ABSOLUTELY you can!!! i'm beyond flattered anyone would be interested in it tbh!! i always want to talk about it, it's my like. it's been my absolute baby for many years at this point, i love it dearly and it's like having a fandom you're like, wholly and hysterically dedicated to but it's like, You Alone In Your House. so yes, absolutely, please!!
Things haven’t officially started yet. Everybody’s been left to mingle around on the ice without any direction, stretching or chatting with old friends and new teammates. Jesse has been sticking close to the edge of the ice, mainly watching, and his eyes are drawn to one person in particular. There’s one man who seems to be running a drill solo at the far end of the rink, circling the net on a loop. He starts about a third of the way up the ice, launches on a sprint towards the goal, makes a sharp swerve towards the boards behind the net, curves around the back, and rips the puck past where the goalie would be if there had been one, then fishes it out and returns to his starting point to do it all over again.
“Isn’t he dizzy by now?” somebody asks, off to Jesse’s right. When he glances over his shoulder, he sees it’s one of the twins again. He couldn’t begin to guess if it’s the same one he’d locked eyes with earlier or the other. The Grahams are identical-identical, and their names, Michael and Marcus, start with the same letter. There’s not even the helpful first-initial to help tell them apart. Come to think of it, Jesse doesn’t know if both of them are even here today or if it’s just the one.
The startlingly tall man next to him, with the letter A indicating alternate captaincy stitched to the front of his jersey and his sheer size identifying him as Phoenixes veteran Jean-Pierre Delacroix, shakes his head and sighs with a small smile on his face. “Who knows," he says. French rounds out and softens his English, though faintly. "He’s gonna keep doing it until he gets it right anyway.”"
Jesse looks back at the player running the loop over and over, skate, swerve, wrap, net, repeat. The movements are indistinguishable, each loop as identical as the Graham twins. He couldn’t pick out a flaw if he tried. The drill is perfect.
Sprint, swerve, wrap, net, repeat.
Sprint, swerve, wrap, net, repeat.
Sprint, swerve, wrap, net, repeat.
Stop.
Sharp, cold grey eyes lock onto Jesse’s own impressed brown, and the man who’d been running the loop, the number eleven moving with his shoulder as he breathes hard from the exertion, stares at him. Jesse’s mouth feels suddenly dry, his throat sandpaper. Isaac Jensen, the state of Minnesota’s favourite son who every sports reporting outlet on the continent has dubbed the future of the Phoenixes, doesn’t make a move to approach Jesse or introduce himself. Maybe, when the world’s known your name since you were sixteen, two years before you’d shatter your way into the League as first overall draft pick, signed to a team’s main roster before the rookie showcase was even over, introducing yourself is something you don’t really think to do anymore.
Jensen’s expression is unreadable. Hard. Scrutinizing. Jesse feels like he’s under a microscope, a spotlight. He feels like he’s been shoved alone onto a stage with a guitar, and Jensen is the only person in the crowd who knows that he can’t play it. As suddenly as he’d stopped, Jensen breaks eye contact and skates away, and before Jesse can decide how - or if - to react, there’s the sound of a whistle, and Coach Owen Andersen is summoning Section A to centre ice to begin their first day of practice.
