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It took a little while, but Alex Ovechkin has finally earned a good reputation in the National Hockey League. He’s a good leader, a good captain, and he’s matured quite a lot over the past eight years with the Capitals. When the time comes, though, he’s willing to break that status for the sake of his teammates.
Like organizing a snowman-building competition on the roof of Kettler following practice after losing their fifth of the past six games? Yeah, he’ll do what he has to.
Some of the guys duck out, but most end up staying because spending half an hour in the snow with your teammates sounds a hell of a lot better than driving through slush next to people who, at the slightest sign of precipitation, immediately lose all knowledge of how to operate a motor vehicle. So they form small groups of twos and threes and get to work.
Since most of the defensemen have already left, Mike Green finds himself without a partner. He packs his gear into his car slowly, scanning the rooftop to see if anyone’s available. Ovi and Nick are the judges of this childish contest, while Brouwer, Beagle, and Fehr as well as Alzner and Carlson have already formed their respective teams. He feels like he’d be intruding if he tacked onto an existing group, so he’s considering just going home when he spies another loner standing just outside the rink’s doors: Brooks Laich.
Mike and Brooks haven’t talked much as of late; they’ve gotten older, and Brooks has been in and out of the line-up due to his injury and its flare-ups. Mike’s engagement, too, has kept him busy: he’s spending so much more time with Courtney now, and he loves it, but he’ll admit that it’s cut into the time he used to spend hanging out with the boys. So he’s getting old, he guesses, but not too old to outgrow building a snowman. He hopes he never gets that old.
“Brooks!” he calls across the lot. It takes a moment for the forward to place him, but once he does, he gives Mike a little wave as the defenseman jogs over. “Do you wanna build a snowman?”
Brooks seems a bit surprised at first, but nods after a moment, a small smile forming in the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “Lemme put my stuff in my car.”
~
Their gear safely stowed away, Mike and Brooks head up the pavement to get started. Most of the guys are sculpting their snowmen on the sidewalk so as not to impede any possible traffic. Mike and Brooks pick a spot near Carlson and Alzner, who are busily chirping at each other over the shape of their snowman’s middle.
“Is this an off-season snowman?” Karl asks, surveying the white pile skeptically.
John pats the mound, attempting to round it out. “How many skinny snowmen have you ever seen?”
“Well you could at least make him look less lumpy,” Karl retorts, exasperated.
Mike smiles a little to himself as he and Brooks begin creating their own. After working in silence for a minute, Mike tries to make conversation. “Hope I’m not keeping you from anything today.”
Brooks shrugs, not lifting his gaze. “Nah, I was just gonna head home anyway.”
Mike nods. They fall into silence once again. He can’t help but ache for the easy banter that Karl and John have. He and Brooks used to have that, but it seems to have started to fade. He wishes he could cure this with an apology, but he’s not even sure what he would apologize for anyway.
He pauses packing snow to watch Brooks. Even for such a simple task as this, his blue eyes are focused and intense. That’s something he’s always admired about Brooks; how fully he gives himself to any assignment, big or small, whether he enjoys it or not. One would think a personality like that would make him too serious—and he was, to a certain extent, but Mike had always known just how to make him laugh, how to get him to have a good time. Until now, it seems.
“You gonna help me out here, Greenie, or are you gonna leave me to do all the heavy lifting like you did at the last community playground build?”
At the sound of his name—nickname, he notes--Mike snaps back to the present. Brooks’ tone is somewhat strained, but the other man is smiling up at him. “Sorry. Was just…” Just what? Thinking about how you no longer know how to talk to one of your supposed best friends? “…thinking about how our buddy here is missing a couple of things.”
Brooks straightens up and walks around to see their snowman from Mike’s perspective. He rubs at the scruff along his jawline like he always does when he’s thinking. He walks over to one of the few trees nearby and plucks off two twigs of differing sizes. Brooks sticks one into each side of the snow body, attempting to make them look more symmetrical by shoving one in further. It doesn’t really work.
“Well… It’s something,” Mike says after Brooks turns to him for his opinion. The longer arm is at a vertical angle, an inch higher than the snowman’s head, and the shorter one sticks straight out of the other side, barely long enough to protrude from the body. Mike can’t help but grin at how silly the thing looks.
Brooks gives him a small shove. “Okay, did you have ‘something’ else in mind?”
Mike thinks for a second before trotting over to his car. He sifts around in his game bag for a minute before he finds what he’s looking for. He comes back with the items clamped between his mittens so Brooks can’t see them until Mike’s twisted them onto their snowman: two hockey pucks for eyes. Brooks laughs when Mike steps away to reveal the new addition. “Aren’t they kind of big?” he teases.
“Aren’t his arms supposed to be the same size?” Mike replies smoothly.
“Touché.”
Mike appraises their progress as Brooks carves a smile onto the snowman’s face with a gloved finger. It’s nearly done, he thinks, but it still seems to be missing something. He’s trying to place exactly what when a white blur whizzes past and smacks an unsuspecting victim-- Karl Alzner, by the sound of the scream.
“What the hell--?” Karl begins, only to curse loudly when he’s hit yet again.
“SNOWBALL FIGHT!” Brouwer shouts. Frozen projectiles zoom through the air. Capitals are ducking behind anything nearby, including their own snowmen, to shield themselves from the attack. They form and fire snowballs rapidly, and the snowmen suffer the worst of the casualties, losing chunks of their faces and entire arms to the battle.
In the presence of such a threat, any sort of awkwardness or distance between Mike and Brooks vanishes immediately. It’s just like old times as the two pelt their opponents with snowballs, covering each other’s backs as they have for years on the ice. They call out incoming shots, one firing and blocking as the other forms more ammunition.
“Where is it coming from?” Mike asks his compatriot, searching the parking lot for the source of the outbreak.
“Over there!” Brooks cries, pointing at Joel Ward’s Chevy Tahoe. Sure enough, Chimmer and Wardo pop out from behind it every few seconds to fire another missile. While everyone else was constructing their snowmen, the two of them must’ve stockpiled an arsenal and hidden it behind Joel’s car. Mike alerts the rest of the Capitals of the assailants so they know where to aim, and soon enough, the two tricksters are overwhelmed and calling for a truce.
Mike offers Brooks a hand to help him to his feet as the rest of the team dusts themselves off and assesses the wreckage. The two men share a look before Brooks shifts his gaze to his coat, busying himself with wiping away snow shrapnel. Puffy white clouds of condensation from their breath make the silence tangible.
Mike licks his chapped lips before he speaks. “Brooks, I… I’m sorry we haven’t talked that much lately—“
“Why do you have to be sorry?” he interjects roughly.
“Because I’ve been spending so much time with Courtney lately,” Mike says, taken aback.
“Well, next time you get engaged, don’t forget that you have a best friend and maybe you won’t feel so guilty.” Brooks continues to focus on his jacket rather than meet Mike’s eyes.
“Well I’m hoping that I only have to get engaged once,” Mike jokes. No response. He’s really hurt, Mike thinks. “But I would never forget about my best friend, and even if it seemed like I had, I wouldn’t apologize for it just to clear my own conscience. I’d do it because I cared about him.”
There’s a pause as Brooks mulls this over, adjusting his gloves and jacket one last time before he finally looks up at Mike. “Yeah, well… somebody has to save your sorry butt from an early death via snowball.”
The two brighten at the joke. Mike bumps Brooks with his shoulder playfully. Brooks returns the gesture.
~
“Maybe is because we have snow all time in Russia,” Ovi says skeptically, “but I don’t think this is snowman.” He regards Brouwer, Beagle, and Fehr’s sculpture dubiously, the white blob missing the entire left chunk of its head. He and Nick are walking around to judge the contest entries but finding, Mike notices, that every one of them have been damaged by the preceding snowball fight.
All, that is, except for Mike and Brooks’.
It suddenly dawns on the defenseman what it is that their snowman’s missing. He bolts back to his car, telling Brooks to “stall the judges if necessary.” “Uh… okay?” the forward responds, bewildered.
Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Perhaps only reconcilement with Brooks could reveal the solution that now seems so obvious. Mike unlocks his car and snatches the item from the back seat, hurrying back over to Brooks.
“Here,” Mike says breathlessly. He hands it to Brooks, whose eyes widen with recognition as he fingers the gray material.
“I remember this hat…” he murmurs. You should, Mike thinks. Brooks had given it to him several years ago, back when Mike had had a particular proclivity for beanies. Its design is modest (Brooks would never buy anything otherwise): dark gray with the Capitals logo on the front. Mike’s mostly grown out of that fondness, but he still wears it from time to time when it’s cold out.
Brooks makes a “hm” of approval before giving it back to Mike. “I’m surprised you still have it.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Mike asks, stretching the hat over the head of their snowman. It’s an impressive fit.
“Well,” interrupts a Russian-accented voice, “Brooksie and Greenie at least do something.” Ovi and Nick have made their way over, trailed by the rest of the team.
The captain tilts his head from one side to the other before making his decision. “This is not best snowman, but is best one here, I think.”
Nick nods in agreement. “What’s up with the arms?”
“I told you,” Mike teases Brooks.
Brooks holds up his hands. “All right, all right!” he concedes. “Next time you’re in charge of the arms.”
Mike nods, satisfied, and turns to his captain. “What’d we win, Ovi?”
“Ahh…” the winger trails off. “Well… I think that win is good, yeah? You are best, what else you want?”
Nick snorts. “You didn’t get anything, did you?” Ovi doesn’t answer. Nick grumbles as he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. “Here,” he says, handing a gift card to the Palm Restaurant to Brooks, “for dinner or something.”
Mike and Brooks voice theirs thanks as Nick shrugs, shooting Ovi a glare. The Russian clears his throat and announces loudly, “Okay boys! See everybody tomorrow on plane to Minnesota! Good job guys!”
There’s a few claps and cheers as the players part ways, leaving Mike and Brooks alone again. There’s a moment of silence as the two seem unsure of what to do next, their project completed.
“Here, you should take this,” Brooks says, thrusting the card at Mike. “Take Courtney out for a nice dinner.”
“No, no, I can’t,” Mike refuses, pushing away the offering.
“No, Mike, really, I insist—“
“—and I insist,” Mike argues, “that you keep it to use when we go out for dinner tonight.”
Brooks’ eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What?”
“You said you weren’t doing anything today, so I’m taking you out to dinner,” Mike says simply. “To… catch up, or whatever.”
Brooks raps the card against his knuckles, considering the proposition. “Okay,” he says at last, “but how’s about we don’t call it ‘catching up,’ because that makes us sound like a couple of old hens.”
“You’re already a couple of old hens,” Nick calls as he climbs into his car. The two are about to retort when the Swede starts the engine and pulls away, waving mockingly.
Mike rolls his eyes. “Deal,” he says, turning back to Brooks.
“You know,” Brooks says after a pause, “we’re gonna be on the plane for about six hours tomorrow, and I think that that is far too much time for Nicky to be left in peace…”