Sasquatch to the Moon

1: Preseason, AKA, Gage's cats.

ROCKET

The Regina Wolves, by far, have been the weirdest group of boys I've ever played with, and that's rich, coming from me. I've played on house teams in the Czech Republic with preteen boys, on middle school teams in Canada with boys in that awful mid-puberty horny phase, I've played on national teams with boys in the post-puberty I'll fight god and win phase, and then I played professionally for five years with the Boston Bruins, they still don't cap the Wolves.

Or, at least, the preseason batch of Wolves.

The team is the 33rd regiment of the NHL based out of Regina Saskatchewan, a little city in the middle of damn nowhere with fields so flat I could put a water level on the whole province and the bubble would be so square in the middle I'd get an award from the carpentry union.

Still, they're weird.

It's charming, a little, but weird.

Hockey is always like that, well, was always like that. I'm used to hearing everything in the locker rooms, slurs, detailed explanations of sexual experiences, promises and bets to 'get with' whoever and the next. I've never batted an eye at it, it's just hockey talk in the locker rooms. I'm used to it.

Except now, sitting in a room with a massive wolf emblem on the floor, sliding my new blue and grey pads on over my undershirt and listening to Gage Paxton, the 25 year old Vezina award winning brick wall of a goaltender I'll be backing up this season, explain in grave detail the sleeping patterns of all five of his cats. Their names, in order, are Sir Richard Louis Cunningham the fifth (Dick for short), Rubberband, Refried Beans, Toothbrush, and Kitty.

The team pays full attention, a little Hispanic guy named Benjamin Douglass, Greenie for short, rattling off other stuff he knows about the cats to keep up the conversation. Greenie is maybe 5'5 on a warm day, easily one of the smallest guys in the NHL, but he isn't afraid to let you hear about it and has the fastest hands this side of the sun.

Other people of note in the locker room: my best friend and a major defensive figure in the NHL, Stephan Sagamore, Steph or Saggy for short.

I'm a backup goalie. I've always been a backup goalie, first for Swayman, now for Paxton. That's what I like to do, I like being out here with the teams, telling jokes on the bench and all that, this was my little kid dream and I'm living it. It's still a little stunning to me, even six years into it, almost 24, but that's alright. I'll deal with it.

"Fenny!" Greenie suddenly shouts, breaking me from my little gear-assembly stupor.

"Hey, Greens, you didn't grow," I whip my head up at the thick German accent, finding our captain and starting center, Fenrir Von Albrecht, standing in the door, gear bag over one shoulder, bundle of sticks in his free hand.

"How was Germany?"

Fen shrugs, "Nico and I are gassed, I've been up for 30 hours already, but I figured I'd drop in and do my little captain act before crashing tonight." His attention flickers around the room, nodding at all the people he knows before stopping on the two of us in the far corner, dressing. "New guys, sorry I wasn't around to say hi when you were traded."

"No problem," Steph smiles all huge and happy, dimples flaring up his cheeks. He was always better at the social shit. "You can call me Steph."

"Steph, I'm Fen, Nico calls me Sauerkraut but that's just her thing," he shakes Steph's hand.

Nico is the assistant coach. She's well known for two things, one, the bigger one, dragging the Wolves from the lowest seed and worst performing team in all of NHL history to a Stanley Cup winning team in one year, and secondly, being in a relationship, a romantic relationship, with Fenrir, captain.

I can see why she's willing to make that risk, though. Fen's gorgeous. Six foot three, hickory hair that's just a little too long in a way that screams 'sex' at the top of it's lungs, shoulders like a Greek god, thighs that could crush my skull. Plus, he's an all around good guy from what I know, sweet and through and through a leader in all facets, never short to goof around but knows when things depend on him. He's an all in one deal.

Nico is slightly less approachable than her puppy dog of a boyfriend, I've never met her but all I know is that she's terrifying, sweet and a fierce friend once you're in with her but scary as shit otherwise.

Fen's German blue eyes land on me, "I'm Fen."

I stick my hand up at him from my position on the floor, I'm the same height as him but he could break my skinny body like a twig so I don't really want to stand up all that bad, "Rocket."

"Rocket?"

I feel my ears go pink, "Miloš, technically, Miloš Tvrtko, but everyone's called me Rocket since I was sixteen so I don't respond well to Milos."

"Gotcha," he drops his bag next to us and zips it open, peeling off his shirt first things first, heading for a compression shirt in its place. Like I said, he could easily be a Greek God, "Well, as your captain, I gotta start off by apologizing that my other assistant captain isn't here, Yeti got stuck out in Sweden with a family thing, he's back late tonight in time for the start of the preseason in a day. You've met Greenie, he's one of two."

Yeti is a name I haven't heard for him before. Håkon Rex is terrifying. I've had him score on me loads before. He's easily six and a half feet tall and a bruiser of a defenseman, racking up fights like he's in the UFC not the NHL. He's tall, he's scary, he's paler than snow with shock white hair, and from what I've heard, he doesn't fucking talk. At all. Like, at all.

"You look scared, Rocks, what's up?" Fen uses a goofy tone but he's serious.

"Nothing, he's scary to have come down the ice at you, that's all."

"Ah," Fen laughs. "I understand that, but you'll like him. He's a big marshmallow once you get him comfortable."

"Hardly," Steph mutters. "He bruised me up pretty bad in my rookie season."

"Well, he's on your team now so you're good, just don't get him mad," Fen shrugs. "Well, anyway, you'll meet the coaches tomorrow, Bernie is a little clueless but he's very good at what he does, Rod is small and angry but sweet once you get to know him, and you'll get to know Nico pretty well too, though no making moves on her, she's gorgeous, I know, but that's captain territory you're encroaching on," he jokingly makes an eyes-on-you gesture at Steph and I. "as for positions coaches, I don't know your guys' coaches well but I assume they're very nice-"

The shuffling of my gear over my head sounds him out as he goes on about nice coaches. It's like the guy can't find anyone mean ever.

I survive practice, which is nice.

I survive practice even though Fenrir has the hardest shot of anyone out there and he's been taking his careful time picking apart where I'm weak to help give the coaches more instruction on how to defend with me.

It's scary as shit, I'll be honest, and by the time I'm done, I'm thoroughly drenched in sweat and in the mood to go home and lay on the cold floor for a few hours.

Lay on the cold floor and convince myself for the hundredth time since I got here this summer that even though this team seems nice and wonderful and I haven't heard any slurs in the locker rooms and I haven't had to deal with any of that, coming out to them is probably a miserably bad idea that'll cost me my career and if I'm not careful, my life. 

***

if you can tell me anything

tell me if you want me around

hey wait - mid-day moon

***

edited, this is a little more melancholy than the first chapter i had before and I might change it again but this is a switchup i think I like

i just have to edit it to fit so ignore all the motion happening with this thing before then. 

thanks yall

-rabid