Page 55 of Punchline
But if he decided to provoke me? Well, then. Game on.
After the next stoppage, he and I were both headedback to our respective benches, and he skated up beside me. “Hey, Berns.” He elbowed me. “Heard you been takin’ fighting lessons.” He turned around to skate backward away from me, and he grinned as he added, “Bet you think you can fight like a real man, don’t you?” He winked and blew me another kiss. “Guess we’ll find out, pussy!”
My temper nearly snapped, but before I could even speak, someone grabbed me and steered me to my team’s bench.
“Don’t take his bait,” Marek hissed, shoving me through the open door. “That’s his game—pick a fight, take out a player, beat the other team. Don’t fall for it.”
I huffed with annoyance, but… I mean, he was right. I met his gaze, finding both irritation and worry in his expression. “I won’t,” I assured him. “He just pisses me off.”
Marek nodded, glancing toward the away team’s bench with a scowl. “He pisses everyone off.” He clapped my shoulder with his glove, then took a seat.
I took a few slow, deep breaths to calm myself down. Marek was right. Vincent wanted to rile me up so I’d give his team an advantage. Ihadto keep a cool head. Focus on putting pucks in the net rather than my fist in Vincent’s face.
Toward the end of the second period, I managed to do exactly that. Shortly after Marek scored, my linemates were screening the goalie, and I whipped one in from the blue line. That put us up 3-2. Now we just needed to hold—and ideally extend—that lead.
“Let’s keep it rolling,” Marek said to everyone in the locker room during the second intermission. “We came back from being down two, and now we’re ahead one. Let’s finish the job.”
That had everyone cheering and fist-bumping.Coach added his own motivational speech, and by the time we were headed back out for the third, we were pumped. Twenty minutes of hockey left to play, and a lot could happen during that time; nobody was taking their foot off the gas, damn it.
Syracuse also came out ready to fight hard and reclaim their lead.
And Max Vincent—well, he predictably came out to be a dick. He took an interference penalty for an open-ice hit on Marek while the puck was miles away from both of them. Marek was slow to get up after that, which made me think the objective was to take out our players. The two-minute minors he took were incidental compared to the bigger goal of taking our best players off the ice for the rest of the game.
Lucky for us—and Vincent—Marek only missed one shift. He never even went back into the locker room—just sat on the bench and caught his breath, fury simmering in his eyes the entire time. Before Marek had even made it back out, Vincent struck again, this time sending Keps into the boards at a dangerous angle. Should’ve been a goddamned boarding penalty, but the refs let it go.
At least they finally called it when he high-sticked Mags. That got us a four-minute power play since Mags’s lip was bleeding, but it also sent Mags to the locker room for stitches. Keps was still on the bench. Now Mags was down.
Marek skated up to me, a gloved hand over his mouth so no one could read his lips. I thought he was going to tell me a set play, but instead he said, “I changed my mind. Kick that fucker’s ass.”
I snorted. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “When he comes out of the box, if we’restill ahead on the scoreboard—make him regret his life’s choices.”
I grinned. “You got it.”
We shared a fist bump.
We were indeed still ahead when Vincent came out of the box. The double minor penalty had given us a chance to score two power play goals in rapid succession; now we were up 5-2 with eight minutes left to play.
And wouldn’t you know it—Vincent couldn’t leave well enough alone. He’d barely stepped onto the ice for his shift when he stuck his stick out to trip Frost, who’d been skating full tilt across the neutral zone with the puck. Frost went flying… and so did my gloves.
Frost probably hadn’t even landed on the ice before I threw my first punch at Vincent’s stupid fucking face. Vincent dropped his gloves and took a swing at me. Jake’s lessons had served me well, though, and I managed to both deflect the punch and throw another of my own. I more or less grazed his jaw, but it was enough to stun him. I took full advantage and grabbed a handful of his jersey to steady both of us, and then I hit him again.
The crowd wasscreaming. People banged on the glass and roared their frenzied approval as I landed another hit. Vincent had recovered his senses and deflected, so I went low this time, hitting his midsection and doubling him over. Another punch to his gut had him stumbling, and we both nearly went down. He took another swing at me, clipping my chest protecter. It wasn’t enough to hurt too much, though it did make my balance wobble.
He straightened to almost his full height, and at some point, he’d also grabbed a fistful of my jersey. He used that to haul me toward him, but I kept mybalance.
“Fucking punk,” he muttered over the thunderous crowd.
“Eat a dick,” I replied, and I swung my fist again, connecting with his cheekbone.
The instant I hit him this time, two things happened at once:
We both lost our balance, and pain exploded through my hand and up my arm. We toppled, and I landed on top of Vincent. I was distantly aware of the crowd going ballistic, just like I was aware of whistles blowing and Vincent shouting something at me. Mostly, though, my ears were stuffed with cotton and all my senses zeroed in on the pain on my right hand.
Someone grabbed my arm to haul me up off Vincent. The movement made the pain impossibly worse, and I shouted something I didn’t even understand.
That must’ve caught someone’s attention, because suddenly the ref was steadying my arm, and there were people moving around me. Vincent was up and gone, screaming obscenities at me, the refs, and God knew who else as he was led away to the penalty box.
