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  Coach’s Challenge

  By Avon Gale

  A Scoring Chances Novel

  It’s been decades since blackmail forced Troy Callahan to retire from playing professional hockey, and he’s built a successful career behind the bench. When he’s offered the opportunity to coach the Asheville Ravens—the most hated team in the ECHL—he’s convinced that his no-nonsense attitude is just what the team needs to put their focus back on hockey. But Troy is disheartened when he finds that the Ravens have signed Shane North, a player known for his aggression. And it only gets worse when Shane’s rough good looks give Troy inappropriate thoughts about a member of his team, even if Shane’s set to retire at the end of the season.

  Shane’s career in the majors never quite took off. Wanting to quit on his own terms, Shane agrees to a one-year contract with the Ravens and finds himself playing for a coach who thinks he’s an aging goon and with a team that doesn’t trust him, the coach, or each other. Despite his determination to not get involved, Shane unwillingly becomes part of the team… and is just as unwillingly drawn to the gruff, out-and-proud coach. As the Ravens struggle to build a new identity, Shane and Troy succumb to the passion that might cost them everything.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  More from Avon Gale

  Readers love the Scoring Chances series by Avon Gale

  About the Author

  By Avon Gale

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  For Annie, Steph, and Jude

  Thank you for loving these characters as much as I do and for your wonderful enthusiasm that makes writing this series such a source of constant joy.

  Acknowledgments

  THANKS SO much to my first readers—Morgan, Piper, Steph, Annie, Jude, Erin, Molli and Eddie—for the awesome feedback when this book was fighting me. Thanks to Eileen for the wonderful east-coast writing-retreat weekend. I have such fond memories of your front porch and Pokémon. Also thanks to my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, for all the assistance and not minding that she shares a name (sorta) with an irascible hockey coach. And thank you to my editor, Lizze, and to everyone at Dreamspinner for giving this series a home.

  Author’s Note

  THE STRUCTURE of minor-league professional hockey in the States is a bit confusing and is constantly changing as teams open, fold, and relocate. I thought it might be a good idea to provide a quick-and-dirty rundown, at least as it pertains to the Scoring Chances series and the characters you’ll meet along the way.

  The National Hockey League (NHL) has thirty teams, and each team has an affiliate American Hockey League (AHL) team. The primary purpose of the AHL is to serve as a development league for the NHL, allowing promising players and recent acquisitions/draft picks to improve their hockey skills and physical conditioning. Teams can also “call up” players from their AHL affiliate when necessary, to replace injured players or to give valuable playing experience to potential prospects.

  Players on the NHL team can also be sent down to the AHL, if it is deemed a good idea for the player’s individual development.

  The ECHL, or East Coast Hockey League, which is the league in which the Scoring Chances series takes place, is a double-minor league, or the league directly below the AHL. There are currently twenty-eight teams in the ECHL, and most are affiliated with an AHL team—with an eventual goal of adding two more teams so it is even in number with the NHL/AHL. There have been cases when one ECHL team is a shared affiliate between two NHL teams.

  Confusing? All you really need to know is that the ECHL is a feeder league for the AHL, which is a feeder league for the NHL. In the Scoring Chances series, all the NHL/AHL affiliates are correct as of time of publication, but it should be noted that these can change quite often in between seasons. All ECHL teams, their locations and their affiliates in the Scoring Chances series are fictional (with the exception of the Cincinnati Cyclones).

  Like the AHL, players can be “called up” and “sent down” as necessary.

  It’s important to note two main differences between the ECHL and the other two leagues. The ECHL is not dependent on a draft, so coaches are free to choose their own roster. Anyone can try out for a spot. The other difference is money. And this is a big one—ECHL players generally make about $12,000 per year (plus housing expenses), compared to about $40,000 a year for your average player in the AHL. Of course, the amount is much higher for an NHL player—but not quite, say, the level of your average NFL player.

  In the first book in this series, Breakaway, Jared refers to the ECHL as Easy Come, Hard to Leave, which is a moniker I learned from reading Sean Pronger’s excellent book, Journeyman: The Many Triumphs (and Even More Defeats) Of A Guy Who’s Seen Just About Everything In the Game of Hockey. I cannot recommend this book enough, and reading the hilarious and informative anecdotes of Sean Pronger’s career—played primarily in the ECHL—is what made me want to write about minor-league hockey players in the first place. The book also provided a lot of insight and ideas for the character that would become Jared Shore. Like Sean Pronger, Shore is a veteran “journeyman” who’s spent his long career playing for a multitude of teams and wearing a lot of terrible jerseys along the way.

  If you’re interested in how minor professional hockey came to be a thing in the southern United States, I also highly recommend Hockey Night in Dixie: Minor Pro Hockey in the American South, by Jon C. Stott. This book proved to be an excellent resource and made me appreciate the tenacity of those determined to sell ice hockey to southerners obsessed with college football (or, in my family’s case, college basketball).

  I have tried to keep true to the rules of hockey, both in game play and administrative operations within the ECHL—without being a stickler. Any glaring errors—or convenient road-trip stopovers—I blame on artistic license.

  Chapter One

  IF TROY Callahan had ever been in a quieter locker room, he didn’t know when.

  That included the year Troy played for the New York Rangers and they lost to the Washington Capitals in the division finals. The locker room might have been quiet, but there was at least the air of sweaty, tired athletes who’d left it all out on the ice… even if the result wasn’t the one they wanted.

  The Asheville Ravens’ locker room? It was like a goddamn funeral scene in a silent movie.

  Troy took a moment to study the faces that stared back at him and wondered if he’d made the biggest mistake of his entire coaching career by agreeing to take this job. The Rangers offered him an assistant coaching position, and Troy turned it down to move to Asheville, North Carolina and take over a team of bullies who no one liked. Who either didn’t like him or were so conditioned to hate their coach that they hadn’t learned how to turn it off.

  They would have to learn. Troy exchanged a brief look with the Ravens’ assistant coach, Brian Quinn, who stood quietly in the background. Quinn had been the assistant coach last season too, but seemed perfectly happy to have Troy here to take over his shipwreck of a team. Or maybe, in keeping with the theme, it was less a shipwreck and more a bird with a broken wing and a missing eye. That was probably dead.

  �
�Look,” Troy started and decided on a whim to throw aside all the carefully constructed platitudes that his best friend and former teammate, Gabriel Bow—who also happened to be the Ravens’ new GM—“helped” him come up with at dinner the night before. The team didn’t need bullshit. It needed the truth. “I don’t know everything that happened in this locker room last season, but I know enough to make my stomach hurt.”

  That got a few startled looks out of his stone-faced players. “And sure, a lot of those assholes who like to injure other players for fun aren’t in this locker room anymore, but let’s be clear about one thing—all that bullying, homophobic bullshit? It stops now, because I do not put up with it. You run your mouth off about any of that shit on my team, the only ice you’ll be seeing will be in a fountain soda. If you’re having problems scoring goals, letting in too many goals, or can’t defend against a strong breeze… we can work on that. That gets you drills and conditioning exercises. And believe me, those aren’t fun either. But being a homophobic asshole gets you a one-way ticket out of here. Because trust me, boys, there’s a lot of guys who want to play, even for a team everyone hates in a state where the government can’t get its head out of its ass.”

  Excellent. Troy definitely had their attention. “And if you think I won’t replace you, think again. Every single goddamn one of you is replaceable, and I don’t care how many fucking goals you score or saves you make or what your goddamn plus-minus is. Got it?”

  They were still quiet, but at least they nodded.

  “Good. Just keep in mind that the Troy Callahan Sensitivity Training Seminar is a door hitting your ass on the way out and we’ll get along fine. Now that we got that clear, I’m gonna tell you kids a story about your former dickhead coach.” Troy crossed his arms over his chest. “I played with Denis St. Savoy”—he couldn’t quite keep the sneer out of his voice when he said that asshole’s name—“for a few years when I was in the majors. I stopped playing a year before the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, and you want to know why? Because your former coach found out I was gay, blackmailed me about it, and told me to retire. Why? Who the fuck knows, really, but he thought the Rangers missing the playoffs the year before was my fucking fault for some goddamn stupid reason, so he wanted me gone. This was the midnineties. There was no You Can Play Project and players didn’t get suspended for using gay slurs.”

  Troy tried meeting a few players’ eyes, but the only one who would even look up at him was the team captain, Xavier Matthews. And even Matthews looked away after a few seconds. “I was afraid, so I let that asshole bully me too. And that’s ancient history, but when I found out he was pulling the same shit here, it made me fucking ballistic. That’s a fancy word for mad. So yeah, I have a very personal reason for being here, and you can all bet your fucking collective asses I take this shit seriously. Got it?”

  They nodded, still silent. “Do any of you know how to fucking talk?”

  Matthews quietly cleared his throat. He also raised his hand tentatively, which made Troy want to bang his own head against some lockers until he blacked out. “Are you fucking kidding me, Matthews? It’s not school. Put your hand down. What is it?”

  “Coach—uh. We weren’t allowed to talk in here.”

  “Well, no. You shouldn’t talk when I’m talking, Matthews, but—wait. You weren’t supposed talk in here when?” Troy had a bad feeling he knew the answer.

  “Umm. Ever.” Xavier winced. “Coach St. Savoy liked it to be, uh… quiet.”

  “Okay, do me a favor and do not call that SOB ‘coach’ anywhere I might hear you.” Troy cast his eyes to the ceiling and prayed for patience. Then he looked at his team again. “You’re allowed to talk in the fucking locker room, Jesus Christ on a cracker. You can even speak up if you have questions or, hell, if you don’t agree with me or something is bothering you or your delicate ears can’t take my colorful language. I don’t even have a door on my office.” That hadn’t been Troy’s decision. Management had removed it, but his team didn’t need to know that. “This team isn’t about me. It’s about us. Ravens.” He paused and tried to remember what noises ravens made—something that might serve as a battle cry, something that wasn’t silence. “Caw?”

  The attempt at a battle cry got him nothing but a few awkwardly muttered “caws” in refrain, which sounded like a bunch of sick birds on their deathbeds. So fairly apt.

  “We’ll work on that.” Troy waved his hand. “Now get your skates on, get out there, and impress me and Coach Quinn.”

  They all stood up to make their way to the ice, and Troy sat down and laced up his own skates while he cast a rueful look at the Ravens’ assistant coach. “Sorry, Quinn. I should have asked if you had anything to add.”

  Brian Quinn gave him an easy smile. “Nah. I think you about covered it.” He hadn’t played professionally as far as Troy knew, and he was maybe five or six years younger than Troy himself. Or it was possible he was older and had a baby face. He was affable enough, and if he was bothered by coaching with a gay guy, he never said anything about it. So far he hadn’t said much of anything, though Troy’s personality was a bit overbearing. Especially when he first met someone. And then generally every moment after that.

  Troy couldn’t imagine Quinn had much input into Savoy’s coaching methods anyway. When they’d fired St. Savoy, Quinn was up front about the closed-door meetings Savoy held with players—which were one reason there was no longer a door to Troy’s office—but he’d been horrified to learn about the blackmail and the threats against them. Gabe didn’t seem to think Quinn was in on any of St. Savoy’s schemes, but his contract was only through the end of the current season. If Troy hated the guy, they could get rid of him and hire someone else.

  Troy wasn’t sure he liked Quinn, exactly, but so far Quinn was inoffensive, if a little mealymouthed. But Troy needed to make an effort to include Quinn in the day-to-day operations of coaching the team, since it was clear St. Savoy never had. That meant not hogging all the attention and letting Quinn address the team. “How about you say something at the end of practice?” Troy asked. “I know I have a strong personality. You can call me on it, you know. I won’t make you do a bag skate.”

  Quinn ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. “I haven’t done a skating drill since college. Don’t worry about it, Coach. I’m happy you’re here, believe me. You’re already about a thousand times easier to work with than St. Savoy, strong personality and all.” Quinn’s smile faltered a little. “I still can’t believe I didn’t know any of that was going on last season. It probably doesn’t give you much faith in my coaching abilities.”

  It didn’t, but Troy let that go. “New season, remember?” He stood up. On skates he was a lot taller than Quinn. Troy put his hand out. “All that matters is where we go from here. Okay?”

  “Gotcha.” Quinn gave him a firm handshake. “Hey, that reminds me, aren’t we missing a winger?”

  They were indeed down one winger. “I guess he’s not here yet.” Troy was convinced their newest Raven, Shane North, was a terrible addition to a team that already personified grim. That the guy wasn’t even there on time did nothing to change his mind.

  “He did have to drive all the way from San Diego,” said Quinn amicably as they headed toward the ice. “That’s a hell of a trip.”

  “He knew when practice started,” Troy groused. He almost said something to Quinn about what a stupid idea it was to sign Shane North in the first place, but he kept his mouth shut. It had been Gabe’s idea, and Gabe was Troy’s best friend. Troy was nothing if not loyal, even if that didn’t always work out in his favor.

  HE WAS late. Shit.

  Shane shouldered his bag and pushed his way into the arena, aware that being late was the tackiest thing ever to do on your first day with a new team. It was a long-ass drive to get here from San Diego, and sure, maybe he should have left a day earlier, but what the fuck? It was a thirty-three-hour drive, and it took him a few days to get through it all in his “not built fo
r cross-country road trips” Volkswagen Rabbit.

  There was also his unscheduled interlude in Dallas that cost him a few hours, but it was totally worth it—the guy was super hot, and the sex was exactly what Shane needed to shake off all that time in the car. Maybe he’d do things differently when he was finished playing, but in the meantime, one-night stands suited him just fine. Relationships—and everything that went with them—were not in the cards for the immediate future. Especially not when he didn’t plan to stay in Asheville after his season with the Ravens.

  Shane was in Asheville because of the Ravens’ GM, Gabriel Bow. Bow was his coach when Shane played for the Anaheim Ducks, and he contacted Shane about an open roster spot when Shane’s AHL team, the Gulls, put him on waivers. No other AHL team seemed interested in picking up a thirty-six-year-old player, so if Shane wanted to end his career on his own terms—which he did—he’d have to do it in Asheville.

  “You’re going to hear a lot about the Ravens in the news,” Gabe told him in his smooth voice, which was perfectly suited to press conferences and whatever else you did as a general manager. “Just don’t believe everything you hear, all right?”

  As if anyone needed to tell Shane that. “Sure,” he’d said and shrugged. He was surprised when he found out that the coach would be Troy Callahan, a former AHL head coach who was technically stepping down a league by taking the job with the Ravens. You were supposed to move up in professional hockey, not down.

  Shane “Who Had So Much Potential That Never Materialized” North was the expert on having a professional sports career that went the direction it wasn’t supposed to. But he wasn’t going to dwell on that or he’d be in a bad mood and late, and Callahan wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted to piss off. Callahan’s team in the AHL was in the opposite conference—and all the way across the country—from Shane’s, but he still knew who Callahan was. He had a reputation, and it wasn’t the “forgiving new guys who were a little late” kind.