Chapter 24: The Exposed Documentary

UNKNOWN POV

The screen glowed in the dark room.

I sat cross legged on the bed, with my laptop balanced on my knees; footage flickering across the display. Outside, the city was alive; cars passed on the street below, people chattered and laughed somewhere down the hall, I ignored it.

I was watching them.

I’ve been in this same position, watching hours of footage, games, practices and interviews. I’d watched almost all of them, logging moments, tagging faces and building the shape of a story I was sure I believed yet, but there was something there I couldn’t name; something that made me keep analyzing the footage way longer than I should have.

I scrolled through the New York game first, they scored four goals; a hat trick from the rookie and one goal from one other player, four assists from the captain. The stats were excellent but I wasn’t looking for stats, I was looking for a juicy story.

And I found it on the bench.

It was the third period, with two minutes left till the end of the game; the cameras had been on the ice, filming the goal and the celebration. But I’d asked for a wide shot; the one that filmed everything.

The captain sat at the end of the bench, with the rookie beside him. They weren’t talking or celebrating, they just sat in silence. But the captain’s hand was on the rookie’s shoulders in a comforting manner; his fingers curling slightly like he didn’t want to let go.

The rookie looked up.

His face was partly in the shadows and partly lit by the lights from the arena, but I was still able to catch his lips forming words I couldn’t hear, but it was his eyes that caught my attention the most.

The rookie looked at the captain like the captain was the only thing to look at in the whole arena.

I rewound and watched again.

The captain’s hand stayed on his shoulders for a moment; a moment too long for teammates or friends. That hold on his shoulder was something else.

I leaned back as I stared at my laptop.

“Hey.”

I looked up.

The doorway was dark, my camera man stood there, silhouetted by the light from the hallway. He’d been editing in the next room. I’d asked for his opinion on this a long time ago and he said he saw chemistry between them.

“Hey, come take a look at this.” I said to him.

He walked in without turning on the light. He stood beside me, arms crossed as he waited.

I hit play.

The footage flickered back to life, replaying the bench scene with the lingering touches.

His face gave nothing away as he watched, that was one of the things I liked about him. He could watch the most intimate moment and seem like he didn’t see anything at all.

“What do you think about this?” I asked.

He was quiet for a long time; the footage looped but he still kept quiet.

“All I see is chemistry.” He finally said.

“Chemistry or something else?” I pressed.

He shrugged. “All I do is point the cameras, the rest is up to you.”

He headed towards the door.

I watched him leave.

————-

I turned back to the screen.

The footage still replayed the whole bench scene.

I scrolled back and watched it again from the start.

The New York game first period; the captain stood at the blue line, waiting; then the rookie cut through the neutral zone with his stick out, silently calling out for the puck; the pass was perfect and so was the goal.

I watched the rookie move towards the captain as he grabbed his jersey and said something.

I paused at that point and watched the rookie’s face.

I noticed how his whole body seemed to be less rigid when he looked at the captain; he looked a bit relaxed, like he was being himself at that point.

I rewound and watched again before moving to the next footage.

During the Montreal game; the rookie skated past the captain, close enough to touch but not quite touching.

The captain’s face didn’t change, but his eyes followed the rookie across the ice, as if making sure he was okay.

I paused again.

I’d been doing this for twenty years; I’d seen love stories before so I knew how people in love looked at each other when they thought no one was watching, I’d seen the way their bodies leaned in towards each other.

This wasn’t chemistry, this was more.

I opened a new file to log in the information I gathered.

•New York game: Third period, captain’s hand on rookie’s shoulder. Facial expression screams ‘more than a friend or roommate.’

I typed the words and leaned back to look at them.

There was a story here, the one no one asked about, the one everyone pretended not to see.

I scrolled through more footage of practice, interactions in the weight room and the hallway outside the locker room.

Even in the midst of their teammates, the rookie and the captain always looked for ways to communicate silently; the captain’s eyes always followed the rookie across the ice, and basically everywhere.

I saved the file and closed my laptop, the room went dark.

I sat there for a long time, staring at nothing in the dark as I thought about what I’d seen and what I was going to do with it.

The footage was there, and it was more than enough for me to release a story about it.

But releasing it meant exposing something that was meant to be a secret. Telling it meant pulling the rug out from under the two people who seemed to love secrecy a lot.

I thought about the captain’s reaction at the last interview when I’d asked him about the chemistry between them. His jaw tightened as he gave me a vague and generic answer.

I also thought about the rookie’s face when the captain had stormed off from the interview, the way his smile fell as he constantly looked at the door, waiting for the captain to come back.

I opened the laptop again, and played the footage.

I watched it one more time before closing the laptop again.

The story was right there in front of it, but I wasn’t quite ready to tell it yet.

Not until I knew what it would cost them.