Chapter Five
Aiden
Hockey is a year-round sport. Yes, the season is only six to eight months depending on if you make it to the playoffs but even now during our off-season the Spears are holding an exhibition game.
A way for us to show off our skills and to keep ourselves in winning shape.
It’s a double-edged sword though, because as much as this game is just for fun the stands will be filled with mostly Spears fans wanting to see us coming out on top and the players of our opposing team from Toronto will be gunning for the win.
We are supposed to keep it fun and yet every year this is one of the games I tie myself up in knots about the most.
I feel like I always lose. Either I upset the fans by losing or I upset the Spears management by taking it too seriously.
They want me to always be gracious and make friends with the other team but it feels so insincere.
I’m usually a master at having that balance but tonight I can’t find it.
Tonight I’m on edge and I think I’m throwing the vibes off for all of my teammates.
My mind is still so filled with thoughts of how I have let my parents down and now here I am having to pick who I’m going to annoy.
For the first time in my career I feel like I can’t make my mind up.
I’m always so sure of my opinion; that’s what makes me a good captain.
I pick something and stick to it good or bad, I stand by my decisions.
That’s why this thing with Lyndsey is niggling under my skin because I can’t stand by that choice.
I have to admit that I was wrong. And I’m not used to that.
I’m sure I’ve made a bunch of mistakes in my life.
Hell, I have probably made a bunch of mistakes this year already and we are only halfway through the year.
Yet I can usually roll with the punches and move on to the next thing without lingering, but not this time.
All I can do is linger. Imagine every outcome and fill my head with what ifs.
It’s affecting my ability to play the game I love.
“Anders, what’s crawled up your ass, eh?” Rook hollers from across the room and instantly I feel my blood heat. A spark to the gasoline that I try to smother before I take everyone up in flames.
“Leave it, Rook.” My words are a lethal crack around the room, everyone hushes at the strange tone. They are used to me laughing everything off and bouncing back from anything. The mixture of every thought in my head multiplied by the fact I can’t talk to anybody about it is a powder keg.
“Jesus, dude, you good?” He laughs awkwardly, unsure of how to take my mood. A part of him probably thinks I’m joking, but when I turn to face him, I see the light humour in his eyes fading.
“Rook, I’m telling you now, for once mind your own business, yeah?” I speak slowly, needing him to hear me because I can only hold the dam of rage back for so long. The sound of my locker slamming shut is like a bullet silencing the rest of the room.
“Damn.” He rears back at the sound as though I have punched him.
His eyes dart around looking for someone to take the heat off of him but nobody comes to his rescue.
It should be my job. I’m the one defusing the tension usually between Rook and Edge and that thought makes me feel like shit all over again.
It’s as though a bucket of ice-cold water is tossed over me seeing my teammate feel bad because of me.
“Fuck, that was… Rook, I’m sorry.” I move across the locker room until I’m in front of him, putting my hand on his shoulder. This shit isn’t his fault, it’s my own.
“All good, Cap. We all have those days, eh, let’s go play some hockey.
” I can hear some hesitation laced in his voice but I know he won’t hold it against me.
He reminds me a lot of myself when I was the young kid on the team, wanting to be everyone’s friend while also thinking I was the best thing since sliced bread.
I needed guidance and he does too, that is the job I’m supposed to have.
I’m supposed to be the moral backbone of the team and still I find myself making stupid decision after stupid decision.
“Let’s go win some hockey!” I correct, officially telling my team exactly what I want from them on the ice. We are going to give the fans what they want and if the higher-ups have a problem with it? Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Or just avoid them until they forget.
The lights in the arena flash white and red, matching our Spears jerseys, as we skate out to the ground-shaking roar of the crowd.
Feet stomp and the glass around the rink vibrates as they knock on it to get our attention, but I try to block it out.
At a normal game I might skate around, smile and wave at the fans, maybe even wink at a few women in the audience.
An image pops into my mind, one of Lyndsey in the front row cheering for me.
My name on her back and a wedding band on her finger.
The rage I have just managed to temper flares back up again.
Never has a woman knocked me off my game and I won’t let that start now.
Still, as my eyes skim the crowd and the signs they are holding, every redhead draws my attention and a sick feeling comes over me that I’m disappointed she isn’t here.
Now my anger is focused solely on myself. The women I have slept with have no right to invade my mind when I’m doing my job and I haven’t even slept with Lyndsey. We woke up together but our underwear was intact, that means she has even less right to be in my mind right now.
Muscle memory kicks in as I skate to the centre of the ice for the puck drop.
I’m barely even paying attention to the people around me.
I’m trying so hard to focus but the harder I try the less attention I’m paying.
The whistle blows at my side and the puck hits the ice, I swing my stick out but I’m too slow.
The Toronto captain is three steps ahead as he hits the puck off to his players.
Anger bubbles in my chest hearing the fans boo at me.
All of their anger is focused on me, matching my own emotions.
I try to regroup but everything I try just seems to make things worse.
By the time I’m called off for a line change I’m actually glad to be off the ice.
I need to get myself together but, as we come closer to the end of the first period, we are two goals down and I know I’m to blame.
I do what I can to put on the face of the calm, collected man my teammates know and, when I step back on the ice during the second period, I’m almost feral in need of a win.
For the first time since the whistle blew, I have a solid grip on the puck.
I glide across the ice: the picture of a perfectly composed man ready to score a damn goal.
My feet weave in between Toronto’s players, my stick knocking away their advances.
The net is in my sights as I skirt around another player.
I can see Rook is open and as I go to slap the puck in his direction, I’m rocked into the boards.
It’s a dirty check, he not only throws his body into my ribs but he uses his stick to bat against my kneecaps. The sound of the crowd is drowned out by the thumping of my heartbeat in my ears. The red haze of rage I have been pushing back all damn night overtakes my body.
Before his body even has a chance to pick its weight off me, I’m throwing my gloves on the ice and swinging my bare fists into his head, knocking his helmet off with the force.
Pandemonium breaks out around us, but before I can get another hit in, Edge wedges himself in front of me, taking a hit from the asshole Canadian before using all of his force to push the asshole onto the ice and straddling his legs.
I stand behind him, my chest puffing as the haze slowly dissipates to see the scene around me of all the refs trying to pull Edge from his knees and barely being able to move his weight.
The captain in me takes over and I jump back into motion. Hooking one hand in the neck of his jersey I pull him back far enough so my head is next to his.
“Let him go,” I say slowly, and instantly Edge’s fists drop to his sides and he stands himself up. The refs come between us, yelling about Edge going into the penalty box, but before he lets them guide him away, he catches my eye.
“Get your shit together!” he yells, and only then does he turn away and skate into the box for five minutes for roughing.
I know he is right. Right there on the ice I struggle to stay on my blades.
Looking over at Coach Mitch he raises his eyebrows at me, asking if we are good, but I’m not.
I shake my head, almost imperceptibly, but he sees.
Nodding once, he calls me over and subs me out of the game. I’m no use to anyone in this state.
My team deserve to have the best chance to win and the captain in me knows that to do that I need to cut the dead weight, it just happens that tonight the dead weight is me.
Everyone else on the bench gives me a wide berth as I stomp to an open space and drop myself down.
This isn’t the type of man I am. I don’t even understand why I’m so affected?
I need this divorce as soon as possible because I can’t keep letting my team down like this just because of a woman.
Hopefully in a few weeks’ time I can go back to the man I like to be.
The flirt. The uplifter. The positivity when things go wrong. Not the reason things go wrong.
Mr Collins can’t file those papers quick enough if you ask me.
I’m too wrapped up in my temporary wife that it is affecting my game, this is why I never wanted to get married in the first place.
Marriage brings nothing but complications – just because my mom made my dad a better man, that isn’t the norm.
I have only been a husband for a week and I can’t wait for my life to go back to the way it should be.