"You know there are other seats."
"I know."
"And yet."
"And yet."
He settled in. Stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles, taking up more space than one human being should reasonably require. He had a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, and he was wearing a T-shirt that was slightly too tight across his shoulders. I noticed this because it was directly in my line of sight. Not because I was looking.
Coach started the film. First period footage from Tuesday's game against Tampa. I focused on the screen. I made notes. I circled a breakdown in our neutral zone coverage at the 6:14 mark and drew an arrow indicating where our weak-side defenseman should have been positioned.
"That was my fault," Cole whispered.
I looked at him. He was watching the screen with his coffee halfway to his mouth, frozen there.
"You see it?" he said. "I'm too deep in the zone on that play. If I hold the blue line for another half second, the pass doesn't get through."
He was right. It had been his positioning error, and most forwards would never have noticed it. They would have blamed the defenseman or the goalie or the system. Cole Briggs was watching himself on film and identifying his own mistake without being asked.
"Yes," I said. "You were cheating toward the net."
"Old habit. I'm a goal scorer. I gravitate toward the crease like a moth to a very bright, very dangerous flame."
"Moth metaphor is appropriate. They also fly into things that will kill them."
He turned to look at me. I kept my eyes on the screen. I could feel his stare anyway. It had a physical weight to it, like sunlight through a window.
"Volkov, are you roasting me right now?"
"I am making an observation about moths."
"You're roasting me."
"If you wish to interpret entomological facts as personal commentary, that is your choice."
He made a sound that was not quite a laugh but wanted to be one. A quick exhale through his nose, barely audible. But in the dark film room, sitting this close, I heard it perfectly.
Coach moved on to the power play footage. Cole leaned slightly toward me. Not enough that anyone else would notice. Enough that I could feel the heat of his arm near mine.
"Their D-man on the left side is cheating to the middle every time," he whispered. "Look. He does it at 12:30 and again at 14:15. If we overload the left wing on the power play, there's a seam."
He was right again. I had noticed the same tendency in my own breakdown, which I had done at 5:45 this morning in theempty film room where no one whispered observations to me in a voice that sounded like warm gravel.
"I saw it," I said.
"You saw it."
"I have a spreadsheet."
"Of course you do." He leaned back but he was smiling. I could see it in my peripheral vision. The smile was not the big, performative one he used in the locker room or with reporters. It was smaller. Private. Like it was meant for this dark room and no one else.
"You know what, Volkov? You might actually be worth talking to."
I did not respond. What I wanted to say was that the small, private smile was worse than the big one because the big one was a performance and the small one was real, and real things from Cole Briggs were dangerous.
I said none of this. I wrote a note about Colorado's penalty kill formation and underlined it twice.
The session ended. The lights came up. Players shuffled out, and the noise of the hallway replaced the quiet of the film room. I gathered my notebook and my pen and stood to leave.