Battle of the Captains

2

Noah

Everybody knows my name. That's not ego, it's just a fact of life at Northridge, the same way everybody knows the dining hall closes at nine and the shuttle bus is always late. I've walked this campus for three years and I don't think I've made it from the dorms to the stadium without somebody yelling my name at least twice. Freshmen who've never spoken to me act like we're old friends. Professors who don't care about football still know who I am because their kids do.

I used to think that would get old. It hasn't yet.

I'm eating breakfast in the dining hall Wednesday morning when my center, Deshawn, drops his tray across from me and slides his phone over before he's even sat down all the way.

"You seen this?"

I have not seen this. I see it now. Some kid with a ring light stuck a microphone in Ethan Carter's face and Ethan, in his infinite ice-cold wisdom, decided that was the moment to tell the world hockey players earn respect and quarterbacks just throw balls.

I read it twice. Then I laugh, because it's funny, and because it's exactly what I'd expect from a guy who skates around in a full suit of armor for a living and still finds a way to act like everyone else is the one hiding something.

"He really said that," Deshawn says.

"He really did."

Half the team's already gathered by the time I look up, phones out, somebody already found the memes, somebody else already found the clip of Ethan looking like he swallowed a lemon before he said it. I could let it go. That would be the mature thing, the captain thing, the thing our academic advisor would tell me to do if she saw where this was heading.

I don't let it go.

By the time I get to my next class I've already got three separate people asking if I have a response, and honestly, I've had one loaded since the moment I read his quote. It's not that I planned it. It's that guys like Ethan Carter make it too easy.

The reporters catch me outside the athletic complex that afternoon, same spot they always find me, like I've got a standing appointment with a microphone. I know what they want before they ask it. I give it to them anyway.

"Any comment on what the hockey captain said about you?"

I let a beat go by. Long enough that the camera catches the smile before the words.

"Look, I get it," I say. "Those guys spend all season hiding behind a mask and a face shield. Nobody wants to see their actual faces, so they figured, might as well say something people will remember."

It's not even that clever. It doesn't need to be. My guys behind me lose it, actual tears, Deshawn doubled over with his hand on the wall, and that's the clip that ends up everywhere by dinner. Not the quote. The laughing.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good.

By Thursday morning it's not just a clip anymore, it's a whole ecosystem. Somebody made a meme with Ethan's face behind a hockey mask captioned WHO'S UNDER THERE. Somebody made one with mine captioned GLASS JAW GOLDEN BOY, which, fair, somebody's clearly got jokes. The comments under every post are a warzone. Hockey kids calling us meatheads who peaked in high school. Football kids calling them a bunch of guys who need forty pounds of gear to feel like men. I see a girl I recognize from my poli-sci class get into a screaming match in the comments with somebody wearing a Wolves jersey in their profile picture, over what, I genuinely don't know anymore. It stopped being about us pretty fast.

Then it gets ugly for real. Somebody rips down half the hockey posters outside the student union and spray paints something over the ones they leave, something about the Wolves choking when it counts, which isn't even true, but truth's not really the point at this stage. Somebody retaliates on our posters the same night. Athletic department sends out a mass email reminding everyone that vandalism is a code of conduct violation, like a strongly worded email's ever stopped anybody from doing something dumb during Rivalry Week.

Coach pulls me aside after practice, arms crossed, giving me the look he gives when he already knows the answer to the question he's about to ask.

"You planning on dialing it back before Friday?"

"No, sir."

He almost smiles. Almost.

"Didn't think so."

I walk back to my truck that evening still thinking about the whole mess, the posters, the comments, that ridiculous meme with my own face on it, and I catch myself walking the long way, past the hockey arena, which is not on the way to the parking lot at all. I tell myself it's a coincidence. I don't really believe it.

There's a spot right by the arena doors, freshly painted, RESERVED, CAPTAIN painted across the concrete in Wolves blue. I've walked past that spot a hundred times without giving it a second look. Tonight it just about dares me.

I don't think about it for more than a few seconds. I pull my truck right up onto the paint, kill the engine, and sit there a moment just to enjoy it, because I know exactly whose reserved spot that is, and I know exactly what kind of night Ethan Carter's about to have when he finds his precious parking space full of a Hawks truck.

Friday's still two days out. I've already decided I'm not waiting that long to see him.