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I’d been to hundreds of scrimmages, but never one this serious. Every one of the players and coaches were here. Hell, even the owner was here, along with AHL scouts, ex-players, and a crowd of people larger than any one of our games — even the time we played the Scorgasms in the finals.
Best of all, the planets had finally aligned. I was playing my best game in a worst-case scenario; a two-period shutout against one of the most offensive teams in the junior pro division. Our defense was being badly beaten, but I’d stopped shots that dropped jaws. I’d come out of the crease to foil three separate breakaway attempts, and even caught a fourth between my waffle and the side of my lucky mask.
None of this, of course, made Darren very happy.
“You’re in,” coach Veraldi signaled to him at the start of the third. He jerked a thumb toward me. “Be like him and keep the puck out of the net.”
The starting goalie — who hadn’t started the scrimmage — gave me such a venomous look of utter disdain I had to laugh. My laughter made things worse, of course. His lips were curled back, his face a cherry red color by the time he flipped his mask down and skated off, just as the ref was bringing the centers together for the face-off.
I watched from the bench, enduring a few rough but congratulatory back-pats from my fellow teammates. I’d played well and they knew it. Outclassed and outgunned, they were doing the best they could against a semi-pro team. Yet we were still in this because of me.
It felt totally strange, looking around my bench and not seeing Tyler, or Axel. There was no Blake, no Aaron, no Nathan, no Kyle. There was more seriousness and paying attention to the game at hand, and a lot less fucking around. The surface we were playing on was beautifully-kept, instead of run-down. Even the crowd was foreign to me.
I couldn’t think about any of these things, though. Not at the moment, at least. Ariana had been right; this was the chance I never took — the one last shot at something bigger and better than anything we’d done before. If I had to walk this path without my friends by my side, so be it. They’d have to understand. I already decided that I really fucking wanted this. In the back of my mind, I always had.
BZZZZZZZZZTTTT!
The crowd on one side of the little arena erupted as one of the teams finally scored. It wasn’t our team, unfortunately.
“Dammit!”
I thought I heard the head coach swear, then realized it was the owner. He seemed like a nice enough guy, with even nicer kids — twin boys and a little girl. They played on the ice between periods, skating awkwardly, holding hands. It dragged up fond old memories of when I first learned to lace up my skates.
Right now though, the owner had come down to the seats just above the bench. He was talking animatedly to the head coach, and he didn’t look pleased. The entire bench went church-quiet, almost instantly. Including me.
Then he pointed at me… and I saw the head coach shrug.
“He’s mad that coach pulled you.”
The voice belonged to Troy, my left-winger. He elbowed me subtly as he said it.
“It’s only a scrimmage,” I muttered. “It’s not like—“
“He should’ve left you out there,” Troy said firmly, staring down at his stick. “You’re on fire right now. You don’t pull someone who’s playing like that.”
The game resumed, and the owner headed back to his seat. Troy’s hair was matted to his forehead by a line of sweat. He wiped it away before it could drip into his eyes.
“Scrimmage or no scrimmage, we want to win this one.”
I watched him hop over the boards at the next shift change. Before he made it back however, the other team scored again.
“FUCK!”
One of our defensemen was cursing now. A guy who’d been grateful, because earlier I saved two breakaways that had gotten around him.
“This isn’t—“
The assistant coach got a signal, and held up his hands in a ‘T.’ The referee blew the whistle. Everyone skated over for the time out.
Everyone except our goalie, Darren.
“Get in here!” coach Veraldi demanded, waving his arm.
Darren pretended not to see or hear. He was tipping his mask up and reaching for his water bottle when one of the line refs tapped him and pointed to our bench.
He shook his head angrily. Eventually he skated over, hanging back outside the circle of players who were already talking to the coach.
“SIT DOWN,” the head coach told him angrily. The coach then looked at me, and waved me in.
