PUCKD Ch 15

He was just surprised that the loose-lipped Doomin had kept quiet about it for this long; he didn’t feel hurt or anything like Ji Minchul did.

Shin Hojae glanced once towards the balcony, then sat on the edge of the bed and checked his unread messages one by one.

He breezily ignored the message from Shin Yeonjae with her gift list, and slowly replied to his mother’s message, which included a photo of his dad and a note telling him not to get hurt.

The only one left was a message in the group chat for all twenty-one Blue Wolves players, excluding Alexei. It seemed Alexei didn’t have a Korean messenger ID yet.

Choi Yongsoo:

[Today’s loss was painful, but I believe our team will grow because of what happened today~]

[You know the saying ‘failure is the mother of success,’ right? ^^ Let’s all cheer up! Love you guys~]

[And an article about us is out, so please go and give it a like ^^~]

It was a message befitting a captain who always looked after his teammates. Hojae clicked the article link attached at the end of the message.

[The Perennial Runner-Up ‘Blue Wolves’ Get MJ Wings, Full Support from Korean Air and MJ Logistics Behind First Overseas Training Camp]

The article, with its rather blatant headline, was a lengthy piece detailing how many conveniences and benefits Myungjung Group had prepared for this Canadian training camp.

As a bonus, the Blue Wolves were portrayed in the article as a pitiful and poor team, the perennial runner-up overshadowed by the Tigers, who had never received proper support.

“…”

Although it was based on facts, he couldn’t help but frown at the article, which seemed excessively flattering towards Myungjung Group.

I knew it.

There was no way Kwon Junghyun would provide things like business class seats or a transport truck to the players without expecting something in return. Just as he himself had said, he was busy using the Blue Wolves to launder his company’s image.

Shin Hojae flipped his phone face down with a soft thud.

🏑

Third day of training camp.

Coach Peter’s words about doing ‘special’ training were half-true. He had never dreamed they would come all the way to Canada just to do basic physical training all day.

The off-ice training, which started with light shuttle runs, only continued to increase in intensity, and no matter how much time passed, the signal to ‘stop’ never came.

Around the time they completed 160 shuttle runs, the trainers brought out sandbags to strap to their feet. Everyone was saying things like ‘I’m going to die,’ ‘I feel like I’m going to puke,’ but they got up again whenever they made eye contact with Coach Peter.

Being told they were ‘terrible’ by a foreign coach had wounded everyone’s pride. On top of that came the self-loathing thought of, Are we really so pathetic that we have to do nothing but physical training all the way in Canada?

On the fourth day, they finally began On-Ice training. However, it wasn’t the strategy and tactics training the players had been hoping for.

It was basic training, including offensive and defensive drills, shooting practice, and one-touch passing connections. No one said it out loud, but their faces were rotting.

In the middle of it all, Yongsoo hyung seemed to be trying his best to communicate with the coach through an interpreter, but the situation didn’t improve.

Eventually, there was even a small commotion. Lee Sanggon took his frustration out on the team’s youngest staff member, who was filming the practice. Yongsoo hyung and a coach rushed over and quickly resolved it, but it showed just how volatile the players’ mood was.

“Ah… I have to do my live stream, but there’s no way I can do it today. I’m completely wiped out, totally exhausted.”

Yook Doomin, who had just come out of the training facility’s shower room, pretended his hands were shaking as he changed his clothes.

“Hojae-Hojae… I’m so hungry…”

“Should we eat before we go back?”

“Where?”

“Next door.”

Hojae replied, thinking of the local restaurant right next to the training facility. At that, Yook Doomin yelled as if having a seizure.

“No! I can’t eat any more french fries! I want to eat Korean food! Kimchi stew! Doenjang stew! White rice!”

Shin Hojae, who had lived in Canada for five years, didn’t have many complaints about the current diet of greens and meat, but it seemed Yook Doomin was different. It wasn’t that Hojae didn’t understand how he felt, so he replied while packing his things.

“Is there a Korean restaurant nearby?”

“There is, there is. I heard the guys talking about it? They said they sell samgyeopsal and tteokbokki there. They have mattang and jajangmyeon too. Isn’t that awesome? It’s practically a dream restaurant, right?”

While it might seem like a rather unusual menu combination to a Korean, many Korean restaurants abroad put together their menus without much rhyme or reason, just like this one. Doomin quickly roped in Ji Minchul as well and they left the training facility.

It was a bit far, but the weather was cool, so walking wasn’t too difficult.

His nerves, which had been on edge from living in a group setting not only at the training facility but also when going to and from the dorms and eating, felt like they were loosening up for a little while.

It was something he had felt during last year’s training camp as well, but for Shin Hojae, being with his teammates 24/7 was more exhausting than the training itself. Even without Lee Sanggon and Moon Seungyeol, the players were all a little wary of Shin Hojae, and since Shin Hojae didn’t make any particular effort to approach them, it was even more so.

It was only because of Doomin, Minchul, and Yongsoo that he could hang out like this; if the three of them weren’t there, he would have been a complete outsider.

The three of them chatted away, catching up, and arrived at their destination. The Korean restaurant was quite a bit larger than expected. The small problem was that the restaurant was already full of Blue Wolves players.

“I thought this was our company cafeteria.”

“There are no seats. How long do we have to wait?”

“Wait. A seat will open up eventually. Oh, oh. Hyung-hoon. No, don’t mind us, just eat, just eat.”

The rookie players who were eating kimchi stew spotted the three of them and half-rose from their seats. Doomin quickly gestured for them to sit back down. Even in that moment, he didn’t forget to scan their kimchi stew.

Minchul, oblivious to Doomin’s burning gaze, muttered thoughtlessly.

“There was a hamburger place next door.”

“No, no. Tonight’s dinner is absolutely samgyeopsal and kimchi stew.”

“Lee Sanggon and Moon Seungyeol are over there, too.”

“…Ah, shit. Should we go somewhere else?”

Just as Doomin and Minchul, exhausted from hunger, were growing quiet, an awkward Korean accent was heard from the entrance.

“No seats?”

It was Coach Peter. He was holding a cell phone in one hand, as if he had just been on a call.

“Oh, Peter! Yes, we are waiting. Very tired~ very himdeul! Because of you! Your directing is very ppaksem!”

“Heok. Ddumin-ss…”

It all happened in an instant.

For Minchul and Doomin, Peter was their first foreign coach, and since they couldn’t communicate directly, they had never had a proper conversation with him before.

On top of that, having been told ‘your play was terrible’ a few days ago, there was even a psychological distance between them. That’s why Minchul was so flustered by the sound of Doomin’s whining with his exaggerated pronunciation.

They were cautiously watching, wondering if they would get a scolding, but surprisingly, Peter just grinned and suggested they join his table.

They were hungry, so there was no reason to refuse. And so, as they trotted after Peter, the eyes of all the players inside the restaurant turned towards Shin Hojae’s group in unison.

It seemed everyone had been cautiously watching the coach inside the restaurant.

At the very back of the restaurant, at a six-person table separated from the others by a partition, there was one more unexpected face.

『Whew, look who I brought.』

It was Kwon Junghyun. ‘Whew’ seemed to be the nickname Peter, who had difficulty pronouncing Junghyun’s name, used to call him.

Unlike Shin Hojae, whose brow furrowed in an automatic reflex, Junghyun raised the corners of his mouth into a soft smile.

“Pete brought our team’s aces.”

“Oh! Team owner-nim, please tell Peter exactly that!”

Perhaps because he heard his name, Peter raised his thick eyebrows and looked at Junghyun.

When Kwon Junghyun translated it into English, he shrugged and said, ‘Aces? I’m not so sure about that yet.’ At that, Junghyun’s eyes narrowed.

『It seems you’ve been tormenting my players while I was away.』

『You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d seen the game the day before yesterday.』

『I would have said it even if I had. You want the players to be too perfect, from one to ten. It’s obvious you were being picky. And it’s the first time for everyone with a foreign coach, so it must be difficult; you should be the one to approach them first. Koreans value something called ‘jeong’.』

『Nag, nag.』

『Take today, for example. When I heard you hadn’t been to a Korean restaurant once in four days, I thought I’d misheard. I told you a Korean restaurant would be the place the players would like the most. And that since you came all the way overseas, you should definitely have a team dinner at least once.』

“What? What? What’s he saying?”

“…”

Doomin looked curious about the two’s conversation, but Hojae didn’t answer and just sat down. Just then, a server came with a cart to set up the side dishes and meat, so Doomin’s attention was diverted there and he didn’t ask again.

“This is crazy. Who knew I could be this happy to see seasoned bean sprouts?”

Shin Hojae forcibly fixed his attention, which kept straying towards Kwon Junghyun, onto the side dishes in front of him.