Chapter 18 #2
Luckily, after the second goal, there’s a mandatory TV timeout to scrape the ice, and I have a chance to catch my breath at the bench and wipe the slate clean.
I chug as much water as I can, and one of the equipment staff hands me a towel so I can wipe the sweat and excess water off my face.
I offer him a small, tired smile in return before putting my helmet back on.
Yet as I push off the board to skate back to my crease, Coach Miller calls after me.
“Harrison, get back here,” he grunts while chewing his gum. “You’re done.”
I spin around, my blood running cold, mind numbing. The words don’t fully register, so Miller repeats himself.
“Did you hear me? I said you’re done.” We both glance at the Comets’ backup who’s just as startled by the decision. “Sandoval, go stop the fucking puck. Get out there.”
I stagger to the door and collapse onto the bench, hearing rather than seeing the shuffle of Sandoval moving onto the ice and skating towards the crease. I tug off my helmet and cradle it in my hands.
The on-ice ESPN commentator standing not even two feet away from me is as shocked as I am over my coach’s decision.
“…this decision from Coach Miller is mind-boggling. Harrison is the Comets’ franchise goaltender.
In his three year tenure, Harrison has never been pulled mid-game.
For every game he’s started in the net with this team, he’s gone on to finish.
This is unprecedented for the Comets, and to me this signals a real breakdown in leadership both on and off the ice.
I’m not sure bringing in Nolan Sandoval, the backup who’s had no ice time thus far in the playoffs, is the right move this late into the series. This is a pure desperation play...”
No one who loves playing a sport wants to end up on the bench.
There’s no worse feeling. At least when you’re playing terribly in the middle of a game, you’re still playing.
Being benched reduces you to the role of a bystander.
You no longer play a part in the outcome.
You’re a prisoner forced to helplessly watch as the team you care about, the team you’ve sacrificed for, the team you’ve been a part of for years, play what could be the final minutes of the season without you.
And if Miller’s barked words ring true, then this is it—I’m done.
No chance to come back in the second or third period to relieve my backup. No last-ditch chance to be the hero goaltender my team needs.
Being pulled might be a wake-up call for my remaining teammates, but it’s a punishment for me.
From the bench, I’ll be forced to watch my team fight, fully aware I should be right there with them.
If we lose tonight, then my season will have ended long before the final horn blares—not as a Comet but as a bench warmer. A failure.
The TV timeout ends and the game returns, but I’m far away. The arena becomes a blur of lights, colors, and distant sounds. I follow the action, but it’s as if I’m underwater. Did this really happen? Am I dreaming? Will I wake up in bed, this moment nothing more than a lucid nightmare?
When the first period ends sometime later, the buzzer startles me out of my trance. I check the jumbotron, grateful to discover the score didn’t go up any further following the goaltender swap. At least that’s a relief.
The team shuffles into the dressing room, burdened by more than just heavy gear and tired bodies. No one wants to face the brunt of Coach Miller’s constant ire.
“Don’t you want you to win?” he shouts. No one dares meet his gaze. “Don’t you want to go all the way? What the fuck are you guys doing out there?”
Of course I do—did. Reaching the Stanley Cup Final has been my penultimate dream, and no doubt it’s been the dream of every other player on my team.
No one goes into professional sports hoping to plateau their entire career.
Everyone yearns for the same achievement, the same accolade.
We all want the opportunity to raise the Cup and have our name carved onto its shiny surface with all the other hockey legends we admired while growing up.
I’ve been the starting goaltender for the Chicago Comets for the past three seasons. This year’s playoff run has been our first real shot at reaching the Stanley Cup Final, and what are we doing? We’re drowning on dry land. No one has an answer for Los Angeles.
Whatever else Coach Miller says, it’s all static. The words don’t matter because I’m not starting in the second period. Everyone else has forty more minutes of game ahead of them.
When the intermission ends, I follow the others back to the ice, taking up the rear of the line, and return to my place on the bench as a stoic supporter.
But seconds into the period, the Grizzlies score their third goal, causing the Comets bench to erupt with groans and curses. So much for getting back on track.
Inside the crease, Sandoval rises off his pads, head jerking as he curses at himself.
He turns back to the net and rubs the top crossbar as if he’s trying to make a deal.
Sandoval and I have never been close, but I’m deeply familiar with the mental crisis he’s experiencing.
The stakes for our team, for ourselves as individual players, have never been higher.
Even when the Comets’ score a goal at the end of the second, it’s not enough to spark life into the team, let alone the remaining Chicago fans in the arena.
Morale is the lowest it’s ever been in the dressing room during the second intermission.
Everyone’s at a loss for words, unable to say anything.
No rousing speeches, no “dig the fuck in” tirades.
It’s like the game’s already over, and we’re preparing for our own funeral.
Seated in front of my stall, I hear my phone vibrate inside my bag.
When I check it, a shiver of dread runs down my spine.
It’s Eric. God, of all the times for him to rekindle our connection, it had to be now.
It’s embarrassing to learn he’s watching tonight’s shitshow of a game and saw me get pulled.
Eric
There’s still 20 minutes of hockey left. Plenty of time for your offense to get going.
Leave it to Eric to stick to the facts. If I were still in the crease, I would play as hard as I could during those last twenty minutes, but the goal’s not mine to defend any longer.
At the start of the third period, I’m a shell of myself on the bench, lost in my own spiraling thoughts, haunted by my failure, grieving the death of my dream to reach the chance to earn the Stanley Cup. I thought we were close, but maybe it was nothing more than a mirage.
Sulking on the bench, my focus narrows to my helmet in my lap and everything the design is supposed to stand for: legacy.
The image of my mother dressed in her goaltending gear stares back at me.
Since she passed, I’ve carried her spirit with me out onto the ice.
I’ve carried her love, her support, and her tireless faith.
All of which were benched along with the player wielding the helmet.
Sorry mom, I tell the void. Sorry I let you down.
Nothing but silence answers.
Moments later, a red light goes off behind our net.
The pockets of Los Angeles fans who made the trip to Chicago go nuts.
Hats rain down onto the ice. Unimpressed, I blink up at the jumbotron and watch the replay of the fourth Grizzlies goal.
Sure enough, there’s Wes Harper blazing a trail up the ice, juking Comets, until his speed is too much.
No one can catch him. He makes Sandoval bite and scores with ease.
Harper just scored a goddamn hat trick in the Western Conference Final.
If there’s a television in heaven, I hope my mom stopped watching a while ago, because I can hardly stomach the humiliation in person.
For the remainder of the third period, the game crawls to the finish line. There’s no opportunity to tap out in hockey, no chance to drop to your knees and beg for mercy.
With sixty seconds remaining in the game, the Grizzlies score for the fifth time. My teammates refuse to lose with grace. They target Harper, shoving him out of the crease and causing Grizzlies players to rush to his aid.
All hell breaks loose. Helmets, sticks, and gloves drop to the ice as a brawl erupts.
Harper’s two linemates are at the center of the fight, defending their teammate until the referees manage to pull everyone apart.
The referees struggle to wrangle Callahan and number 93 from the Grizzlies.
Reading their lips over the roar of the crowd, the two are shouting more than just obscenities at each other.
The dust settles on the ice, and Grizzlies fans breathe a sigh of relief.
Harper came out of the fight unscathed and unpenalized.
The same can’t be said for everyone else who had been caught up in the fight.
Penalties are called on both teams. Callahan’s ejected for instigating and roughing; our own captain won’t be here to see the end of the game.
A Grizzlies defenseman has a broken, bloodied nose, a souvenir from this horrid game.
Los Angeles doesn’t let off the gas in the remaining minute. There’s a thirst for vengeance in the dwindling seconds of this horrible game. Blood demands blood.
Any life remaining with my team is spent. Coach Miller doesn’t bother pulling Sandoval, so the Comets backup plays out his time in the crease with renewed vigor, as if to stand up for himself before his own season comes to an end. It’s an honorable effort, but a hopeless one.
The Comets lose the Western Conference Final with a pathetic whimper.
The jumbotron’s scoreboard is a massacre, telling the night’s story all on its own: five to one.
We weren’t just defeated in a hockey game; we were crushed on home ice in front of our fans who have a long memory.
Will they be so eager to cheer for the Comets next year, knowing how far we’re capable of falling?
To be swept in a Conference Final is a disgrace. So many other teams put up worthy fights on our way to this moment, but we beat them. We were supposed to be one of the “best in the West”. Instead, we’re nothing. We’re failures in every sense of the word. We deserved to lose.
Begrudgingly, a handshake line forms between the Comets and the Grizzlies.
Unlike many of my other teammates, I don’t make a scene after the game.
I want to be anywhere but the ice, but I skate out to pay my respects to the team who will go on to play for the Stanley Cup.
I shake the hands of the opposing team’s players, trying my best to keep my emotions in check without my helmet to obscure them.
I swallow the shreds of my pride and congratulate Wes Harper, the player who made my goaltending life hell. I expect him to gloat, to lord this victory over my head, but to my surprise, Harper leans in close to murmur more than just the standard good game.
“You’re a good goalie, Harrison. You’ll be back,” he says with confidence I struggle to believe before he skates on to the next person in the lineup.
I’ll be back? What does some hotshot, once-in-a-generation rookie know?
Tears of frustration, shame, and regret threaten to spill over, and I bite my cheek hard to stay composed. There would be nothing more embarrassing than crying on national TV during the handshake line.
I skate for the tunnel, ready to leave this all behind.