Page 9 of Two for Roughing

He should never have gone for the full-body check in the first place, should have let bygones be bygones, maybe ended his shift early and switched out for a player who didn’t have a history with Howard. But he hadn’t seen Howard since the time they’d fucked savagely in Damir’s hotel room in San Francisco last year. Damir had missed the third and final game against the Sea Lions last season with a sprained ankle. He was unprepared for the sense memory of Howard’s red curls buried in the sheets as he begged for Damir’s dick, and he reacted with as much grace as any playground bully.

Damir had been lucky the refs had ruled it a two-minute minor for charging. If Howard hadn’t had the presence of mind to shield his head on impact with the boards and remain safe from concussion, it might have been another matter. Damir also hadn’t shrouded himself with glory in the aftermath, following Howard around the ice for the remainder of the game, fucking up the team’s penalty kill, and giving up more than a few scoring chances while he was at it.

Coach Simmons had chewed him out afterward in the locker room in front of the team, and Damir couldn’t pretend he’d been wrong.

He’d done his best to get over it by scoring six in the next five games with an additional three assists, earning him second star of the week from the NHL. And yet, the denizens of r/hockey still occupied themselves debating whether he ought to be traded or kicked out of the league for his sins. Couldn’t someone crash into a goalie and not get penalized so they’d have something else to debate?

Only a few of the comments explicitly blamed his lack of moral fiber on being a Muslim. They did get downvoted or removed, but plenty seemingly innocuous ones dealt in stereotypes, calling him violent or misogynistic. The proof of the latter, to Damir’s continued chagrin, was the godforsaken carpet munching comment. The internet was forever.

And then there were the “just kidding” ones.

Denisov is a terrorist on the ice. JK don’t @ me SJWs.

Denny suicide bombing Chi-town’s chances at a cup lol.

“Denny,” Ketchup said, elbowing Damir so sharply his phone dropped out of his hand and onto his bag. “You gotta get off the internet.”

Steve Heinz, otherwise known as Ketchup, was Damir’s seatmate in the locker room and his roommate at home. Buffalo traded him to Chicago midway through last season for a couple lower-round picks. Damir, as one of the team’s alternates who also happened to have no wife and twelve screaming children taking up space in his penthouse, was the natural person to offer up his guest room. Ketchup never got around to finding his own place.

Unfortunately, Ketchup had made an executive decision that this qualified them as friends, thereby allowing him to have opinions on Damir’s screen time.

Ketchup’s own internet habits oscillated between playing point-and-click hidden object puzzles with a buddy on Discord. He’d then go offline for weeks at a time in the summer to fish at some remote cabin in Canada, making him totally unfit to judge. Though Damir had to admit not knowing about TikTok sounded nice.

Not out loud though. It would do terrible things to Ketchup’s ego if Damir told him he was probably right about getting off the internet. Instead of saying anything, he grunted in response.

“Cap,” Ketchup called. “Denny’s reading his own press again.”

From the other side of the room, Captain Jacques “Lissy” Valisse glared. “Denny, put the phone away.”

“Practice is over,” Damir said. “You’re not the boss of me anymore.”

“I am always the boss of you.”

Damir wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like how that sounds.”

Ketchup grimaced in agreement. “I think it’s the accent.”

“Insubordination.” Lissy sniffed. “I cannot work under these circumstances. I tender my resignation, effective immediately. Rocky is in charge now.”

Willy “Rocky” Stone, the other alternate, a defenseman who lived up to the nickname in that he was as dumb as rocks, rolled his eyes and stomped off toward the showers.

“Um.” One of the rookies glanced between them all with wide eyes.

“Lissy threatens to quit two or three times a month,” Henderson, the backup goalie, told him with a gentle pat to his shoulder. “I wouldn’t take it too seriously.”

“You will see. When I am traded to Alaska, you will all miss me.”

“Mm-hm. And which Alaskan hockey team will you be going to exactly?” Damir unbuckled his chest protector, getting ready to hit the showers. He knew checking his phone right after practice was a bad habit. For one, the internet was full of people who wanted him off the team and out of the country, and for another, it prolonged how long he spent sitting in his stall in rank, sweaty hockey gear. His hair dripped with cold sweat, and he shuddered in revulsion.

Lissy sauntered over, naked except for the towel slung around his waist. Wiry hair covered his chest and trailed down his thick torso. His beard was immaculately cared for, and his dark, wavy hair fell almost to his shoulders. During their annual posing for the Chicago Firecrackers charity calendar, Lissy went shirtless. He could pull it off, but Damir wasn’t into bears.

“What are you reading this time, Denny?”

Damir sighed. “Reddit.”

“You know only cave trolls and armchair coaches go on Reddit. Are you an armchair coach?”

“No.”