Chanting Like Warriors
Forest
Divina has it covered, though. Literally. She strips down to a sports bra in a shade of blue that’s not too far off the Ice Cats shade, and then twirls her sweatshirt overhead, joining Scully, who’s now doing the same.
My face is on fire.
“Dad,” Charlie hisses. “Come on. You’re embarrassing us!”
“I’m the one?—?”
“Do it for Beck,” Scully says firmly (as well as half-nakedly). “He stuck his neck out for us. It’s time to repay the favor.”
My face is boiling, but I know the man has a point. And another thing? I used to be the guy at the party who had all the big ideas. The first one to pour the shots. The first one to turn up the music.
But now I’m this guy—the one who thinks of ten different reasons not to do something. The worrier who ruins everyone else’s fun.
I’ve got my reasons. But Jesus. This is a real hockey emergency, and I’ve got to show some spirit. I drop my coat onto the seat and wrestle my sweater over my head.
“That’s it, Dad!” Charlie hoots, jumping around. “Show some spirit. Now all we need is a chant.”
“LET’S-GO-ICE-CATS!” Scully yells. Then he claps five times in a familiar rhythm.
“LET’S-GO-ICE-CATS!” the whole section yells after him.
With a sigh, I yank my T-shirt off, and the cold rink air slaps my chest. “LET’S-GO-ICE-CATS!” Clap. Clap. Clap-clap-clap.
Man, this better work, because I feel pretty ridiculous right now. A tiger doesn’t change his stripes just because a goalie with dimples bought him a beer.
There are a lot of us, suddenly. Baring our chests and whirling our shirts. Chanting like warriors. “This is eighty percent stupid and twenty percent inspiring,” I grumble.
“Like most things!” Scully says cheerily. “And look—your boy is about to notice us.”
“It’d be kinda hard not to.”
But Scully is right. There’s a stop in play, and Beck rises to his full height. He pushes up the cage on his mask and swivels toward the sound of chanting.
I can tell precisely when he spots us. Charlie swings that jersey like he’s trying to signal a plane down from the sky. Scully’s yelling. Divina’s got her sweatshirt overhead like a maniac cheerleader. And I’m standing here shirtless in a hockey arena, chanting like a frat boy with something to prove.
Beck’s gaze finds mine, and he goes still in the net. Frozen. Just stunned.
And for a half second, I’m afraid we fucked up—that we might have yanked him even further out of the zone.
Then I watch a slow smile spread across his face. He shakes his head, lowers his mask’s cage, and squares off his body toward the face-off circle.
He drops back into his stance, and in the next couple of minutes, something changes. Beck looks a little more solid somehow, and so do his teammates, the speed of their play ramping up a notch. The whole stadium is chanting now, as if this is the final three minutes of a Stanley Cup playoff game.
It seems to help, too. Their opponents lose a little of their confidence. They’ve still got the puck, but they look a little less dangerous.
The next shot comes—routine, low blocker—and Beck handles it like it’s nothing. No scrambling, no second guessing. He steers the rebound right to his defenseman and slams his stick on the ice once, loud and sharp.
He’s back.
No—he’s better. He starts moving like he’s skating on instinct again. Snapping up pucks, squaring up fast, tracking every shot like it personally offended him. He even chirps one of the forwards on the other team after a glove save, and I know he chirped him, because I can see the grin through his damn mask.
The Ice Cats score with only eight minutes into the period, and I feel like I’m watching a whole team light up from the inside. And maybe my judgment’s been infected by the raucousness happening all around me, but I feel like we stoked that fire. Like maybe, just maybe, the half-naked fans in row D yelling our hearts out for a goalie who needed a lift, made an impact on this game.
Kinda funny that one of the reasons I came tonight was to prove I could be chill about this. That Beck was just a friend. But right now? Watching him move like he’s got something to fight for? Yeah. I’m not chill at all.
