Page 39 of Defensive Zone

Chapter 8

“What the fuck, ref. Seriously?” Jake called out a few nights later as one of the Calgary defensemen drilled Dom into the boards.

Dom shook his head, clearly rattled, but there was no whistle, so play continued. It’d been like that all fucking night and Max was as fired up as the rest of his teammates about shitty call after shitty call. It happened throughout the league, but tonight was awful. Sully had already walked down the tunnel a few minutes ago after getting an elbow to the chin.

Also not called.

Max was itching to get back on the ice and do some damage, if necessary. He swung his leg over the boards, ready to start his shift, with Crow right behind him as Finn and Nessie cleared the ice.

They had six minutes left in the second, and they were down two to one. It’d been a rough and tight game, and he’d already spent two minutes in the penalty box for slashing.

It hadn’t been fucking slashing. Fucking refs.

Calgary was in the fourth spot in the division, and the Strikers were in second. The regular season was in the home stretch and games were getting extra chippy. Like playoff chippy. But Max was not going to let another teammate go down the tunnel prematurely tonight if he had anything to say about it.

He wasn’t typically a fighter, but when push came to shove, he had no problem shoving a fucker back. His team was his family and he protected his family.

He tracked Calgary’s forward line as they came up the ice toward Gally. They wouldn’t be scoring on his shift. No fucking way. The Calgary center had the puck, and Max watched his every move. The shift of his hips. The twitch of his gloved hands. And when the guy deked to Max’s right, Max was there. Max spotted the guy in the split second when he looked toward his linemate, and Max darted his stick out and snagged the puck as he passed in front of him. The Calgary players zoned in, and Max spotted Soupy open.

Max checked his blinds and knocked the puck to Soupy. The rookie caught it on his tape, and then they were skating toward Calgary’s goalie. Soupy passed it to Boosh, the winger on his line, and Boosh passed it back to Soupy as they got closer to the goalie. Max followed behind them, ready to defend if Calgary got the puck again.

Soupy was close to the boards, working around the back of the net, still managing the puck, but he didn’t have a clear shot, so he sent it to Boosh. After the puck left the rookie’s stick, he was hit hard from behind. It was a weird angle and then the kid was down on the ice.

Stemmer, the same fucking Calgary defenseman who sent Sully down the tunnel less than five fucking minutes ago, had sent Soupy into the boards when the kid didn’t even have the damn puck.

Play stopped as they all skated over to Soupy. Stemmer just stood there. That fucker needed to be in the damn box or booted from the game.

“You okay, kid?” Max asked, crouching down as Soupy started to move.

At least he was moving. Rattled, but moving slowly.

One of the team trainers rushed across the ice to evaluate.

“I’m okay,” Soupy said, starting to get up.

“You not calling that at all?” Max barked at the ref.

“Clean hit,” the man said.

“Clean hit? Are you fucking kidding me? Get your eyes checked. Soupy didn’t even have the fucking puck,” Max yelled.

“You want to go in the box, Bastian?” the ref asked, his eyes narrowed.

“No. I want you to do your fucking job,” he said, not caring if he ended up with a penalty anymore.

“Baz, Soupy’s going to be okay,” Crow said.

“That hit was fucking bad and they didn’t even call it. Not even two minutes, Crow,” Max said, his anger boiling as Stemmer skated around with the rest of his teammates like he wasn’t a complete piece of shit.

“Let’s get him off the ice,” Beady, one of the team’s trainers, said. “We’ll get him checked over.”

Soupy was able to skate back to the bench with the trainer at his elbow and Max behind him. The Strikers banged their sticks on the boards to show support for their teammate, while Bugsy cursed a blue streak and yelled at the ref.

Not that screaming did any good tonight. As soon as Soupy was down the tunnel, Max skated back to the faceoff dot, his eyes never leaving Stemmer. That fucker was going down.

And one minute later, Max crosschecked Stemmer into the boards. Now that was a clean hit.

“Want to pick on someone your own size or are you scared?” Max taunted, waiting for the perfect moment.

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