Chapter 7
GONG SHOW
December
Gongshow: a rough, dirty game of maximum intensity.
Rikker
The interview itself was not that bad.
One morning, the week after Thanksgiving, I waited in Coach’s office with a young woman from the Harkness College press office. “You don’t have to answer any questions that make you uncomfortable,” she assured me. “Just look at me, and I’ll tell the reporter that you’re not going to answer.”
That sounded easy enough, I guess.
“I’ll go get her, if you’re ready.”
I was never going to be ready. But I nodded anyway.
A minute later, she returned with the reporter, a mild-looking mom type. “I’m Cyndi,” the reporter said, putting her digital recorder down on the table between us. “Thank you for meeting me, especially during exams. You must be busy.”
“Sure,” I said. “Actually, I have my first exam next week. In Spanish. So if we could do this in Spanish, that would really help.”
She grinned. “No can do. Not only do I not speak Spanish, I don’t really speak sports. I’ve never interviewed a hockey player before. Do you have any tips for me?” She was trying to put me at ease, I guess.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I told her. “We don’t like to see the words ‘bloodthirsty’ or ‘violent brutes,’ though.”
She gave me a smile. “Tell me why you left Saint B's.”
Straight to the point. Great. “Well, okay. On a Sunday night near the end of the regular season, that would have been last March, the head coach learned of my sexual orientation. He called me in Monday morning and told me to clear out my gear. He said, ‘I don’t want that in my locker room.’”
She flinched. “That must have hurt.”
She wanted to talk about my feelings, but I wasn’t going there. “Honestly, it’s about the most lukewarm hate speech ever written.”
She tapped a pencil on her knee. “It doesn’t matter what words he used, though, does it? Were you surprised to be kicked off the team?”
Yay. Now I would get to tell the reporter how stupid I was.
“Yeah, actually I was surprised. Saint B's is a Catholic college, so I guess that makes me an idiot. But there’s a pretty active gay student group.” Not that I’d ever gone to an event.
“And also, the college has ‘sexual orientation’ in its non-discrimination clause. I thought that would count for something.”
“I saw that, too,” she said. “That’s fairly progressive for a school with religious roots.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know whether it was or wasn’t.
But when Saint B's started courting me, and offering me scholarship money, Skippy made me look it up. “You cannot play for them if they can toss you out for being gay,” he had said, grumpy that I wanted to go to school in Massachusetts instead of Vermont, where he’d be.
Later, I’d wished that I’d listened.
“What did your teammates think?” the reporter asked.
“Um,” I cleared my throat. “I never got a chance to find out, you know? A few of them wrote slurs on my Facebook page.”
Her eyes widened. “Did you document that?”
Seriously? Who would want to save a screenshot of assholes writing: Faggot, I hope you die of AIDS. “Nope. I deleted my account instead.”
“So, the team did not stick up for you.”
Careful, I coached myself. “I got a couple of texts that were very supportive. The guy who I was actually rooming with on road trips called to say that he thought the whole thing sucked.” I didn’t tell her that when I saw his name come up on my phone, I chickened out and let it go to voicemail.
Later, I screwed up my courage and listened to the nice things he had to say.
I’ve never been any good at predicting who will turn out to be cool and who will be an ass.
One of the faggot comments on my Facebook page was from the guy I used to lift with in the weight room. I’d thought of him as a friend.
Called that one wrong.
Still, I did not want this reporter writing that the Saint B's hockey team was a bunch of meatheads. “It’s important to remember that most of the team didn’t really get a chance to be supportive or not.
The coach was a real Napoleon type. And he showed me the door so fast, I never saw most of those guys again. ”
The reporter chewed on her lip. “So you weren’t out to your teammates.”
I shook my head. “I was a freshman. I wanted to prove myself. And I just wanted to play hockey.”
She nodded slowly. “How did your coach find out, anyway?”
Even though I’d been expecting this question, I still got a cold sweat when she asked it. “I’m not going to give details about that.”
“Okay.” Her eyes lingered on me. “So, it wasn’t you who volunteered that information to your coach.”
“Not in a million years.”
“Did you plan to stay in the closet for four years? Or were you waiting for the right moment?”
Good question, lady. “I didn’t have a plan, yet,” I told her. “I thought I’d have a while to figure it out.”
After that, it got easier. Cyndi went on to ask me about my transfer, and that was a less personal conversation. “Your uncle called the coaches and explained the situation?”
“Yeah, he did that for me. And I’m ten kinds of lucky that it worked out. It’s not only that Coach didn’t mind the circus.” It was just dawning on me that Coach must have known reporters and news stories would happen. “But also that he needed a wing.”
“So, the schools that said ‘no’ to you weren’t necessarily discriminating against you?” she asked.
“Hell no. The entire Division One roster isn’t very large. And there are hundreds of guys who want to play.”
“You must be a pretty valuable player.”
I wasn’t touching that. “I guess we’ll find out.”
She grinned. “And how have your new teammates treated you?”
“They’ve been great,” I said immediately. “The season is going well. No problems.”
Unfortunately, I spoke too soon.
As luck would have it, our next scheduled game was against Saint B's. Coach called me into his office again before practice on Friday to discuss it.
“How is this game going to go, do you think?” he asked.
“We can beat them,” I said. “The first line is tight but their bench isn’t very deep.”
Coach looked out the window for a moment and then back at me. “Do you think you should play?”
What? “Of course I’ll play. Why wouldn’t I?”
He sighed. “The article didn’t publish yet, at least. It’s going to make Saint B’s look bad.”
“If anybody reads it.”
He swiveled his chair toward me again. “They will. And you’re going to get even more attention.”
God, I hoped he was wrong. “Let’s just beat Saint B’s.”
Coach grinned. “I like your style, kid. I really do. So I’m putting you on the first line for the Saint B’s game. Make me proud.”
Awesome. “I will, Coach.” I really thought I could.
I was wrong.
Graham
I was not at all prepared for what happened at the Saint B’s game. It was a home game against a so-so team. What could go wrong?
Just everything.
The first sign of trouble came a half an hour before faceoff.
During that last thirty minutes in the locker room, every guy was busy getting amped up in his own special way.
Some people sat quietly in a corner, thinking calm thoughts.
But there was a lot of joking around and smack talk, too.
The place was crowded, with everyone strapping on their gear.
There were two trainers in the room, too, taping up muscles and helping to stretch out tetchy limbs.
I went into the hallway supply cabinet for some orange hockey tape. Don’t laugh when I tell you that I play better with orange tape. Hockey players are some of the most superstitious people you’ll ever meet. (Just ask Hartley about his lucky underwear.)
At the distant end of the hallway, I saw Coach come out of his office. But before he got very far, a gray-haired guy in a Saint B’s jacket came wheeling out of the visitors’ locker room. He got up in Coach’s face. “There’s a reporter up my ass, and it’s your fucking fault,” he barked.
There was a tense silence, and then I heard Coach chuckle. “Really?” He stood his ground, even though the other guy was practically spitting into his mouth. “That can’t be true. Because I thought you had a team policy against taking anything up the ass.”
Although the other coach’s back was to me, I could hear the fury in his voice. “You want this bitch asking me questions, do you? You think you can make my team look bad?”
Again, Coach chuckled. “You don’t need my help with that.”
I jammed the tape into my hockey shorts, freeing up my hands in case the other guy threw a punch at Coach. But the bastard only yanked the visitors’ locker room door open and disappeared inside again.
With a pounding pulse, I ducked back into our room to finish taping up my stick. A minute later, Coach stalked in looking tense. “Listen up!” he barked.
The room got quiet immediately.
“Your opponents want to win tonight. But we want it more, right?”
“YEAH!” everyone shouted as one.
Coach was pacing near the door. “Look. Their coach is a blowhard with a nasty temper. And his offensive line is sketchy this year, because we stole one of their best players. We didn’t play this team last year, but you saw how it is on the tapes.
To win this thing, they need to get under your skin. Are you going to let them?”
“NO!” we hollered together.
“Good. Because I need you to remember that you’re bigger than that. This game isn’t going to be about finessing the puck. This game is going to be all about attitude. And the team that keeps the coolest head is gonna win. So I need you to repeat after me: Attitude is destiny!”
“Attitude is destiny!”
“Okay. Let’s kill ‘em. Get out there.” Coach’s face looked as tense as I’d ever seen it.
Bella put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m pretty sure that quote is supposed to be, ‘character is destiny.’”
“Yeah? I think I’d keep that critique to myself.”
“I was planning on it.”
“Hey, Bella?” I gave my skate laces one more tug and stood up.
“Yeah?”
“Any reason Coach would be talking to reporters?”
She frowned. “No idea. Why do you ask?”