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The red figure and his teammates triple-teamed me, the puck passing between three sticks like a pinball. I couldn’t keep up. A stick ripped through the air, and less than ten seconds into my first NHL start, a puck sailed into the netbehind me.
The blaring goal horn buried my curse, but the audience didn’t let that stop them and, after a brief pause of confusion as they tried to understand what just happened, erupted. The boards surrounding us shook as fists rained down on them. The yelling and cursing that spewed from the crowd was terrifying, and I was glad it was directed at my team instead of me. They deserved it.
To their credit, they didn’t try to defend themselves. Our starting line stood in the middle of the ice, where they hadn’t moved since the initial fight for the puck, and accepted the boos and hissed curses from the crowd. It was the consequence of betraying their fans.
The players on the bench were getting the same treatment. Hundreds of people were screaming. Someone threw a drink over the boards and into the benches. A few of my teammates looked nervous at the backlash, but none of them glanced in my direction. At the end of the bench, Mason looked over our team with disgust.
Even the referees didn’t know what to do.
The only person who met my stare was Coach Hansson, his arms crossed, trapping hisclipboard.
“Are you sorry?” I mouthed through my mask.
His chin lifted, stubborn and as unmovable as the rest of him.
“What the fuck?” an accented voice asked inconfusion.
Right. The Piranhas. Five opposing players stood around my net, looking shocked and a little petrified at the noise. They hadn’t even celebrated their shot. Pierre Babin, the French right winger who dumped the puck through my legs, skatedup to me.
“What isgoing on?”
“Oh. Don’t worry about it, Babin. It was a good shot, but you should go back to center ice. We’ve got a game to play.” I kicked the puck out of the net and smiled at him sharply but toned it down when he winced. Maybe that grin was a little too crazy. Unfortunately, I had a feeling I would need the crazy for the rest ofthe game.
Babin and his team skated back to where my team was getting back into position. There was no need for a line change after such a short play. Jones took the face-off position, the Blizzards spreading out behind them, and I wondered if they were going to actually help this play. They kept their eyes on the ice.I scoffed.
As if he heard me from across the ice, Kingston looked up from his position and caught my gaze, his grey eyes as icy as the rink below our feet. His face was stone, unapologetic, and I recognized the look from the times I’d seen him play and from the hours of game tape I’d watched, studying him. Just like Coach, he wasn’t flustered in the slightest. It looked like I would be fighting two hockey teams tonight.
I arched an eyebrow through my mask and smirked at him.
Alright, you little bastards, bring it on!
It was a brutal five minutes, but I was holding steady at an impressive four pucks in and eighteen stopped. Admittedly not what most NHL goalies would call impressive, but I think I had the right to call extenuating circumstances. The boos from the crowd hadn’t put a dent in Coach Hansson’s resolve, and the first period continued with me facing down every Piranha play almost entirely by myself. My team only helped with the occasional steal, minimal defense, and half-ass skates toward the Piranhas’ goal. They didn’t usually get far before a Piranha stopped them, stole the puck back, and then came at me. What was worse, I was pretty sure the Piranhas were going a little easy on me; I hadn’t been triple-teamed in three minutes. God, my opponent felt sorry for me.
I took a much-needed water break as the teams switched shifts and set up the nextface-off.
“Come the hell on,” Mason screamed from the bench and slammed his stick against the boards. He hadn’t set foot on the ice yet—no doubt Hansson’s doing. From Mason’s reaction earlier, he had no idea what the team was planning. I knew if he had, he would have told me. Unfortunately, Hansson seemed to know that too. To stop him from going rogue and stealing the puck, he had been effectively benched.
I smiled and returned my water bottle to its place atop the net. At least one person was on my side.
The crowd echoed Mason’s anger. Well, okay. Maybe more than one person had by back. I could only imagine what my brother was screaming somewhere in the stands right now. Knowing Drew, it wouldn’tbe pretty.
I settled into my crease and locked eyes on my rubber target.
How our team managed to accidentally come up with the next puck, I don’t know. But it was quickly stripped from them, and once again, I was facing down a Piranha breakaway. I shimmied in the net with anticipation.
Surprisingly, my team followed and tried to steal back the puck. With every new play, my team tried a bit harder to act like the professional athletes that they were. But as it was, with them mostly on lack-luster defense, I felt like I was a kid playing with a bunch of puck-shytoddlers.
Jones managed to move his ass in front of the puck, but Russo, the Piranha center, shot it between his legs. Across the ice, Babin came up with the puck and headed my way. A quarter down the rink, with no one between me and him, Babin shot with no hassle. No hassle forhim, at least. The puck took flight. My glove raised to meet it, but it curved at the last second and headed for my face.
The tiny rubber disk deflected off the side of my helmet, the force blowing the straps off my mask and sending me stumbling into the post of the net. I caught myself before I could collapse and locked my knees. Like hell was I about to showweakness.
I breathed through the hellish ringing in my head and rolled my neck. Luckily, the puck didn’t hit me head-on. It was just a light graze. Even through the finishing of Beethoven’s Fifth in my ears, I could tell that the crowd had fallen silent for the first time since the beginning of the game. I dropped my glove and felt around my mask. Everything was intact. I could keep on playing. But the sound of frantic skates pierced through the ringing, and I looked up to see the starting line closingin on me.
“Woah, woah, woah.” I held up my gloveless hand to ward them off. “I’m all good, guys.Honestly.”
“You sure?” Jones asked, his brow furrowed. That was unexpected.
I glanced around, and sure enough, the rest of the team had similar expressions. Even Kingston was looking me over carefully. On the bench, the team was standing, half a second away from launching onto the ice. A team doctor came rushing to the rink door. I caught his eyes, made a slashing motion across my throat, then gave him a thumbs up. There was no need for medical attention. The ringing was already almost gone.
