And so is the puck, unfortunately.

The Bruisers’ goalie coach snaps a puck toward me. I’m forced into the butterfly position, protecting the five-hole. We’ve been practicing for forty-five minutes, and I’m dripping with sweat, my muscles shaking.

So I’m slow to recover in time for his next shot. I lunge to the left, deflecting sloppily with my stick. The puck drops to the ice. It’s not a goal, but it creates a rebound opportunity that would cost me in a real game.

The coach blows a whistle. “Reset!”

I basically stagger out of the crease to help the other goalies gather up all our pucks.

This practice session is a huge opportunity for me. The Bombshells don’t have their own goalie coach, but the Bruisers’ guy invited us to work out with his netminders today.

That means I’m practicing alongside veteran star Mike Beacon and up-and-comer Silas Kelly, as well as the other Bombshells goalie, Scarlet McCaulley. She’s twenty-five and an alternate for Team USA.

She’s also kicking my ass. Our season opener is ten days away, and it’s painfully obvious that I’m not ready yet. Scarlet has spent the last forty-five minutes stopping everything that moves. And the men are also crushing it.

I started out strong, but the pace of this session has been brutal. My instincts are still sharp. I stopped a lot of pucks that the coach slapped my way. But then I got tired awfully fast, and now half the time my body can’t close the deal.

It’s humiliating. At least Scarlet looks good. The goalie coach won’t necessarily go back to his pals and say, Tommy Hansen’s kid is going to sink the new women’s team before they even get started.

“We’ve got ten minutes left. Let’s do some harder shots,” Coach says, skating backward. “I always get help for these, because…” He crosses his left hand to his right shoulder. “Already had one surgery to repair the repetitive-stress injury I gave myself shooting on goalies. Don’t need to go under the knife again.”

That’s when two players skate onto the ice from the bench. The first one is Leo Trevi. But when I glance over to see who the other player is, I find myself looking into the sturdy gaze of Bryce Campeau.

It just figures, since Bryce is the other super-frustrating thing about my stint so far in Brooklyn. He’s not avoiding me, exactly. We’ve had lunch together twice. And when I left a message for my father the other day, asking a simple question about the WiFi hookup in our apartment, it was Bryce who rang the doorbell two hours later to fix it for me.

That’s exactly the type of attention I’m getting from Bryce. The polite, obligatory kind, followed by two cheek kisses and the occasional text to ask me how I’m doing.

So I’m frustrated—with Bryce, with my performance, and with so many other things. I’ve only been here for ten days, but so far Brooklyn is a tough nut to crack.