NHL 25

Dylan, standing in front of the door leading to the rink, peered at the state of the ice before grabbing Joeon’s shoulders and turning him around. They were at a bench placed on the side of the rink.

“Sit here and wait for a moment.”

With that, he walked back to the mansion, leaving Joeon holding the stick and gloves. A short while later, Dylan reappeared with keys and a jacket in his hands.

“Put this on.”

Given the unfamiliar design, the jacket was clearly Dylan’s, not Joeon’s. If he were going to bring something, it would have been nice if it were his own jacket hanging by the front door. But the cold was so bone-chilling that Joeon didn’t complain; he quietly put on Dylan’s jacket and watched as the garage door opened automatically.

Once the automatic door was fully open, Joeon let out a squawk.

“You have a Zamboni at home?”

As if he had expected the reaction, Dylan laughed loudly and reached out a hand toward Joeon.

“Do you want to ride it?”

The Zamboni’s driver’s seat was high and narrow. There was only one seat, just big enough for one person. Joeon approached Dylan, who was climbing down from the driver’s seat, and looked down at his own feet, clad in skates.

“Do you want to change into slippers?”

Dylan took off the slippers he seemed to have changed into in the garage and offered them to Joeon.

“No, that’s alright. Dylan, your feet will get cold. It’s too much trouble to take these off and put them back on again. I’ll just watch, so show me how it works already.”

Dylan was a professional athlete who could put on and take off skates with his eyes closed, but Joeon was not. He didn’t have the heart to repeat that annoying and cumbersome process multiple times, so he decided to decline the ride on the Zamboni.

Perhaps it seemed like he was inadvertently drawing a line, but Dylan—his face having cooled from the flushed excitement he’d shown when appearing on the Zamboni—got back onto the machine.

He then silently navigated the small ice rink, which looked to be less than half the size of a standard hockey stadium, smoothing out the surface of the ice. The grooming didn’t even take 10 minutes.

The Zamboni, with its blade for smoothing the surface lifted, looked no different from a car with a strangely shaped head. Its bumpy tires stepped slowly over the ice as it entered the garage. After putting the Zamboni in its place and finishing some simple maintenance, Dylan came out with a goal net in one hand and a bucket filled with pucks in the other.

Joeon, conscious of Dylan’s newfound silence, surreptitiously peered into the bucket filled with pucks. Small scratches on the surfaces of the practice pucks caught his eye. They were likely scars of glory made by Dylan, who had practiced repeatedly over a long period.

While the goal net was being set up, Joeon idly picked up a puck and fiddled with it with his bare hands. Unlike the light movement he saw when they flew through the air after being struck by a thin hockey stick, the puck, worn down by countless practices, was colder and heavier than it looked.

Just then, a large, white hand wrapped warmly around Joeon’s hand, gently taking the puck away. When Joeon looked up, Dylan, who had approached at some point, gave him a grumpy look and threw the puck across the ice like a skipping stone.

“…I was looking at that.”

Dylan then took Joeon’s hand and began to massage it openly. Perhaps because the air was cold, the body heat meeting his skin felt higher than usual.

“Joeon, your hands are warm.”

“…”

Dylan, who had let go of Joeon’s hand, wiggled his fingers as if feeling a sense of loss.

“Don’t misunderstand. Pucks are supposed to be cold. If they aren’t, they don’t have control and can bounce around here and there.”

Muttering in a somewhat blunt tone, he selected a practice puck from the bucket and took one out. The official hockey league mark engraved on the surface shone in a purple hue. His voice, now much softer, explained kindly:

“It has to be cold to become harder, and that’s the only way you can control it.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Oh, even if I say it’s hard, that doesn’t mean it’s bulletproof. Someone experimented with that once, and it shattered into pieces.”

He hadn’t been curious about that part. When Joeon didn’t react much, Dylan continued his explanation.

“If it’s in a frozen state, it keeps its color like this, but when the color turns transparent, the puck needs to be cooled down. That’s why pucks are constantly replaced during a game.”

Only then did Joeon’s eyes widen, his curiosity finally piqued.

“It’s no different from other sports. In baseball, if the stitches on the ball tear, it becomes difficult for the pitcher to control, so they change the ball.”

Dylan, who had been watching Joeon’s reaction and not missing a beat, threw the puck back onto the ice and rummaged through the bucket to find another one. There were many plain pucks without logos, but he threw all of those onto the ice and only showed Joeon the ones that shone like new and had pretty, visible colors—much like a kindergartner bragging about the pretty seashells he’d picked up at the beach.

“That’s fascinating.”

Joeon reacted with a deadpan voice, pretending to be surprised. Knowing that Dylan wasn’t the type to be oblivious enough to be fooled by a clumsy act of acting, he soon returned to an expressionless face and took the stick Joeon had been holding by his side.

“Now, are you ready to learn? We’re going to do shooting practice today.”

“All of a sudden? I can’t even skate.”

“Since you have a stick, it’ll be easier for you to ride.”

At his attitude of tapping the ice, Joeon wrinkled his eyebrows. It was because it reminded him of an elderly person walking with a cane. Though he couldn’t even walk properly, it wasn’t a bad idea to use the stick as a makeshift cane to find his center of gravity. That was what he meant.

As Joeon’s brow furrowed in dissatisfaction, a smile spread across Dylan’s once-stoic face. Then, Dylan, showing his teeth, seemed unable to hold it in anymore; his eyes softened, and he started to laugh out loud.

“Come here. It’ll be much more fun than just riding. I’ll teach you.”

Dylan grabbed Joeon’s arms and wrapped his own around his shoulders, as if hugging him from behind, and slowly pushed him forward. During that time, he didn’t forget to pull the pucks that were scattered haphazardly here and there together into one spot with his stick.

Dylan, holding Joeon—who was still clumsy at skating—in his arms, circled the ice once and stopped in the center, facing the goal net. Surprisingly, the pucks he had pushed away so carelessly were gathered together in the center like magic.

“Joeon, you’re right-handed, right?”

“Yes.”

“As I thought. Luckily, I brought the right one. Try holding the end of the stick with your right hand and the shaft with your left.”

Dylan, standing facing Joeon, demonstrated by separating one puck from the group and striking it with a posture similar to a golf swing. At the moment of impact, there was a solid sound, as if hammering a rock. Then, in the blink of an eye, the puck flew away, and Joeon could see it idling in front of the goal net.

“…Did it miss?”

“What are you talking about? It went in and bounced out.”

Dylan, shaking his head, smirked arrogantly. The speed was so fast that to Joeon’s eyes, he hadn’t even seen the puck go into the goal.

“It went into the top-left corner.”

“Were you aiming for that?”

“Yes.”

“It was so fast that I couldn’t follow the movement at all.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

Joeon recalled the memories of being overwhelmed by the incredible speed whenever he watched a game. They say every sport has a different speed, but hockey was on a different level from other ball games. Unlike field sports where you run on grass, players dash at speeds of 30–50 km/h on ice, where there is little friction. All while controlling a puck smaller than a palm with a thin stick.

The goal net itself was also incredibly small, so when a goalie—who is already large, and looks even bigger wearing pads, protective gear, and a helmet—stands there blocking the front, attackers like Dylan have no choice but to increase their shooting accuracy to score.

“Hey, Dylan. So, um, by any chance…”

Joeon hesitated for a moment. He was holding back, worried he might look like a child asking a childish question. As if reading his thoughts, Dylan asked for him.

“Are you asking if I can hit something like a water bottle?”

Joeon nodded, feeling bashful.

“Was that too childish a question?”