korechthonia:Coach Katya was kind of terrifying, but Eric knew she was only trying to make him bette
korechthonia:Coach Katya was kind of terrifying, but Eric knew she was only trying to make him better. He knew that since Alexei said so, in his thickly accented and broken English, and he oughta know since she was his mama. Alexei was a few years older than Eric, but they both loved the ice, and they both did the Soviet calisthenics and complicated edgework that Coach Katya prescribed without complaint. And when they got the chance, sometimes they would race around the rink. They were two peas in the strangest pod you ever saw, best friends despite the language gaps and complaints about each other’s destruction of the ice.A few years had Alexei becoming too good for hockey in Atlanta, and he and his papa returned to Russia to allow him his chance to succeed. Katya stayed in Georgia with Eric, and Eric thanked her with batches of blinis and gold medals. He qualified for international competition the next year, and when Katya decided that it was still too much, Eric followed her to Moscow. Soviet calisthenics included Alexei once more, when neither of them were out of town, and if Eric happened to look from time to time, well, who could blame him? He wasn’t a moth, it didn’t matter how bright Alexei smiled, he wasn’t going to get burnt. Instead, he shone bright himself, making the Junior Grand Prix Final in his first year. Katya was almost as enthusiastic about Alexei’s draft to the Providence Falconers. Eric entered Seniors and Alexei signed his NHL contract. They stayed in touch through phone calls and texts at all hours of the day and night, flipping between Russian and English, postcards ending up on each other’s doorsteps from every place they visited. Breaks in their seasons resulted in blueberry pies and races around rinks in Moscow and Providence and Georgia that Eric always won. Then it was 2013 and Alexei was invited to the Russian Olympic team, and Eric was virtually a lock on a spot at the Olympics, and they were both working harder than ever before. And then they were both in Sochi, in the Olympic Village, and falling into each other felt absolutely inevitable. -- source link
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