Her Man Advantage. Joanne Rock
rink’s viewing seats at 10:00 a.m. the next morning. While the players ran a slapshot drill out on the ice, Jennifer worked at her laptop, making notes to ask Axel. Well, she tried to work on her laptop.
The hopeful young face blinking up at her from the row of seats below prevented her from concentrating. The lithe brunette in a knit beret clutched a paper coffee cup in both hands, hovering over the steam drifting up like a nebulizer while the players lofted puck after puck at their backup goalie.
“Not a movie. A documentary series.” Jennifer tried to smile politely, wishing she’d known that today’s morning skate was open to the public.
She would have given her cameraman the day off. Bryce’s equipment attracted attention and questions.
“I’m Chelsea, groupie extraordinaire.” The young woman thrust out a hand. “Let me know if I can be of any help.”
Taking the woman’s hand, Jennifer shook it briefly, reassessing.
“A fan?” Her gaze went from Chelsea to the guys on the ice—mainly Axel, whose number she found immediately through the glass boards.
He stood on a blue line—she had discerned the significance of that location last night in a mega cram-session on hockey. Apparently the blue lines marked the offensive zones and as a defenseman, he was often called a “blue liner” since he frequently played there.
Jennifer’s interest in and admiration for his role on the ice had increased the more she read until she found herself enthused to return to the rink today. But part of that enthusiasm died at the notion of groupies. Did he have female fans who shadowed his movements? The idea rankled. What if caressing strange women in deserted halls was all in a day’s work for a national league hockey player?
“Yes. There are four of us who follow the team whenever possible.” Chelsea gestured to a threesome of coffee-clutching young women two rows down. They appeared to be twenty to twenty-five years old. Unlike the stereotype of attention-seeking groupies who dressed to get noticed, this crowd wore appropriate clothes for a hockey rink—jackets and scarves with the blue-and-white team logo. They squealed as two of the players skated their way, giving them a grin and a nod.
“Do you attend a lot of these practices?” Jennifer wondered what kinds of jobs the young supporters had if they could afford to tailor their schedules around a hockey team.
“We come to these all the time, sometimes even when they’re not open to the public.” Chelsea flipped a long brown curl from one eye, a hint of a tattoo on her wrist visible under her jacket sleeve. “After this, we’re headed to Montreal for tomorrow’s game. The team flies, but we have to leave earlier since we drive and we want to be there when they touch down.”
To do what, exactly? Warm their beds?
Jennifer bit her tongue on the questions, knowing her role here wasn’t to judge, or even to get involved. It was simply to document. She had to admit that “not getting involved” part had always been tough for her. When she’d documented poverty, she’d helped educate young moms on wise consumer choices at the grocery store. When she’d made a film on the public school system, she’d found herself volunteering for bake sales. But if the woman in front of her wanted to follow a team of athletes around the country, it certainly wasn’t Jen’s job to tell her she could do better than that. Although the temptation lingered.
“How interesting.” She waved over her cameraman. The stands weren’t full for the practice session, so he climbed over the seats to introduce himself to Chelsea before Jennifer explained why she wanted them to meet. “Bryce will be recording a lot of raw footage on this project while we figure out our primary angles for this week’s installment. Would you mind if he tagged along on your road trip? Maybe took some footage of your conversations about the team?”
“Really?” Hopping out of her seat, Chelsea sloshed a little coffee out the top of the cup as she waved over her friends. “Almost like we were in the movie, too?”
A whistle blew on the ice and Jennifer noticed the players congregated around the coach.
“You would be.” Her attention went back to the woman’s wrist where she could have sworn she’d spotted numbers in Phantom blue. An ode to a player? “I’d have to ask you to sign waivers giving us permission to film you and use any footage we obtain, but only a small percentage ever sees the final print.”
There was a brief huddled conversation among the women, but it didn’t take long for Chelsea to pop out of the cluster.
“We’d love to.”
“Great.” Jennifer pulled up the waiver page on her laptop and handed Chelsea the stylus so she could sign it electronically while the players seemed to finish up their practice. “Just make sure Bryce knows where to be and at what time to meet you.”
While the fans thronged the tunnels off the ice for a chance at slapping hands with the exiting players, Chelsea handed the laptop around to her friends so they could each sign the waiver. When she turned back to Jennifer, her expression had clouded, the initial excitement dimmed.
Second thoughts already?
“Is everything okay?” Jennifer asked, not wanting her documentary stars to be second-guessing themselves yet. Any misgivings had to wait until the series was edited and printed.
Although she knew Axel would have reservations every moment of filming until she returned to New York. She respected his privacy, in theory, even if her assignment here proved at odds with his personal preferences. But was there a deeper reason behind how fiercely he protected his privacy? Most athletes saw the benefit of media attention on their careers, and it turned out Axel Rankin was having a banner year on the ice.
Why so camera shy?
“Sure.” Chelsea still held Jennifer’s laptop, her eyes fixed on the ice where Axel and Kyle Murphy—his foster brother, she’d learned in her reading—were laughing with the goalie. “I’m glad the documentary will help the team. Maybe boost ticket sales.”
“It probably will,” Jennifer agreed, trying to see which one of the guys Chelsea had her eye on since all the others had headed to the locker room by now.
She turned back to Jennifer. “But the guys are so great, I almost hate to share them, you know? Kind of like when the newspaper reviews your favorite dive restaurant. Soon everyone’s showing up to try the grub and it’s not the same anymore.”
While Jennifer tried to puzzle through Chelsea’s concerns—lack of access to the players, maybe—she reached for her laptop.
And, as Chelsea extended it, her sleeve lifted higher on her wrist. Revealing #68, Axel Rankin’s jersey number, tattooed on her skin.
THE CAMERAS WERE OUT in full force today.
Axel had noticed as soon as he’d arrived at the practice facility early that morning. Even now, as he waited for Jen to meet him after the team skate, he had to contend with the bright light of a fill flash in his eyes. He’d taken refuge in a practice room to tweak his shot on one of the shooting tarps, but the camera guy had followed him in.
There were three camera operators—all male—who would roam the Phantoms’ facilities over the next month. The team had been introduced to the group at the morning meeting. They would attend games and road trips in addition to occasionally following the players home or around town on errands, nights out or anywhere that might be relevant to the larger story. Besides the film crew with handhelds, there were stationary cameras in the rafters above the ice, in the box where players sat between shifts and in a couple of other common areas.
He’d called his foster parents last night to warn them about the documentary. They didn’t know the extent of his connections to the motorcycle club back in Finland—ties that hadn’t been easily severed. He’d never hidden from the old crew, exactly. He’d known an NHL career gave him a certain amount of visibility, so he’d always been accessible to his enemies. But there’d been a tacit peace these past nine years, with everyone