“Just meet the coach.”

That’s what Sara Wacker Johnson had been saying to her friend Julie Lorraine Estrada Ewart again and again for nearly two years before Ms. Estrada Ewart finally agreed to meet Robert James Bishop, Ms. Johnson’s son’s ice hockey coach.

The two, along with Ms. Johnson and her husband Ryan, met for dinner and drinks at Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, Calif., on June 25, 2021. “I’ll always remember the date because it was the day before my son Evan’s 18th birthday,” Ms. Estrada Ewart said.

Ms. Estrada Ewart was drinking Cabernet that night and was giving Mr. Bishop a hard time for drinking Coors Light. “I kept offering him a ‘real’ drink.” But when they went back to his apartment that night, she discovered his wine collection. “I realized there was hope for him yet,” Ms. Estrada Ewart, 53, said. “We ended up making out like teenagers on his couch.”

Despite the teasing, when the evening ended, Mr. Bishop, 51, said, “I really wanted to see her again.” And he did, the very next day.