Play the Man: Post 13

Chapter Eight: Suddenly! Plot!

Jenna resorts to passive-aggressiveness regarding Ryan and the guest list. Instead of nagging him, she leaves bridal magazines and mock-up invitations around the house, but he still doesn’t bother to create the list. Once the recapping of the wedding troubles has been accomplished, the next scene starts properly at a home game for the Chicago Blackhawks versus the Detroit Redwings.

Before this game, Jenna runs into Nick, whom she hasn’t seen in two weeks. They chat briefly, and since we jump from perspective to perspective, his response to seeing her is to get away.

Jenna tilted her head to the side and tried to peer past the façade he had built up to purposely keep her out. All his years of hard work and dedication would be going to waste if he let her sabotage him. He couldn’t let that happen (55).

Note, of course, the egregious change of POV in those few sentences. But beyond that, I find the characterization of Jenna sabotaging Nick to be downright bizarre. Surely he cannot blame Jenna for his crush on her.

Out of nowhere, we learn that “games…across the NHL, had been increasingly violent and devastating” (54). So apparently there isn’t currently a Director of Player Safety in this novel’s NHL? Injuries happen in hockey—the game is too fast paced and, y’know, on ice, for that not to happen.* But if there’s been a noticeable increase in injuries caused by violence, the League takes action. Granted, the repercussions doled out aren’t necessarily consistent—one player might get a suspension while another gets only a fine—but there are repercussions. And if there’s a pattern, then repercussions get stepped up. If this is a normal game in November, as the text declares, then the Department of Player Safety would definitely be taking action, since that sort of thing only increases over the season and exponentially into the playoffs.

During the third period, however, Nick takes a “devastating open-ice hit delivered by a hulking Red Wing defenseman in the neutral zone” (55). The text gives us no further clue as to what happened here. Was it an intentional hit? A late one? Did Nick have the puck? Was the Red Wing targeting Nick’s head? Was his shoulder up? So many unknowns. So even if Nick was entirely likeable, which, frankly, he’s not, I wouldn’t immediately blame the Red Wings player without knowing a hell of a lot more.

Generally, though, the players don’t really know what happened at any given time on the ice—they’re too busy doing their own things and hits like this happen incredibly fast. So the team’s reaction—that one of them rushed to fight the Red Wing who did the hit—makes sense. Two Blackhawks end up in the penalty box for roughing after the hit. The team wants to do their best to at least tie, if not win, for the player who’s been hurt, but at the same time they’re distracted and worried and angry, and that doesn’t generally make for good hockey play. So the Blackhawks lose in regulation.

As for Nick, he had to be helped off the ice and to the dressing room. It’s pretty common during games to hear that someone is “going to the dressing room” if they’ve been hurt, but it’s odd that this author chooses to really send her character there. There are actual examination/health rooms where anyone hurt should be taken. But no, he is definitely in the locker room itself, because later he’s described as being at his stall. Nick spends the rest of the game with an altered (angry) personality, confusion (he thinks the game hasn’t started yet), and absolutely refusing to go to the hospital for a CT scan.

This also seems odd to me. Clearly, Nick either has a concussion or worse (a brain bleed.) Everyone in the NHL knows about traumatic brain injuries and their likelihood. That’s why they wear mouthguards and helmets and the NHLPA and the League are often talking about ways to minimize the potential for these kinds of injuries. So while Nick may be refusing to go to the hospital, he’s not currently of sound mind. Surely someone else in the league, be it coach or trainer, would have the power to get him to the hospital in a situation like this. Instead, they’re arguing with him, so he’s still sitting in the locker room when the team finishes the game and returns.

Furthermore, media has access to the locker rooms after games; it’s part of the NHL rules. There is just no way that they’d have Nick in the room; the media would be mobbing him to learn more. The wives, girlfriends, and family are already coming into the locker room, where is the media?

Nick snaps at Ryan that he’s not going to the hospital. Jenna shows up and asks Ryan what’s going on with Nick—which is odd since he can’t be more than a couple of feet away since he’s in the locker room—and Ryan tells her that Nick is refusing to go to the hospital.

“What? Is it that bad that he needs to go to the hospital?” (57 emphasis original).

What? Is Jenna so stupid that she doesn’t know about the most troubling aspect of hockey player injuries despite having dated a hockey player for eight years, three of those while he played in the NHL and before that in the AHL? You hit your head, you sit in the quiet room and probably go to the hospital. You hit your head hard enough to be confused, you go to the damn hospital. You just do.

Ryan suggests that Jenna convince Nick to go to the hospital and he agrees if she’ll go with. The trainers beg her to go and she reluctantly agrees and also agrees that he can come home with her and Ryan afterwards, since he’ll need observation. Ryan is angry about this agreement, since things at their house aren’t exactly happy at the moment, but she points out that he’s the captain and thus he should be offering to take care of him.

So now we’ve brought the three romance players into one setting. I’d say that this is the breaking point, but we’re only at page 58 of 165.

*One friend’s response to learning I’d taken up hockey was, “Does she want to DIE?!”

Body Check: Post 16-

Chapter 9: Plot! And the Pretzel of Guilt

I’m not going to spend time on this next scene because there’s not much to poke fun at and it’s also not very interesting. But it is plot related, so I’ll quickly sum up: Hayden goes to visit Sheila-the-soon-to-be-ex to see what she meant about Presley’s drinking. She says that Presley had made some bad financial decisions which lead to his drinking, which cycled to more bad choices and more drinking. Sheila confronted him about the drinking, after which Presley slept with another woman. He confessed but blamed it on Sheila’s nagging. When she confronted him again, while drunk, he admitted to fixing games.

Sheila also says that she married Presley not just for his money, which she could have gotten by marrying someone else, but because she wanted someone who would take care of her and put her first, “financially and emotionally” (111).

This confession makes Hayden think about how she also is looking for someone stable, someone who would put her first, someone like Intimacy-Bridge-Doug. Obviously this is meant as a turning point, for Hayden to start thinking about the possibilities with Brody. But I don’t actually see their situations as being equal here. Hayden isn’t looking for someone to take care of her every need, just someone who puts their relationship ahead of his career. I feel like this is a really forced comparison necessitated only by plot.

As Hayden leaves her almost-ex-stepmother’s house, she answers a call from Intimacy-Doug. In between the bits of dialogue, the text informs us:

…since they’d gone skating after the [gentlemen’s] Club party, she and Brody had been having fun not only in the bedroom, but out of it. They’d gone back to the Lakeshore Lounge for dinner, gone skating at Millennium Park. Brody had even taken her to the Art Institute of Chicago, where he’d spent the entire day following her from painting to painting and listening to her rave about each one (113).

Doesn’t he… like… have hockey to play? Practices and games? Playoffs are a best of seven, usually with 1 day off between games, sometimes 2. And I know I complained in an earlier post that a 2 hour on-ice drill practice during playoffs is unlikely, but a complete day off for them to go to the Art Institute? No. Besides, half of the games they should be playing ought to be in another city (specifically LA.)

The text goes on to address that, sort of.

He’d had three away games this past week and each time he’d left to catch his flight she’d had to bite her tongue (113).

Wait, what? Okay. The only way for this to work would be if he’d flown back to Chicago after game three, then back to LA for game 4 as well. Then they’d come back to Chicago for game 5, back to LA for game 6 and… even then, that’s only two away games. Because if a game 7 was forced, it’d have to be in Chicago.

If, since this is not necessarily the NHL (conveniently), I suppose that game 1 could have been in LA (it’s never specified), game 2 in Chicago (the one that Hayden was at), game 3 in LA (the one where the Warriors lost 6-0), and thus just alternating each game. Then Chicago would have games 4 and 6, and Chicago would have 5 and 7. But even then, that’s still only two away games “this week” because this would be after game 3 (thus 5 and 7).  Also, if this is the case, the series is over.

OR! I may have figured it out. Perhaps they’ve moved past the first round. So they’d have had to beat LA in game 4 (which should have been in LA, so this could be the first of the three mentioned away games) and again in game 5 (in Chicago.) Then they could head out to play games 1 and 2 against another team, elsewhere. Although it doesn’t read that way, since the above sentence suggests, with “each time” that each away game had a separate flight. So the Warriors waste time, money, and jet fuel by flying back to Chicago between 2 games in another city? Also, if this is the case, you’d think the narrative would have mentioned somewhere that they got out of round one.

The lack of hockey playoff understanding aside, Hayden and Doug discuss their relationship a bit. Doug wants to come visit her in Chicago which is enough information for Hayden to finally admit that she’s been seeing someone in Chicago. Doug is pretty taken aback by this information and in response,

The pretzel of guilt in her chest tightened into a vise around her heart (116).

Really? The pretzel of guilt?

Body Check: Post 12-

Chapter 7: Professor vs. Hockey Player

After the sex, there’s some question of whether there should be more sex or room service and television. They decide with the latter so that the plot can advance. But before that, there’s a bunch of chatting about Rembrandt when Brody picks up a text book and he manages to call up some near-forgotten tidbits about art he’d learned in college. Unfortunately, this leads to an awkward metaphor.

“That’s one of the things I want to talk to my students about, how something as simple as cleaning or restoring can change your entire view of a piece of art.”

He nodded. “Sort of like the when the Zamboni cleans the ice during the second period intermission. Changes the entire playing surface” (80).

Admittedly, Hayden nearly laughs at his comparison, but even with that reaction, it’s an awkward comparison. Also, why the “second period intermission”? The Zamboni (actually, Zambonis—NHL rinks have two) cleans the ice before every period, even before the first period but after warmups. And much of it again before any shootout, and during the playoffs, the whole sheet of ice before overtime.

Brody also observes, “You’re really into art, huh?” (80).

No Brody. She’s actually into organic chemistry but there were more art history professorial jobs available so she went for it.

Apparently Brody went to college, too, studying sports sciences and minoring in athletic coaching. This is cool. A lot more NHL players are going to college these days than in the past.

Brody assumes that Hayden doesn’t believe him, however, which triggers the narrative to tell us all the times that Brody was expected to be a dumb jock instead a good student. This leads them into a conversation about Brody’s parents and how he had no money growing up, which is awkward since they’re sitting in Hayden’s enormous penthouse suite as they have this conversation.

They’re saved from further awkwardness when the room service arrives and they turn on the tv to watch the news. Unfortunately, the news is of Hayden’s father. Evidently, one of the Warriors admitted that there’s truth to the bribery and illegal betting, thus the “league” (the unnamed NHL, one assumes) will be investigating.

Our hero and heroine logically lose their appetites. Brody gets a headache (a reappearance of one he apparently had before, although I can’t find reference to such) and suspects that the player who came forward must be Craig Wyatt, Mr Serious, in order to protect Sheila-the-soon-to-be-ex.

This also leads to him thinking that the breaking news doesn’t bode well for the next day’s game, since nobody “would be able to focus with a possible criminal investigation hanging over their heads” (82). That seems logical. There were any number of times in the past few years when the Coyotes did less than their best in the playoffs at the same time that rumors of moving the team to another city hit a crescendo. Obviously correlation is not causation, but there had been a great deal of speculation about the players’ ability to focus on the game when their futures were unclear.

They manage to find a different conversational topic, about how Hayden needs a (real) vacation and they should go see a movie or to Navy Pier. Unfortunately, since Hayden wants to do so the very next day, she’s disappointed because Brody has to, y’know, play in the playoffs so the team is leaving the next morning for the evening game. (It’s in L.A., so apparently this universe’s L.A. team is the Vipers rather than the Kings. I’m amused that of the three teams we’ve heard of so far, all of them have been in cities that the NHL actually does have franchises.) Hayden’s response is that “Dad mentioned something about an away game” (84). Seriously? How does a girl quite literally grow up in the game, even if she hates it, and not understand how playoffs work?

This all leads to a resurgence of the fling vs relationship question, which has Brody pondering again.

And then he’d met Hayden and suddenly he wasn’t thinking about casual anymore. He liked her. A lot. Hell, he’d actually experienced a flicker of excitement when she mentioned engaging in normal couple things like going to the movies or walking by the lake (85).

No, in the very first chapter, before he even saw Hayden, Brody was thinking he was no longer interested in casual and wanted a relationship. It’s why he was (very slightly) reluctant to go with Hayden for a one-night stand.

Also? A “flicker of excitement”? That’s not very compelling, dear Brody.

Hayden continues on with “You’re a hockey player. I’m a professor” (85) as if that’s a basic explanation for why they cannot be together. I… don’t get it. I understand Hayden’s reluctance since she wants a life with a significant other that’s different from the one she had with her father. But that has nothing to do with her being a professor. (Full disclosure- I’m a professor who plays hockey. Obviously not professionally. In fact, not very well. But it’s enough to tell me that the professor/hockey player dichotomy doesn’t make inherent sense.)

What does make sense, though, is that when Brody protests, it’s all about him, and Hayden calls him on it, and she continues no to say she’s tired of coming in second.

Brody leaves the hotel feeling that he’d blown his chance.