hands beneath his chin. “Good question. Here’s the answer.” He paused. “Because the players we have aren’t good enough.” He waited in the silence that followed, which was more awkward for the parents than for him. Then he repeated it: “Because the players we have aren’t good enough. I’m sorry, folks. We have a few guys who are fast enough, or skilled enough. We have one boy who can skate with anyone in Michigan.” I elbowed Soupy in the ribs. “We have another who’s going to be the best stand-up goalie this town has ever seen.” Soupy shoved me back, and Stevie Reneau smacked me on the back of the head. “And we have a few other good players in Starvation Lake. But we don’t have enough. Not if we want to reach the ultimate goal.”
    He let the phrase linger on the air, as he had with us. He’d never used it on the parents before. As if on cue, Champagne finally said, “And what would the ultimate goal be?”
    “Well,” Coach said, “why don’t I have your sons tell you?” He looked in our direction. “Boys?”
    After practice earlier that afternoon, Coach had placed a cardboard box in the middle of our dressing room floor. We’d watched as he sliced it open with a pocketknife, reached in, and pulled out something wrapped in clear plastic that he held up for us to see. “What do you think, boys?” Inside the plastic was a shiny blue jacket with gold stripes on the collar and cuffs, and gold piping along the sleeves. A River Rats logo was stitched over the right breast and a player’s name—“Stevie” this one read—over the left. We all jumped up, oohing and ahhing. “The
ultimate
ultimate,” Soupy said. We’d never had team jackets before. Coach had told us to stow them in our hockey bags until the parents’ meeting.
    Now the seventeen of us filed into the snack bar in our new jackets, as Coach had told us beforehand. It was the parents’ turn to ooh and ahh. We formed a tight semicircle around Coach, Soupy and I on either side of him, again as he had instructed. He laid his hands gently on our shoulders. Surveying the room, I saw my mother smiling from her table. She’d probably known about the jackets ahead of time.
    “Gus,” he said. “Can