Chapter 14: What He Gave

Lars Holmgren had asked Coach for nothing in three years.

Not a day off, not a favor, not a second look at a lineup until Wednesday.

On Sunday morning at seven he knocked on the office door anyway.

"It's open," Coach said.

Coach sat behind the steel desk with a sandwich in wax paper.

Last night's film was frozen on the screen behind him.

He was a heavy gray man in his sixties, and he looked at Lars the way he looked at a goalie who had let in a soft one.

"Sit."

Lars stayed standing.

"I want to give up the C."

Coach chewed. He swallowed. He put the sandwich down.

"On a Sunday."

"Yes, sir."

"After we beat Mankato four to one."

"Yes."

"Give it to who?"

"Whoever you pick."

"Hanratty?"

Lars had thought about that all night, and the answer was no easier now.

"If you think he's the one," he said.

"I don't."

Coach leaned back until the chair complained.

"Tell me why."

Lars had a speech.

He had written it on a legal pad at two in the morning, and he had given up halfway.

He said the short version.

"I've made the travel sheet for two years. I used it to keep one player away from the rest of the team. He's good, and he was alone because of me."

"Ingram."

"I didn't say a name."

"You didn't have to. You wrote his name on the bus door on Friday in front of forty people."

Lars said nothing.

"Did it cost him ice time?" Coach asked.

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