“Thank you,” McGinnis says, throwing up his arms. “Finally, someone on this team who gets me.”
Someone mutters an insult, but I let it slide.
“Who wants to go next?” Knox’s hand shoots up, but I pretend not to see it. “Anyone?”
“Looks like you’ve got a taker right there,” Banks says, pointing.
I force a tight smile and nod. “Go ahead.”
Knox leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “You know that phrase, ‘If someone shows you who they are, believe them?’”
A few of the guys give verbal confirmation, and uncertainty tightens my gut.
“I hate when it’s only applied in the negative. Sometimes I feel like even when I show people who I am, through words and actions, they still don’t believe me. And I find myself wondering, what else can I possibly do?”
Fudge. This is definitely about us. But this isn’t the time or the place for this conversation.
“It sounds like you value trust,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “and it hurts when you feel it’s not reciprocated.”
“I get that,” one of the guys—Harding, according to the nameplate above his head—chimes in. “I swear my agent alwaysthinks I’m holding out on him, and I’m like, what the fuck, dude? I have nothing to hide. Just because I like to have a good time doesn’t mean I can’t ever be serious.”
“That’s great.” I jump on the commonality. “The whole point of this exercise is to find common threads. Identifying shared thoughts and feelings is a great way to connect with your teammates.”
Most coaches use positives, but I find people bond far more quickly when ranting over shared adversaries and obstacles.
Ethan Bouchard, the team’s starting goalie, raises his hand. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but you know what’s got me in a tailspin lately? Chippy. I mean, no disrespect to the guy, but who the hell thought, ‘You know what would make a great mascot? A flying squirrel.’ I legit do not understand the thought process. Mascots are supposed to be badass, and he’s just a rodent with a giant smile and fluffy tail. No one—and I mean no one—is intimidated by that squirrel. Please tell me I am not the only one who feels this way?” He turns to the guy next to him. “You see it too, right, Smitty?”
There’s a bark of laughter from Alex Smith. “Even the fans are saying Chippy is soft. I read this comment the other day—”
“Hold up.” Foerster throws up a hand. “You read the comments? Dude, don’t you know anything? You never read the comments. That shit will fuck with your head for days.”
“Nah,” Smith says. “I’ve got a mind like a steel trap. The point is, it’s like the owners just gave up because all the good birds were taken.”
“Exactly.” Luke Dvorak stretches, leaning back into his stall. “All the Atlanta teams have cool-ass bird names.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “The Hawks, the Falcons. Hell, even the Thrashers were cool before they crashed and burned.” He shudders. “Not that I’d want to resurrect that team name. It would be bad luck.”
“Yeah, and they all have red and black uniforms too, but somehow we get stuck with electric blue?” Smitty shakes his head. “Don’t get me wrong. I look good in blue, but it’s the principle.”
“Agreed,” Bateman says, nodding aggressively. “It’s like they’re saying we’re not even on the same level as the other teams. Hell, even the Augusta Rattlers wear red and black.”
This is the thing they can all agree on? Their common thread? If I hadn’t pulled the exercise out of my back pocket at the last minute, I’d think they were messing with me. But they couldn’t have known we’d do this exercise, because even I didn’t know we were going to do it.
I listen, stunned into silence and unable to get a word in edgewise. Knox catches my eye and grins as if to say, “This was your idea.”
“Even their stadium has a better name than ours,” Bateman continues. Clearly, the man has given this topic some thought. “The Rattlers have The Den and what have we got? The Treehouse.”
“Technically, it’s not a den,” Bouchard says. “It’s a hibernaculum.”
“What the hell is a hiber— Whatever you just said?” McGinnis asks. “And why do you know that?”
“Goalies are always full of useless knowledge,” Knox quips. “It’s part of the lore.”
“Hey, at least they didn’t call our arena The Nut,” Dvorak says, clearly fighting to keep a straight face.
“What? No, that would’ve been cool as hell,” Harding says. “Like a tough nut to crack, right?”
Knox shakes his head in disbelief. “Imagine the chirps we’d get.”
Dvorak shrugs. “Can’t be any worse than what we’re getting now.”