“You need to skate up the wide more.” I look down at Dylan. “You skate to the middle too much.” He looks at me, his chest heaving after his play. It was a good play with him skating to the middle and then shooting the puck. “It worked this time, but when you go too much down the middle, you can get blocked in by the defense before the puck even hits the goalie. If you skate in the side, the goalie is usually stuck to one side of the post, giving you a big opening on the other side.” He just nods his head, and I know he’ll understand it if he sees it. “Watch Ralph.” I call over to the other side of the ice where Ralph is teaching another play and raise my hand to tell him to come here. He skates over and stops in front of me. “I want to show Dylan how to skate down the side with the puck and not to the middle. Do you think you can play defense?” I joke with him, and he just smirks.

“It’s summer, right?” he asks, skating backward in front of me. “Which means I don’t really have to go easy on you.” He tilts his head to the side, and I look at the bench and see that all the kids are watching this one-on-one.

“You think you can stop me?” I goad him, skating to the middle of the ice and dropping a puck.