Descent into Ruin: Day 9

Word Count: 54,023

Summary of Events:

Chalmers shared a much more pleasant Christmas gathering with Matt's aunt and cousin who lived in Sidney — and felt more like family to him than his aunt, uncle, and cousins did — before returning to Brandon, where he participated in a practise with the team during which one of his teammates pretended to be a well-known hockey reporter interviewing his teammates with his stick blade doubling as a microphone in an act that even got the coaches laughing. Chalmers had just finished using the bathroom when he heard his cellphone ringing, but he was unable to answer it before it stopped . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Quickly Chalmers redialled Cade’s number. Cade was probably his teammate who was most likely to call, but because they saw each other on a near-daily basis with the team, he didn’t actually call that often, suggesting it was something important.

“Hello?” Cade answered.

“Hey, sorry, I was in the bathroom and didn’t hit the green button fast enough,” Chalmers said.

“Well, thanks for replying right away, I didn’t really want to carry on down the list without having everyone in order,” Cade replied. “That’s the reason they’re in the order they’re in.”

“Is something up?” Chalmers asked, as Cade sounded unusually sober, and was even mumbling slightly.

He heard Cade breathing on the other end in a way that sounded like he was struggling to keep himself composed.

“I’ve been traded,” Cade replied.

Chalmers didn’t know what to say, what to think. Cade was about the best friend he’d ever had in his life. He’d not expected them to be separated like this.

“Where?” Chalmers finally managed to croak.

“Tri-City,” Cade replied. “Klim and Cummer too.”

“For who?” Chalmers asked.

“Atkins Murynka and Colby Nicholson,” Cade replied.

Chalmers couldn’t say he knew anything about Colby Nicholson, but he knew Atkins Murynka. Atkins was Manitoba-born, thus when he’d come to town last season — which had been his first visit to Brandon in his WHL career because the American teams only visited the Eastern Conference once every two years, the other year being the year the Eastern Conference teams went to visit them — there had been a significant cohort of Tri-City supporting fans in the stands.

“We’ve already played our game against them,” Chalmers said. “I’m not going to see you until the Combine.”

“I know,” Cade said. “I know.”

“Do you want me to come over?” Chalmers asked.

“Sure,” Cade replied.

“I’ll be there in five,” Chalmers said.

“Thanks,” Cade replied.

Chalmers ended the call and remained seated on his bed for a moment as a thought had just occurred to him; Atkins was a left wing. Either he was going to be on the move too, or he was going to suffer a demotion, as he doubted Slater was going to be bumped from the first line to the third line, unless Slater was being traded.

Pushing himself up off the bed, Chalmers woke up his cellphone to check the time, the deadline was 3:00 in the afternoon — just like in the NHL, even if the deadline itself was a month and a half earlier than the NHL’s deadline, seeing how the WHL season was 12 games shorter than that of the NHL.

His cellphone told him what he’d been sure of: there was still plenty of time left before 3:00 arrived. Plenty of time for him, too, to be traded.

The thought came to him that he might call Mr. Cragg to ask if he was going to get traded, but he had his doubts Mr. Cragg would have the time to field questions until after 3:00, as he was sure there was a decent amount of frenetic activity going on for Mr. Cragg until the League called time and all the dealing had to stop.