Page 101 of Against the Odds
Seven months later.
I leaned forward in my seat, a dozen rows up from the glass. At the Dragons’ end of the arena, Callum blocked a shot and sent the puck out across the blue line. Play swirled and headed back toward the Knights’ net, a Dragons’ forward leading the rush.
Next to me, Jos muttered, “Go, go, go.”
His robotics-club friend Isaac cheered from the next seat over.
On my other side, Roy leaned close to say, “Exciting, eh?”
I could’ve used a little less excitement for Callum’s first regular-season NAPH game— like Aakvaag scoring a hat trick for the Dragons to take the pressure off— but this tied one-one game was a goalies’ exhibition with great saves at both ends of the ice. I clenched my teeth on a shout as Aakvaag’s great chance was deflected just enough to ping off the crossbar.
Roy patted my knee. “Relax. I’ve been watching the kid play for fifteen years. There’s always another game.”
“You have stronger nerves than I do.”
“Maybe so.” Then he half-rose in his seat to yell, “Ref, you blind? That was hooking.”
I laughed. His words were echoed around us, but the play continued. Chicago drove back down the ice, one of the Knights taking up a position half in Callum’s crease. I could almost hear Callum thinking about taking his stick to the player’s ass, but he’d been working on collecting fewer penalties. Instead, he followed the play, always in position as the Knights passed the puck around. He got his glove on a shot and cleared the loose puck onto his right winger’s stick.
Aakvaag took off up the ice, dodging one hit, poking the puck between the skates of a defenseman, and collecting it on the other side. This time, he lifted the shot over the Chicago goalie’s blocker and beat him clean. The red light flashed, the goal horn sounded. All around the arena, fans’ cheers blended with the fight song on the sound system.
Jos bounced up and down. “Did you see that? Aakvaag’s the best!”
“Not Callum?” I teased, tugging on his “Fitzpatrick” sweater.
“He’s okay.”
Roy laughed and I hid a smile.
Then we heard over the sound system, “Dragons’ goal scored by number seventeen, Elias Aakvaag, assisted by number ninety-three, Callum Fitzpatrick.”
The boys cheered loudly.
“He got an assist,” Roy said. “He should be pleased.”
“We might have to enlarge the trophy case.” We had a cabinet in my study where we put Callum’s hockey prizes. Stuff his grandfather had held onto from juniors. A puck from his first Foxes’ shutout, and from game five of the division semifinals with the Foxes last spring, where he pulled off another shutout to win the series. Nothing from the division finals, sadly, where they were beaten three games to one. But his name went on the trophy for best PHL goalie of the year, and the small replica he got to keep sat front and centre, across from my desk.
Going to the awards ceremony as his date had been a bit of a trip. Mostly a good one, as players rallied around him, with just enough cold shoulders and icing-out here and there to make it entertaining. When his name was called, he stood up on that stage and said, “I couldn’t have gotten through this year without the help of the two best men I know— my grandfather, and my boyfriend…” I admit, my eyes went a little damp.
Now, the Knights pulled their goalie for a sixth attacker as the game moved into its final minutes. Jos eyed the empty net. “Hey, Callum could score a goalie goal.”
Roy shook his head. “Let Callum focus on his job.”
That job took a ton of focus as Chicago swarmed the Vancouver net. The Knights managed several shots before Callum smothered the puck underneath his chest. Then his team failed to clear it off the faceoff again.
Hannah, sitting beyond Roy, covered her face. “I can’t watch. This is why I never go to games. At home, I can get up and make coffee, and by the time it’s brewed, it’s all over.”
There was a pileup in front of the net and a player from each team fell. Whistles blew. I held my breath. If the Dragons were getting a penalty, Callum would be facing six on four.
“Chicago, number twenty-four, two minutes for tripping,” the ref announced.
Thank God,I thought and then laughed at myself because I doubted any deity was controlling the score in hockey games.
The penalty seemed to take the heart out of the Knights, and although the Dragons didn’t find the empty net, the last minute wound down without any more dangerous scoring chances against Callum. When the horn ended the game, Callum had his first NAPH win.
Jos’s scream just about broke my eardrum. Isaac cheered and waved the foam dragon banner he’d bought.
Roy smiled and said, just loudly enough for me to hear. “That’s my boy.”
