Chapter 1 · The Reckoning

The truth doesn't come out the way anyone expected.

When Reed wakes up the day after the Glenfield game, the proverbial hockey world is ablaze—which is impressive considering the previous inferno he had started by signing with the Port Haven Titans as soon as he was able.

But that news is nothing compared to the truth bomb detonated on the hockey world sometime during the game yesterday evening, and while he knows this isn't an appropriate reaction—he's supposed to be the bigger person after all—Reed reacts the only way he knows how: he laughs.

"What is so funny?" Dmitri grumbled, smacking his lips together and blinking slowly as he rose up to consciousness beside him, furrowing his brows in confusion for exactly 2.4 seconds before rolling over, dropping his head against Reed's chest, and promptly falling back asleep.

If it wasn't for the fact that this was a near daily occurrence, Reed might have chalked it up as the cutest thing he had ever seen.

Threading his fingers into Dmitri's curls absentmindedly, Reed looked back down at his phone, his chestnut eyes intently scanning the words on the screen before him, gaze locked on a Forumin post that had gone viral overnight.

r/glenfieldwanderers • 11h ago

mrvoyageur

Reed Calloway Didn't Leave the Wanderers:

He Was Forced Out

I [46M] have worked for the Glenfield Wanderers for 19 years.

In that time I've seen Reed Calloway grow from a shy awkward teenager with a spotlight on his head, to the man he is today:

A 3x President's Shield Champion, Olympic silver medalist, perpetual Gentleman's Sportsmanship Award winner (along with all his other personal performance accolades), and now husband to Dmitri Federov.

Reed isn't just good: he's the best of the best.

Which makes the rest of what I'm going to say so much worse.

Reed joined the Wanderers in 2010.

In that first season he was quiet, but his talent was undeniable.

In the locker room and on the bench, he often made himself as small as possible, never joining in on chirps or ganging up on another guy.

He was always just there, quietly in the background, the first one to practice and the last one to leave.

His locker was always the tidiest and his mannerisms always the politest.

This is something that would carry through to the rest of his career.

By age 20, Reed Calloway was named captain of the Glenfield Wanderers and if you thought he was committed before, Captain Reed Calloway was a whole different beast.

Not only was he the first to arrive and the last to leave, but he was constantly making the team run lines, forcing them to practice rudimentary skills meant for children of the sport, claiming it was to keep their minds sharp and their reflexes quick.

And you know what?

It worked.

Some guys resented it at first.

I heard them push back on him in the locker room.

But he never relented, never raised his voice, never tolerated discontent.

So the players would run lines and the Wanderers would win like clockwork.

He was creating a powerhouse.

In all my years working in hockey, I have never seen a player like Reed.

His talent is undeniable, his commitment unwavering, and his performance on the ice mind-blowing year after year without fail.

While the rest of the guys wanted to go out and party after a win, Reed wanted to go home.

While half the team was picking up women on road trips and swapping rooms to give guys space to do so, Reed was reading a book and was lights out before 10 because he understood his body's need for sleep if he wanted to perform at the level that he aspired to.

There was only one thing he ever cared about and that was being the best hockey player around—and it showed.

And for a long time, the guys respected him for that.

Sure he was quiet.

Sure he was particular.

Sure he was a little weird sometimes with his food habits.

But as long as he continued to help the team win, the team didn't seem to care.

That is until we took a trip to Suncoast in 2015.

The Coach at the time mandated a team dinner—pretty standard practice on road trips.

The dinner was fine, guys chirping each other, talking about their playoff chances, talking about who they thought was going to face who in the first round.

And then—as it always does—conversation turned to women.

Now mind you, over half the team were in committed relationships at the time, but if you've ever been around hockey players you know that doesn't mean much.

Don't get me wrong, there's tons of really good guys in the hockey world with wives and kids and white picket fences who genuinely love their partners.

But hockey culture breeds infidelity and that is never more apparent than when you shove a group of testosterone overdosed men around a table and someone starts talking about women.

I will say, that part is the worst part of working for a hockey team.

Half these players treat women like objects, conquests for them to brandish around in the form of left behind panties or photos that get passed around the table with no regard for the woman's privacy.

If you try to shut it down, the team turns on you.

Unless it comes from the top, players don't stop, and on the 2015 team the misogyny was rampant—especially from the coach himself.

In all the years I've known Reed, he's only ever made one singular mistake, and it was on that road trip.

What was the mistake you ask?

He hesitated when Coach asked him why he never picked up at home or on trips.

And it was that hesitation that changed it all.

Couldn't have been more than a second either, but he obviously wasn't expecting to be put on the spot by his own coach of all people, and as soon as he hesitated the room was on him like a pack of wolves.

If you've ever listened to Reed's interviews you can imagine what he said at that moment.

"I'm focused on hockey right now.

I'm focused on winning.

I'm focused on bringing home the Cup."

But it wasn't enough for them, and before long the ugly part of hockey culture had reared its head:

If you don't pick up women, it must be because you're gay, and you can't be gay, because gay people don't belong in hockey.

I don't even remember how it ended per se—I think it might have been one of the assistant coaches who shut it down—but I can tell you this with confidence:

Reed never raised his voice.

He never defended himself, never denied it, never confirmed it.

He sat there and took every barb thrown his way, stood up and told everyone he'd see them for lines the next day.

And the next day?

That man was possessed.

If you thought he was dominant before, that was nothing compared to the Reed Calloway we saw after being accused of being gay by his own teammates.

The Wanderers hardly lost a game for the rest of the season and in the playoffs Reed was unstoppable.

If he could have brought that President's Shield home single handedly, he would have done it through his own blood, sweat and tears.

And the guys?

They shut up, because they were winning.

But it was there.

It was there in 2016 too.

Some of the guys were good, Mason and Remy and a few of the others.

Some players would poke fun at Reed, but he never rose to take the bait, and by the end of 2016 the Glenfield Wanderers were 2x President's Shield Champions.

But the discontent stayed and so did the homophobic comments in the locker room and on the ice.

All the way up to Reed dating Rose Briggs.

As soon as their relationship was confirmed, the dynamic in the locker room changed too.

Guys started showering at the same time as Reed again.

Guiltily, I didn't notice that they had stopped until suddenly 10 guys were in the shower at once with him and not just a couple.

Reed noticed it too.

He laughed when guys teased him, smiled when he was supposed to smile, acted coy when guys pressed for details about his newfound sex life.

But his eyes?

His eyes told the true story.

And then he and Rose broke up.

He told the room that their schedules didn't align, that she was going to Europe for a new movie, and that Reed needed to focus on hockey.

Before, people might not have believed him.

But this time the guys did—he had proven his straightness.

He was one of the guys again.

That straightness lasted barely a year.

I know, because I was in the room in 2018 when Reed gave up trying to be who the team wanted and decided to start being himself.

I was minding my own business (as I am paid to do) collecting equipment in the middle of the room and sorting them into different bins so everything could be washed before the next game when the team decided they were going out to celebrate their 5-game win streak.

As I'm sure you can imagine, Reed said no. He was tired; just wanted to go home and sleep.

But the guys insisted—he needed to find a new woman after Rose, so why not come out with them?

There were plenty of hot women in Glenfield.

I'll remember this until the day I die because Reed just...

stopped.

I couldn't tell you what was going on behind his eyes, but for some reason he had decided that this was the day he would set them all straight (Edit:

Ha, I didn't notice I did this until it was pointed out below) and you could tell the guys knew it too because the room got really quiet really quick.

Chapter 1

The truth doesn't come out the way anyone expected.

If it wasn't for the fact that this was a near daily occurrence, Reed might have chalked it up as the cutest thing he had ever seen.

r/glenfieldwanderers • 11h ago

mrvoyageur

Reed Calloway Didn't Leave the Wanderers:

He Was Forced Out

I [46M] have worked for the Glenfield Wanderers for 19 years.

In that time I've seen Reed Calloway grow from a shy awkward teenager with a spotlight on his head, to the man he is today:

Reed isn't just good: he's the best of the best.

Which makes the rest of what I'm going to say so much worse.

Reed joined the Wanderers in 2010.

In that first season he was quiet, but his talent was undeniable.

In the locker room and on the bench, he often made himself as small as possible, never joining in on chirps or ganging up on another guy.

He was always just there, quietly in the background, the first one to practice and the last one to leave.

His locker was always the tidiest and his mannerisms always the politest.

This is something that would carry through to the rest of his career.

By age 20, Reed Calloway was named captain of the Glenfield Wanderers and if you thought he was committed before, Captain Reed Calloway was a whole different beast.

And you know what?

It worked.

Some guys resented it at first.

I heard them push back on him in the locker room.

But he never relented, never raised his voice, never tolerated discontent.

So the players would run lines and the Wanderers would win like clockwork.

He was creating a powerhouse.

In all my years working in hockey, I have never seen a player like Reed.

His talent is undeniable, his commitment unwavering, and his performance on the ice mind-blowing year after year without fail.

While the rest of the guys wanted to go out and party after a win, Reed wanted to go home.

There was only one thing he ever cared about and that was being the best hockey player around—and it showed.

And for a long time, the guys respected him for that.

Sure he was quiet.

Sure he was particular.

Sure he was a little weird sometimes with his food habits.

But as long as he continued to help the team win, the team didn't seem to care.

That is until we took a trip to Suncoast in 2015.

The Coach at the time mandated a team dinner—pretty standard practice on road trips.

The dinner was fine, guys chirping each other, talking about their playoff chances, talking about who they thought was going to face who in the first round.

And then—as it always does—conversation turned to women.

Now mind you, over half the team were in committed relationships at the time, but if you've ever been around hockey players you know that doesn't mean much.

Don't get me wrong, there's tons of really good guys in the hockey world with wives and kids and white picket fences who genuinely love their partners.

But hockey culture breeds infidelity and that is never more apparent than when you shove a group of testosterone overdosed men around a table and someone starts talking about women.

I will say, that part is the worst part of working for a hockey team.

If you try to shut it down, the team turns on you.

Unless it comes from the top, players don't stop, and on the 2015 team the misogyny was rampant—especially from the coach himself.

In all the years I've known Reed, he's only ever made one singular mistake, and it was on that road trip.

What was the mistake you ask?

He hesitated when Coach asked him why he never picked up at home or on trips.

And it was that hesitation that changed it all.

If you've ever listened to Reed's interviews you can imagine what he said at that moment.

"I'm focused on hockey right now.

I'm focused on winning.

I'm focused on bringing home the Cup."

But it wasn't enough for them, and before long the ugly part of hockey culture had reared its head:

If you don't pick up women, it must be because you're gay, and you can't be gay, because gay people don't belong in hockey.

I don't even remember how it ended per se—I think it might have been one of the assistant coaches who shut it down—but I can tell you this with confidence:

Reed never raised his voice.

He never defended himself, never denied it, never confirmed it.

He sat there and took every barb thrown his way, stood up and told everyone he'd see them for lines the next day.

And the next day?

That man was possessed.

If you thought he was dominant before, that was nothing compared to the Reed Calloway we saw after being accused of being gay by his own teammates.

The Wanderers hardly lost a game for the rest of the season and in the playoffs Reed was unstoppable.

If he could have brought that President's Shield home single handedly, he would have done it through his own blood, sweat and tears.

And the guys?

They shut up, because they were winning.

But it was there.

It was there in 2016 too.

Some of the guys were good, Mason and Remy and a few of the others.

Some players would poke fun at Reed, but he never rose to take the bait, and by the end of 2016 the Glenfield Wanderers were 2x President's Shield Champions.

But the discontent stayed and so did the homophobic comments in the locker room and on the ice.

All the way up to Reed dating Rose Briggs.

As soon as their relationship was confirmed, the dynamic in the locker room changed too.

Guys started showering at the same time as Reed again.

Guiltily, I didn't notice that they had stopped until suddenly 10 guys were in the shower at once with him and not just a couple.

Reed noticed it too.

He laughed when guys teased him, smiled when he was supposed to smile, acted coy when guys pressed for details about his newfound sex life.

But his eyes?

His eyes told the true story.

And then he and Rose broke up.

He told the room that their schedules didn't align, that she was going to Europe for a new movie, and that Reed needed to focus on hockey.

Before, people might not have believed him.

But this time the guys did—he had proven his straightness.

He was one of the guys again.

That straightness lasted barely a year.

I know, because I was in the room in 2018 when Reed gave up trying to be who the team wanted and decided to start being himself.

As I'm sure you can imagine, Reed said no. He was tired; just wanted to go home and sleep.

But the guys insisted—he needed to find a new woman after Rose, so why not come out with them?

There were plenty of hot women in Glenfield.

I'll remember this until the day I die because Reed just...

stopped.

I couldn't tell you what was going on behind his eyes, but for some reason he had decided that this was the day he would set them all straight (Edit:

Ha, I didn't notice I did this until it was pointed out below) and you could tell the guys knew it too because the room got really quiet really quick.