Page 29 of Flagrant Foul
His eyes meet mine, and for once, don’t skid away. He holds my gaze, a rare treat that warms me from my head to the blades of my skates.
“It’s going to be a good game, T-Dog.”
He skates back into position with seconds to spare, leaving me so winded I don’t even have it in me to mind what he called me.
The words, “It’s going to be a good game,” aren’t just words to Blackeyes. They sound like they are, but they aren’t. They’re words that were immortalized by Ben Stirling himself. According to legend, they’re the words he said before every game he ever played, as a mite, a squirt, a peewee, a bantam, and a midget. They’re thewords he said before strangers knew his name and long before anyone called him Captain.
They’re also the words he said a few months back, right before he played the last professional game of his career.
When we got to the arena for our first practice after that exhibition game in Las Vegas, there was a long box on one of the benches in the locker room. Inside it was a badly scuffed kids’ hockey stick and a note that said:
Found this in Luca’s room and thought you could use a reminder.
Love,
Ben
Bryce picked up the stick, turned it over, and started laughing and choking up at the same time. The rest of us followed suit when he showed us what he’d seen. There, on the hook of the stick, written in childish block letters were the wordsIt’s going to be a good game.
We had the stick framed and hung it above the Blackeyes locker room door. Before on-ice practices and home games, Bryce presses two fingers to his lips and points to it as he leaves the locker room. Some players do the same. I tap my stick twice on the wall beside it. Sev touches it lightly with a flat hand as he headsonto the ice.
Since Ben left the Blackeyes, no one has said those words aloud. At first, it was because of the circumstances under which he left. We were raw. He was gone, and it wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair, and for a long time, we were in limbo, unsure if he’d come back or not. And then, after his last game, when we knew for sure he was gone for good, no one said it aloud because no one could say it the way Ben said it. No one could make it mean the same thing.
So now, before we play, we think it and will it, but we don’t say it.
It kills me that Sev the Mess, Sev the Wildman, Sev the bane of my fucking existence, is the one who not only understood how badly I needed to hear those words tonight, but he’s the only one on the team with enough power to invoke them.
15
Teddy “T-Dog” O’Reilly
It’sagrind.Ahard game that stops and starts and lacks offensive creativity. It’s a stop-and-go game that doesn’t have the flow the Blackeyes used to be known for. There are no penalties, no fights, and until the third period, no goals.
The crowd is baying and bored. Bryce passes the puck to Lewis on the left wing. Lewis controls it and knocks it back to Sev instead of to Lockie, who’s wide open on the right. Frustration mounts. I want to scream. The crowd does scream. Lewis has been on this bullshit all game. He’s an offensive player, playing defense. Why? I don’t know. It’s clear as fucking day that that’s what he’s doing from where I’m standing, but Bryce doesn’t seem to notice it, or if he does, he doesn’t know what to do about it.
Sev takes the puck and gains eight or nine yards before sending it to Lockie. Lockie fumbles but manages to correct and get around one of the Dogs.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” I roar. The crowd does too.
And…nothing.
We lose the puck without taking a shot at the goal.
Fuck, it’s agony watching us play like this.
The only saving grace is that the Dogs are playing as badly as we are.
Actually, it’s not even that we’re playing badly. It’s worse than that. It’s that we’re a different team now than we used to be, and not in a good way. We lost something when Ben left. We used to make magic, now we play hockey. I fucking hate it. It has to be the most maddening thing in the world to stand in the goal with a perfect, uninterrupted view of the game and not be able to do a goddamn thing about the fact that our synergy is fucked.
Capaldi, the Dogs’ center, gets the puck and runs with it. He blazes a trail through several of our players, cutting a path down the right side of the rink, heading straight toward me. It’s an explosion of movement and speed that is at odds with the pace of the rest of the game.
My breathing quickens. Every cell in my body reacts. Adrenaline floods my system, and I brace for impact. My focus sharpens. I’m aware of our players, where they are, who they are. I’m aware of jerseys, sticks, and skates. Particles of ice as they’re thrown into the air. All of thatexists, but only in my peripheral vision. The only thing I see, the only thing in sharp focus, is the puck hurtling toward me on the hook of Capaldi’s stick.
Capaldi gets around Micha, our other defenseman. A blurred Sev hauls ass from his side of the rink. He’s fast, but he’s too far away. He won’t make it.
It’s me and Capaldi.
It’s me and the puck.
