Early morning (any time on the clock that starts with a five or a six) is particularly horrible. It’s practically the middle of the night. Anyway, early-morning hockey practice sounded like much more fun than it was. Chan and his dad picked me up at 6:15 AM. It was still dark outside, and very cold. The kind of cold where you see every breath you exhale; the kind of cold that reminds you how often we really breathe. It seemed very heroic, leaving a warm house to crunch out to hockey practice in the middle of the night like this. Chan’s dad jumped out of the van. He’s got trendy glasses, a big smile and tons of energy. He made it feel like we were going off on an exciting trip. “’Morning, Luke! Hi, Kathy!” he called, reaching for my enormous bag of enormous equipment and stowing it away for me. “’Morning, Edwin!” called my mom from the door. “Brrr. What a morning! Hey, thanks for giving Luke a ride.” “Oh, no problem.” He looked surprised, like who wouldn’t want to be up at the crack of dawn, driving kids to hockey practice?
