Flirt: The Interviews Read Online Free PDF Page A

say, “Hey, Peter, when we play Canada, Mats gets the draw off Burnaby Joe and I’ll outskate the old tractor Mario up the gut while you make your move down low on Jovo and then find me on the half-boards so I can scoot a wrister into Brodeur’s slow spot”?
    â€”We talk, but not like you. No. We’ll keep it vanilla.
    â€”Which means?
    â€”Simple. Plain hockey. Honest hockey.
    â€”You said once – before The Troubles – that Colorado plays honest hockey. Hey: don’t look at me like that, not when the sun’s bright and not too high yet and the water’s dark and glittery and you can smell the Strait of Juan de Fuca on your hands already. The Bertuzzi glower. You didn’t have it before. Two years ago, you’re back from the broken tibia and fibia, the leg’s healed and your hockey spirit soars, you’re Mr. Honest Congeniality. You had time and sincerity for every locker room lens and cartoon-haired geek’s mic even mid-slump. At the end of the season, trying to find more goals than anyone in the league but also trying to captain the team, you confessed – the smudges under your eyes, the sad red-knuckled hand through wet hair – that you’d hit bottom. No wizard can conjure optimism from anguish every time. But you knew buoyancy would lift you, trusted the physics. You’d hit bottom, apparently, but were coming back up. “I’ve been there, man,” we all whispered to our late-night sportscast, “I’ve been there.” That year, even in times of trouble, you wanted real communication. You wanted us all to chat and share woes and have a few laughs and then get on with the job. Celebrity did not yet gleam on your skin.
    Last year, though, you’re short with the press, your eyes are hard and Swedish blue, you don’t smile or sparkle. It’s like you and Todd, up in the hot treehouse with protein bars and Gatorade, scabby legs crossed, elbows and knees tough and black from summer, you naughty monkeys, made a blood-brother pact to be a couple of hard-ass jocks. I’m not one of them, but some people – the cranks who call into 24-hour sport talk – say you’re not what captains should be. Strip the C, they say. No, says some caffeinated jerk, he has to do it himself, he has to give it up
willingly, let’s not have another Linden coup d’etat . Hey. Wait up, Markus.
    Okay, okay. The kayak forces me to consider only your upper body, especially from back here. I thought hockey players were built like mailboxes up top, but no.
    â€”The gear makes it look like that. Think about it. Forty-second shifts at top speed, full use of lung capacity. Too much muscle and the lungs can’t inflate; and muscle weighs tons. Too much bulk and you lose speed. So lower body has to be powerful, but up top should be lean.
    â€”Not out that way, Markus, we need to stay closer to shore. There’s a towboat and we don’t want to run over his lines. Those guys hate kayakers. Wait up, hey, how’d you do that? How’d you get there from here? Man, you’re everywhere.
    â€”More push, less pull.
    â€”If we steer straight – go around that kelp bed – we’ll get to the Haystack Islands and the seals will surround us. I imagine the Strait of Juan de Fuca is a lot like the Gulf of Bothnia. Same terrain, same climate. I don’t want to hold you back, but I can’t hear when our boats are too far apart.
    â€”Similar, yes, the water is the same darkness, but where I grew up is more extreme. I played hockey outdoors, which no one can do here. Peter played across town indoors, of course. It was good when they came to play us because they hated bein’ cold, havin’ frozen toes, and we knew we’d win. We were much tougher than Peter’s team. I’m sure he’d agree. Are you with me? What strength sunscreen do you have on your face?
    â€”I’m good. I’m safe.