Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Brandon
“We’ve got this,” Coach Chris says, his voice calm and even as he gives us our pregame pep talk before puck drop.
“We’re three games ahead of them; we have some breathing room.
They’re the ones feeling tight right now.
Not us. They don’t want to be swept. Which means they’re going to come at us hard, and if they’re desperate enough, sloppy.
Be ready. Take advantage. And most importantly, don’t let up the pressure. ”
“Yes, Coach!” we all say together.
“It’ll be light work, Coach,” Danton says cheerfully. He’s all smiles. He has been for pretty much this entire playoff run. It’s easy to see he’s having the time of his life.
I am too. Even if my pounding heart rate betrays me.
I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this. A part of me hopes not.
Because if this begins to feel normal, if it doesn’t get my nerves set on edge, then I fear it will have lost its excitement.
And I never want to lose my love for this game or my appreciation for being in a position where I can experience this.
“Oh, no!” Ryan yells out beside me.
“Baby looks like he might throw up again,” Ivanov says.
I roll my eyes at both of them. “I’m not going to throw up.”
“You might,” Roysy says. “You had two helpings of chicken parm.”
Clemmers nods his head and smiles his toothless grin. “It was quite good. Would be a waste for you to puke it up.”
“I’m. Not. Going. To. Throw. Up.”
“If you say so,” Ryan says and taps me on the butt with his stick as he skates away.
“Remember,” Ivanov says as he places his goalie-gloved hand on my head. “Aim for the other team’s garbage can.”
Okay, I do kind of feel like I might get sick. But that’s how I always feel before a game. It’s just pregame jitters. Part of my routine. And apparently, it’s now part of the team’s routine to tease me about it. I guess I really have become one of them.
“Well, look who it is,” Richie says to me and Ryan as we reach the face-off dot at center ice. “If it isn’t the happy couple.”
“McDaniel,” Ryan says, his tone cool and dismissive. “Fancy seeing you here. I hadn’t realized your suspension was up.”
“You knew damn well my suspension was up,” McDaniel spits.
“To be honest,” Ryan says, “I didn’t even register your absence from the last two games. You know, the ones where we beat your team, twice.”
“Fuck you, asshole,” McDaniel says. He looks at me. His eyes are angry, and his skin is flushed red. “I hope you’re ready to fight tonight, Brando. No turtling up again this time.”
A ref blows his whistle and skates between us, creating some distance. “That’s enough,” he says and stares right at McDaniel. “Cool off, or I’ll send you back to your bench.” He then turns to me and Ryan. “And stop instigating.”
Ryan points at McDaniel with his stick. “He started it. All I wanted to do was get this game going. Let my face-off win speak for me.”
“Well, now’s your chance, Christianson,” the ref says and holds up the puck. “Everyone, get into position. This game starts in five…”
Ryan
“Four… three… two…”
The puck drops on “one” and I get my stick on it well before Richie even realizes it’s hit the ice. I send it out behind me to where I know Brandon is waiting. And he’s off like lightning. O’Shea is right in line with him on the left side of the ice.
We beat Minnesota into their offensive zone, but their goalie is ready for us. I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s had three games to figure us out. Three games to get used to my line rushing towards him as fast as we can.
Brandon passes the puck across the ice, landing it perfectly on the tape of O’Shea’s stick. He fakes left, then slides right and releases the perfect wrist shot that unfortunately hits the crossbar, sending a loud pinging sound across the ice.
The puck deflects towards the boards where O’Shea dashes to it and ends up in a wall battle with Minnesota’s biggest defenseman. I skate over to help him out, crashing into the Minnesota player, causing him to lose some of the control he had over the battle.
O’Shea seizes that chance and chips the puck to Brandon, who’s waiting in front of the net. There are three Minnesota players surrounding him, including McDaniel.
But Brandon is quick, and he gets his stick on the puck just enough to flick it past their goalie and into the net. It wasn’t a pretty goal, but goddamn, was it a good one.
Brandon
Over the sound of the goal horn blaring and our packed barn of fans cheering, I can’t make out what Richie is taunting me with.
I can, however, feel his anger when he uses his stick to cross-check me across my chest.
Ryan appears at my side, skating to a sharp stop. He pushes Richie. “That was a dirty shot.”
“What are you? Brandon’s babysitter?” Richie asks. He eyes Ryan up and down.
Ryan grins devilishly at him. “Jealous?”
“Of Brandon?” Richie laughs, but it sounds bitter. “Fuck, no. He’d still be rotting away at UDub if it wasn’t for your shitty team.”
Ryan casually points up at the scoreboard. “According to that, we’re actually not shitty.” He turns to look at me. “How did you survive all those years playing with this guy?”
I shrug and smile at both of them. Sure, Richie just cross-checked me, and if the game wasn’t in time out due to me scoring, that would have been a major penalty, but still. I get it. Hockey is an emotional game. “He wasn’t always an asshole when we played together.”
“Fuck you, Brandon,” Richie says as he cross-checks me again. This time sending me off balance.
Danton catches me from behind, then pushes me away from McDaniel towards the bench. “Go get your fist bumps, Baby.”
Ryan
This is going well. Very well. I’m on the bench catching my breath watching Roysy’s line knock Minnesota’s top line around like they’re bowling pins. It’s quite impressive.
“Christianson, Bouchard, O’Shea!” Coach directs. “Get ready. Line change coming up. Slow it down out there. Try to run out some time on the clock.” He whistles between his teeth signaling Roysy’s line to dump the puck into our zone and come back to the bench.
I’m over the boards first, and quickly I skate after the puck Roysy chipped across the blue line. I catch up with it and take it behind Ivanov and his net as I wait for Brandon and O’Shea to get through the change and into our zone.
“How you holding up?” I ask Ivanov.
“Is good,” he says. “Very good.”
I look up at the clock. There’s five minutes left in this game and the score is still one to zero. Which is fine.
Brandon is over the boards next, so I skate out from behind the net and pass the puck to him. O’Shea swings over the boards and slots himself into perfect position. We’re ready to make our next attack.
But the key now, like Coach commanded, is to be slow and steady. There’s no need to rush. So Brandon passes the puck to me in the neutral zone, then I pass it to O’Shea.
Minnesota does their best to find position as we continue to cycle the puck between us. Danton and Clemmers get into position behind us, protecting our blue line in case one of the Minnesota players manages to intercept the puck between our passes.
“Are we going to play or what?” McDaniel snaps. His face is beet red and covered in sweat.
“We are playing,” I say as I pass the puck around him to Brandon, who slides it to O’Shea. “Aren’t you having fun?”
“No.” He skates towards me and bumps me with his shoulder. Not hard enough to be a hit and not really hard enough to affect me at all, but I can feel the frustration radiating off of him.
I nudge him with my shoulder as I place the blade of my stick down on the ice. “That’s a shame,” I say, right as Brandon lines up to make a pass to me. “Because I’m having a ball.”
Brandon’s pass lands right on my blade. This time, I shoulder-check McDaniel with force to get around him.
“Fuck you, cocksucker!” he yells as I skate past him.
“No thanks!” I yell over my shoulder.
The timing of Brandon’s pass couldn’t have been more perfect.
We really are in sync out here. He’s right in line with me on my right side as we cross into Minnesota’s offensive zone together.
O’Shea catches up to us and the three of us slip past Minnesota’s defense.
I pass the puck to O’Shea. He’s gotten ahead of us both and he’s in perfect position for the breakaway.
He winds up, shoots, and… he beats the goalie. The puck sails right past his extended gloved hand. Brandon and I crash into him as the goal horn blares.
When we break apart, I look over to where the five Minnesota players who are on the ice with us are standing watching us celly. Three of them are hunched over. One of them is making his way back to their bench. And McDaniel is breaking his stick over his knee.
He points one half of it at me. “Fuck you!”
I look around, then point at myself. “Who? Me?”
“Yes, you! Fucking asshole.” He looks at Brandon as we skate back to our bench. “Your boyfriend is a real shitbag, Brandon.”
I look at Brandon, expecting to see his skin turning bright pink. Instead, I see him laughing. “Ryan was right,” he says. “You do sound jealous.”
“Very,” Danton says, looking angry. He skates up to McDaniel and points his stick at him. “Listen, you little shit. This is my house. And in my house, we don’t say shit like that.” He turns his attention to Minnesota’s captain. “Keep your rookie in line. This homophobic shit is over.”
“Damn, Cap,” I say to Danton when he returns to us.
His words have me feeling incredible warmth towards him even though he has no clue as to why.
But it is good to know that our captain has mine and Brandon’s backs even if he doesn’t realize it.
“You know Marshal and Kennedy don’t play for us, right? ”
“They don’t have to,” he says as we step off the ice and take our seats back onto the bench.
“The last thing I want is to find out that one of my teammates is gay and I’ve made them feel like they have to hide because of little shits like Richie fucking McDaniel.
” He pats Brandon on the shoulder. “How the fuck did you use to play with that asshole?”
Brandon shrugs again like he always seems to when McDaniel comes up. “Guys like him are what I’ve always known. It wasn’t until I came here that I learned teams could be different.”