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ALL AROUND THENational Hockey League, there are guys who have reputations for being clutch. They’re the sort of guy who, when his team reaches overtime of Game Seven, everyone in the stands and on the team wants the puck to be on his stick. Those guys score huge goals in even more important games. They lay jaw-dropping hits that change the tone of not just a game but an entire series, maybe even instigating a rivalry with another team that will last for years to come. They fight the right guys at the right times to drag their teams back into the fray. They’re the ones who always seem to play their best when the stage is at its biggest and the stakes are at their highest.
My older brother was one of those guys. Jamie was the golden boy, the one who could do no wrong. He was the captain of the Portland Storm, the team we both played for. He was the guy who, whenever our team needed a spark, found the perfect moment to put the whole team on his back and carry us to the finish line. Hell, he’d just done it last postseason. We wouldn’t have gotten to the Stanley Cup Finals if not for the way he’d dragged us along with him. Jamie got shit done. He made people believe—in him, and in us.
His life was about as close to perfect as humanly possible. This past summer he even married Katie Weber, one of Hollywood’s darlings from a couple of years ago. In almost every area of life, Jamie could do no wrong.
But me? Clutch? Don’t make me laugh.
I was not that guy. Or at least I wasn’t any longer, now that I was a pro hockey player. The scouts had all thought I was clutch. That was why I’d been drafted so high a few years back. Bet they regretted their decision now. My whole life, I’d always felt as if I were a step or two behind Jamie, but once we got to the NHL, the distance had grown. Now the gulf between us stretched for miles.
Instead of being clutch, I was the guy who’d had the puck on my stick when my team was up by a goal with seconds left in Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals. We were down three games to one in the series, so we had to win. The Lightning had pulled their goalie for an extra attacker. I had a clear path to the net and no one was close enough to catch me. But instead of shooting it in, I’d lost an edge, tripped over my own two fucking feet, and fallen on my ass. I couldn’t get up again in time to stop Stamkos from sweeping the puck away from me, skating it into the zone, and putting it past my goaltender to send us to overtime.
Where we lost.
Which meant it was over.
The series-clinching goal had even bounced in off the blade of my stick.
We hadn’t simply lost the game. We’d lost everything we’d worked for the entire season. Eighty-two games in the regular season. Twenty-six more in the playoffs. All gone.
Yeah, that was me these days. My brother was a hero, but I was a fucking goat.
None of the guys ever gave me shit over it, especially not Jamie. I doubted he had any clue just how fucking jealous I was of him. Even if he was aware, he didn’t do anything to make my resentment worse beyond being himself.
Those are the breaks, the guys would say to my face. Shit happens. We’ll be better next year. I knew better than to think they truly thought that way or said things like that when I wasn’t around, though. The fans weren’t anywhere near as discreet about their thoughts on my ineptitude. Hell, #damnit501 trended on Twitter nearly every time we played this season, especially in the Portland area. There was no escaping the truth: I was the guy always letting everyone down, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.
I’d never been as good as Jamie, despite spending every waking minute of my life trying to live up to his hype, but I’d never sucked so bad before.
There was nothing I wanted more in life these days than to be better than him at something. I didn’t even care what, right now. Underwater basket weaving. Filling up a gas tank and stopping with zeroes in the cents columns. Fastest balloon animal creator. It didn’t matter, exactly.
Part of me wished Jim Sutter, the Storm’s general manager, hadn’t made a trade on draft day in order to claim me, even though that was crazy talk.
The hockey media spent hours reminding me and the rest of the world that my draft class had been a hell of a lot thinner than the year he’d been drafted, too, as if that was the reason I’d been drafted higher than he had. They all thought if we’d been drafted in the same year, I might not have even gone in the first round.
If my older brother and I played for different teams, maybe he wouldn’t constantly be in my head. Maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to prove myself, to find my own niche where I could excel.
But that wasn’t how things had worked out.
The Storm had drafted me, and instead of finally stepping out from under Jamie’s shadow, I now doubted I would ever have an opportunity to be anything other than the second-best Babcock brother.
I had hope—slim hope, but still—that tonight would help me escape from the bullshit running on repeat in my head, at least for a bit. If nothing else, at least there’d be plenty of beer around for me to drown my sorrows in.
All my inadequacies were fresh on my mind as I headed in for Keith Burns’s big New Year’s Eve party, because my bad puck luck had reared its ugly fucking head in tonight’s game, the same as it always did.
I’d tried to clear a puck out of Nicky’s crease, but instead I’d nudged the damned thing into our goal to put the Sharks up, when it had been a tie game. Jamie had come through for us about five minutes later. He’d tied the score and, once again, saved the day.
As if that weren’t enough, he’d scored the game winner in overtime, just for shits and giggles, I supposed.
He and his now-wife, Katie, had arrived at Burnzie’s enormous mansion on the river well before me. Usually for New Year’s Eve, a lot of us got dragged into doing a charity event for the Light the Lamp Foundation. This year, they’d bumped the festivities back due to the founder’s wife, Noelle Kallen, giving birth a few days ago in Sweden and the foundation’s local vice-president and our goaltender’s wife, Jessica Ericsson, being on bedrest and due to pop with Nicky’s first baby within a few weeks. Instead, the big event had been moved to St. Patrick’s Day, and Lord knew what Jessica had in store for us then. Nicky said she was constantly on her phone and her laptop, even in bed.
So much for getting rest.
I parked behind Jamie’s car on the overcrowded street out front. When I reached the sidewalk, it was to find Jonny and Sara already at the door, along with some petite blonde with curves that went on for days. I’d almost missed the blonde because Jonny’s massive frame blocked her from my view, but she shifted and I caught a glimpse of her adorable smile as she looked up at him. Jonny’s shiny bald head reflected Burnzie’s Christmas lights. But I didn’t have a clue who she was. Sara didn’t have any siblings, and Jonny’s sisters all had dark brown hair similar to mine. I did know she was a hot little package.
There weren’t any kids with them tonight. Jonny must have hired a babysitter. At least Connor wouldn’t be jumping up and down on my balls all night.
It had been almost a year since that night at the Winter Games, but he still stomped on my nuts every time he could land his sticky little hands on me, giggling the whole time like it was the highlight of his four-year-old life. I’d be lucky if I could ever have kids of my own after all his rough treatment, not that I was in any big hurry to start a family.
I got the sense that Jonny encouraged his son, but he’d never admit it.
