Page 17 of Wild Card 13
Too inconsistent to trust.
Everybody irritated.
Everybody bruised.
Everybody waiting for somebody else to figure it out first.
I dropped into my stall and untied one skate while Zee flew past the middle of the room in socks chasing Marco with a roll of stick tape.
“You touch me with that and I swear to God,” Marco warned.
“You deserve it.”
“For what?”
“Your entire personality.”
Marco looked genuinely offended. “Jealousy is ugly on you, rookie.”
Zee whipped the tape anyway.
Marco caught it one-handed without looking and fired it back hard enough to nail Zee in the chest.
“Jesus Christ,” Zee barked.
“Hands,” Marco said smoothly. “You’re welcome.”
I snorted and leaned down to retape my stick while Jonah walked past muttering motivational quotes to himself like a serial killer trying therapy for the first time.
“Pressure creates diamonds,” he said under his breath.
Milo lowered the paper slightly. “Pressure also creates pipe bombs.”
“Mindset matters.”
“Sleep matters more.”
Near the trainers’ area, Alois sat getting his wrist wrapped in silence while nobody bothered him.
That was another thing about struggling teams.
Everybody started separating into camps without meaning to.
Guys they trusted.
Guys they tolerated.
Guys they blamed when things went sideways.
Alois existed in his own category entirely.
The room bent around him even when he said nothing.
Cam glared at a whiteboard across the room like he wanted to fistfight the penalty kill percentages personally.
The media stuff around Müller had made everything worse lately. Reporters camping outside morning skate. Cameras waiting near the player exits. Endless questions about discipline and control and culture every time somebody lost two games in a row.
Everybody was sick of hearing about it.
