Chapter 37
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
brUCE
Walking into game four of seven, I’m feeling more like myself. Mel’s essential oils, and probably the incredible food, helped me finally sleep last night. The best night of sleep I’ve had since Farrah tried to break up with me. Yeah, I’m still not acknowledging that we’re broken up. For one, we never labeled what we were…so there’s nothing to break from. And two, I still haven’t given up on us.
I even manage a grin and a finger gun for the photographers who are snapping photos of my royal blue suit and crimson red tie combo. There’s still an ache in my chest, but the ability to mask it and go into tonight’s game seems easier today. Maybe I’m getting better at compartmentalizing.
Walking into the bland dressing room, I take in the scuffed white walls, plastic and metal benches, and simple cubbies. It’s nothing like our Eagles’ dressing room, but this is what Thunder Bay gives the away teams, apparently.
My eyes meet O’Malley’s, and I cross the room and sit next to him. He’s tense, and his eyes look intensely worried. “You okay, man?”
He looks down, his shaggy brown hair falling onto his forehead as he fastens his shoulder pad. “Not really. They chewed us up and spit us out the other night. The pressure was unreal. Like during a normal season game, I’m nervous at first but it wears off…but a playoff game? I don’t know how you handle it.”
I snort laugh. “Obviously not well. Remember how I was benched?”
“Please don’t get benched tonight,” he whispers.
“I’m feeling good tonight,” I say. “But you’re in the NHL for a reason, kid. You’re a talented goalie. I know the pressure is a lot, especially right now, but you have what it takes if you get out of your head.” When I finish talking, I realize I’m preaching to the choir.
O’Malley’s dark eyes meet mine in look that tells me he was thinking the same thing.
“We’re wiping the floor with these guys tonight, I can feel it.”
He nods. “I hope you’re right.”
An hour later, I’m crouched in front of my net and the first period is starting. Remy gets possession of the puck straight away, which is always a great way to start off a game. We want to stay on top all throughout, not be playing catch up.
I stretch to stay limber and alert while the guys are at the other end of the ice, until their team captain gets a breakaway and is racing towards me. I get in position, ready for him. He flies straight at me, and I try to guess where he’ll shoot the puck. At the last second, I see his stick move and my instincts tell me to get down low. He tries to shoot it between my legs, but the puck bounces off my pads.
I breathe a sigh of relief, but it’s short lived because the Lightning captain crashes into me and my net. I fly back with a thud onto the ice, and the net slides away.
The other guys have made it over to us by now and I feel the Lightning’s captain being lifted off me. When I glance up, I see it’s a very angry looking Mitch yanking him up by his jersey.
The Lightning captain looks just as furious at being manhandled and throws a punch at Mitch. Although Mitch ‘The Machine’ Anderson has gotten better about staying on the ice instead of in the penalty box, he’s not a perfect man. He throws a punch back, hitting the captain’s nose and drawing blood.
I squeeze my eyes shut in frustration. Drawing blood is an automatic four-minute penalty.
Sure enough, the dreaded whistle blows from the ref, and Mitch is hauled away—seething—to the penalty box. Now we have one less player on the ice for four minutes.
I love that my teammates are fiercely protective of their goalie—me—but this game is too high stakes to be racking up penalties and giving the other team a power play.
Remy looks ready to burst; I’m not sure I’ve ever seen his jaw so tense. It looks like he’s gritting his teeth so hard his molars might break.
A faceoff starts to the left of my net, and a right winger who replaced the captain while his nose stops bleeding, wins the faceoff. He passes the puck to a defenseman, and he takes it around the back of the net. Colby and West are working hard to cloud their access for any decent shots, but then the defenseman passes the puck to their team’s top goal scorer, and he shoots the puck deftly into the top corner of my net.
And we still have three minutes where we’re down a player.
A bead of sweat trickles down my forehead and the bridge of my nose. I can’t take my eyes off this puck for even a second until this power play is over.
As I watch the puck move from stick to stick, player to player, I pay no attention to the men on the ice. It’s just me and the puck. Someone shoots, but I’m ready, and deflect it away with my stick. The puck flies free again, bouncing from man to man and skidding across the ice. It flies toward me, this time it’s a higher shot, I extend my glove to catch it and miss by the smallest fraction. It finds it’s mark in the top left-hand corner of my net making the score zero to two in the first period.
A stream of expletives leaves my mouth. When we’re back at full man advantage, Coach Young calls a timeout, and I can finally take a deep breath. Coach Young motions for me to stay put, which is a relief. This timeout isn’t about me; it’s about everyone else. It’s nice not to be the one causing the issues tonight.
The rest of the period passes and we’re not able to score on the Lightning, but thankfully, they don’t score on us again, either.
Going into the second period, we’re all amped from Coach Young giving us the ass chewing of a lifetime. I’ve never seen the vein in his forehead protrude so dramatically. Spit flew from his mouth as he berated us. But we needed it.
West scores in the first five minutes of the second period, which gives the guys some much needed confidence. After that, everyone is passing more smoothly and skating faster. Colby lands another goal in their net toward the end of the period, tying up the game.
The vibes in our dressing room are more positive between the second and third periods. Coach Young has calmed down, he offers us encouragement and tells us to keep doing what we did in the second.
When we head back out again, we’re feeling ready to win this thing. But unfortunately, the Lightning are feeling the same way. It’s a fast-paced period from the get-go, all the men on the ice determined to go home with a win.
One of the forwards gets into a scuffle with Mitch, it looks like their sticks are tangled up. He falls to the ground dramatically, and Mitch glares at him. The forward is trying to make it look like Mitch tripped him. The ref buys the performance and sends Mitch to the penalty box for a two-minute minor penalty. Mitch resists, and Remy skates over to defend him. Mitch is smart enough to stay quiet, not wanting any time added to the penalty, while Remy yells at the ref for the ridiculous call.
The ref doesn’t back down, and Mitch heads to the penalty box—again—with steam practically pouring out of his pores. Remy looks just as angry.
The Lightning captain high sticks Remy and he clasps his hand over his mouth where the stick hit. There’s no blood, and the whole thing goes unnoticed by the refs. Convenient. The Lightning captain passes the puck to one of his centers and he scores on me while we’re basically playing three on five since Remy is clutching his face.
Now we’re down two-four. We spend the rest of the game trying to catch up, and the refs appear to be kissing the Lightning’s butt tonight. Remy has a fat lip from the high sticking but manages to score one more goal during a breakaway in the last minute of the game. We lose three-four, and it sucks.
My teammates and I trudge to the dressing room, everyone, including Coach Young, is quiet. He stands by the exit door with his hands on his hips and his head down. “The refs sucked tonight. I admit that. We started the game off in poor form,” Coach narrows his eyes at Mitch. “But I’m proud of the way you played after that. But now they’ve got three wins. One more and they beat us out for a slot in the final round.” He sighs, closing his eyes briefly. “If you guys want this…really want this, you have to give it your all and then some. One hundred and fifty percent. You hear me? Our next game is at home. That’s your game. Those are your fans. That’s our chance to tie up this third round.”
Everyone nods and agrees, then Coach leaves through the exit letting the door slam behind him. The rest of the administrative staff lingers awkwardly, no one knowing what else to say. Jeff, our equipment manager, quietly stores our gloves in the background, trying not to make a sound.
But sometimes silence is the worst sound of all.
That night as we’re on our red eye back to D.C., I pull up hockeyisbetterthanfootball.com to see what fans are saying. Tonight’s loss wasn’t just my fault, but everyone loves to complain about the goalie anyway.
The D.C. Eagles #1 Fan Page On Hockeyisbetterthanfootball.com
Craig Nottingham : Well, well, well. Another loss! Who wants to have an Eagles jersey burning party?
Todd Ferguson : It’s not over yet, Craig, I’d hold on to those jerseys. Unless they’re signed, then I’d be interested in buying them from you.
Todd Ferguson : But McBride played well tonight! Not even you can deny that.
Craig Nottingham : He did okay. I still think we should trade him.
Mandie Banderson : Tonight’s loss was completely due to the refs and had nothing to do with McBride’s skills.
Todd Ferguson : PREACH.
Craig Nottingham : Was the loss the ref’s faults, or Anderson’s? That idiot can’t stay out of the sinbin for more than ten minutes at a time.
Mandie Banderson : I know you didn’t just call MITCH THE MACHINE ANDERSON an idiot. You whiny little biotch.
Craig Nottingham : Is there an admin in here? Can we remove Mandie for bullying?
*An admin has disabled comments on this post*
I smile at my screen, now knowing why this woman with the big mouth sounds familiar.