Delayed Penalty by Shey Stahl
24. Playing the Point
This refers to the player with the puck keeping it in position for scoring a goal.
Round 4 Stanley Cup (Game 6) Philadelphia Flyers
HOME GAME - June
Evan
I’m getting ready to leave for the morning skate to find Ami cuddled up on the couch with Ice. I watch her eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, her hair longer, wildly messy. It’s not her hair I’m caught up on. It’s those starry blues peering back at me. She looks good. She’s healthy, she’s in love, and she’s mine. I saved her, but in reality she saved me when I didn’t even know I needed saving.
Just as I reach for my keys and wallet, Ami giggles, reading a text message on her phone. “Granny B blocked the door to her room with a chair and then called in a bomb threat to save her La-Z-Boy,” she says, completely straight-faced as she takes a bite from her cereal.
I raise an eyebrow. “No shit.”
She nods, milk dripping down her chin. She wipes her mouth with a smile and then speaks with her mouth full. “I fucking love your family.”
I can’t help but laugh. She went from never cussing to living with a hockey player and now she’s dropping F-bombs all the time. I scratch the side of my head and pocket my cell phone. “I’m surprised they didn’t arrest her for that.”
“Oh, they did. Your mom decided to leave her in there overnight to simmer down.” She gives a thoughtful shrug and then adds, “Poor Granny B is always getting the shaft. I don’t think she’ll make the game tonight.”
I groan. “Don’t say shaft.”
“Why?” Her nose crinkles and then she grins, knowing my thoughts are in the penalty box now.
“Because. I have a game. I can’t be distracted by words like shaft coming out of your mouth.”
Naturally, she rolls her eyes and goes back to her cereal and the movie she’s watching.
Ami and I have yet to have sex. We’ve gotten close so many times, but it hasn’t happened. We haven’t rushed it and I see no need to.
Dave was charged last week and sentenced. He was sentenced to ten years. He should have gotten life as far as I’m concerned. But then I look at the bigger picture.
What is the one thing that can hit home for a guy like Dave Keller?
Hockey. Hockey will because from the time he was two to thirty-two, hockey is all he’s ever known. And that’s been ripped away from him indefinitely. He’s banned from the NHL and will never play again, professionally at least.
When I look at it that way, only through the convincing of my dad, it makes it a little easier to handle.
My suspension is finally lifted as we head to round four of the playoffs and I’m able to play again. It’s like a weight has been lifted.
Once I get to the United Center, I’m running late to the morning skate and try to sneak in unnoticed. My laces are cut again.
Fucking Leo.
“I tried to stop him,” Ryan says, grinning.
“Yeah, sure you did.” Ryan hasn’t warmed up to Leo, and he’s only saying that because I never stuck up for him. Regardless of laces being cut, it’s good just to be back around my boys and getting ready to play on home ice.
“You’re such a pussy,” Leo says, delivering a punch to Ryan’s stomach. Everyone laughs but Ryan.
Whenever we’re around Leo, we know that salt will be replaced with sugar, our laces will be cut, and we often wonder why an NHL player does shit like that. It might seem like adolescent humor, but we need guys like Leo. Every team has them for a reason. They keep you going when ordinarily you’d be down.
The locker room is lively and bursting with energy, having made it this far in the playoffs. It’s loud, and it’s meant to be. Invigorating, it paces the mood of the room and keeps us pumped for the game.
When a team finds what we have, what we work hard for, whether we are in a bar, on a plane, on the ice, or in the locker room, we have a noise about us. It’s the type of noise that no one necessarily hears but they can feel it in their bones. Unity. We’re half-naked players, shouting for tape, laughing, cutting laces, and forming a romance that keeps us going through the playoffs. After everything that’s happened in first round, the fight, the suspension, trading players, our team has been shaken up.
But now we’ve found our noise again.
In the distance, Leo shouts at Ryan and Shelby, nasty references that no one will admit are funny, but you can’t help but laugh at how they’re delivered. Exaggerated and explosive, just like his personality. Everything Leo says he puts his own spin on it.
Suddenly, Ryan blows up at Leo, the noise still present but in a different way. “That’s it, Leo! You cut my fucking laces one more time—”
He doesn’t get to finish because Leo reaches down with his pocketknife and clips the fresh laces and grins. “Now what, bitch?”
“You better run,” Ryan warns before he throws his skate down and takes off after Leo.
Remy glances over his shoulder when he hears Leo screaming like a girl in the showers. “He’s something else.”
I shake my head, laughing. Fuck I missed these guys. “I don’t know why anyone is surprised by his behavior anymore.”
The talk around the room quiets when Coach walks in. Laughter halts. O’Brien isn’t always yelling; sometimes he lets us have fun. All right, he’s almost always yelling.
Once across the room, he stops at the white board. His tone is the usual, calm and conversational, maybe subdued, but it often begins that way, and we are never quite prepared for it when we see it. We only ever see the screaming side.
We wait quietly, knowing it will come.
“What we gotta do is work these guys. Get in their heads,” he says, pointing to Leo and then to the Flyers center he has written on the board. “This is a key guy. He holds the puck and knows how to make plays, like Leo.” His voice picks up in speed. It’s coming. “If ya give him that fucking blue line, he’ll own your ass! Don’t fuckin’ let ’em!”
Coach yells the lineup we’ve been waiting on. I have barely played this series, and I understand why once the suspension is lifted. I don’t play the first two games in the series. While it stings, I put my team in a tough spot going after Dave like that during a game. Coach has his reasons and I understand.
Tonight is where it changes.
“Orting, Carson, Sono, Mase, Keith, and Breezin.” Each name brings a cheer, each player congratulating me that I’m back.
Then the nerves hit. This isn’t just an ordinary game. It’s the Stanley Cup playoffs on home ice and fuck if I’m nervous.
During warm-ups, our noise continues, cultivating us into what we will become tonight. We come out in a single file to the ice along the narrow rubber path, our heads down, focused on what we want.
The Zamboni drives off the ice and we burst on. For a while we skate easily, then form a line to practice shooting. Our fans cheer, the Flyers are booed.
“It’s really good to see you back out here,” Leo says, standing next to me as we take shots. The Flyers are on the other side of the rink doing the same thing. I look into the stands when Leo says that, and Ami catches my eye. They’ve finally arrived, all sporting their Hawks gear.
She smiles at me, a wink from starry blues. She’s wearing my jersey, sitting next to Callie and my family. “It’s good to be back.”
Leo takes over, singing along loudly with the music playing in the arena.
“You’re the worst singer in the league.”
Leo laughs, taking a wrist shot at the net. “Hockey players sing?”
“You apparently think so.” I swing, smacking the puck off the wall, completely missing the net. “Though I have other ideas about that.”
“My milkshake brings all the girls to the rink!” he shouts, giving his stick a rub and winking at Callie who’s watching us.
“What’s with you two these days?”
Leo sighs, a dramatic roll of his eyes follows. “She’s just... well, you know. She fucks all of us, and the one time I try to ask her on a date, she gets all fuckin’ weird about it. I just wanted to have dinner with her, and she fucking shot me down.” He points to himself exaggeratedly. “Me... she shot me down.”
I make the mistake of looking at him only to notice his other hand is inside his pants. “What are you doing?” Shaking my head, I look away. Leo always has his hands in his pants. It’s as if he thinks his dick will fall off if he doesn’t touch it constantly.
“My cup is nowhere near where it should be.” He digs deeper trying to fix it.
“What the hell, man? Stop touching yourself. Go to the locker room to fix that.”
I skate away from him.
“Hey, come back.” He follows me. “I was talking to you ‘bout my problems.”
“I don’t care about them. Get away.”
Finally, he does. Laughing.
Skating around, the sounds of our warm-up playlist blaring, it feels so fucking good to be out here.
Play starts quick and leaves no time for setting up plays. Just when we do get something going, play is stopped and then starts again.
We’re working them below the goal line, and they know it. You can see it on their faces, the victory they so badly want being taken away.
Shit gets rough, too, just as it always does with two closely matched teams.
“Get back on the fucking bench, you pussy!” Leo yells at their center.
He’s all kinds of worked up, and after the hits he’s taking by their defenders, he has every right to be.
I get out and rock a few of them, but they’re big guys. They keep coming until they’re slapped with a major.
We’re sloppy for a while, constant possession changes, until Leo sweeps back and steals the puck as he moves to the net beside me. Laying it safely in the corner, Leo reaches up with his stick and hooks their center, getting a penalty.
But we can’t deny that the tempo of the game has been set, our control, absolute.
Unlike other sports, you are never really in possession in hockey. The puck is always up for the taking. You can’t strip the ball from another player in basketball. It’s a foul. You can’t run with it up the ice like you can in football.
With the puck changing teams more than six times a minute, nothing can be done. When it isn’t in possession, twelve men are fighting for the puck to gain control. Then it starts all over again with the goal of being sharp and fast, and thinking before we pass the puck. Just like anything, the game is won and lost by your dedication to make it work.
We need one goal to tie it up with thirty seconds to go in the third period. Circling center ice, Leo grins and looks at me. He’s going for it.
I give him a nod, one that says, “You got this?”
He nods back, circling wide, then crossing back over the ice before he makes it to the crease. When he gets there, he stops and spins around. His stick goes with him, but the puck remains at his feet. Their goalie, watching his body and stick, doesn’t see the puck at his feet. He doesn’t see him sweep his stick between his legs either and tap the puck in.
Goal!
We end up in overtime and the format is slightly different in the playoffs. There’s no sudden death. You go into another twenty-minute period and the first team to score wins.
That’s when we get aggressive.
All or nothing.
Remy takes a shot first, misses, and knocks one off the goalie’s stick, and then Leo gains possession again, only to have it stripped away.
The Flyers put in one of their veteran players, Vadim. The guy is a fucking maniac on the ice with speed, tricks, and consistency. Since starting in the NHL, he’s never missed a penalty shot or shoot-out goal and is nicknamed The Closer. The entire bench groans and hangs our heads when we realized who they put in. It isn’t good.
“Fuck this,” Remy mutters, sweeping a towel over his bloody face.
My eyes catch Ami’s. She’s sitting to the left of our bench with my family and Callie, all with the same nervous energy swirling in their eyes. She notices me looking right away and gives me a thumbs up and a smile.
I wink back and glance to the ice and then the jumbotron to check the score, as if it might have changed.
Vadim circles and then goes in for the kill, guys hacking at his stick with no control. He doesn’t do any tricks. His mission is speed and accuracy. Cage, a little jittery facing Vadim, watches the puck and plays around him, his eyes constantly darting from the puck to his stick with fierce body movements. Cage is poised, ready, knees bent, stick center.
When Vadmin gets to the crease, he goes up like he’s going to take a slap shot but then swings a fake and tries to just tap it. Cage reads him well, plays the pipes, and deflects it off his shin pads.
All of us are on our feet cheering on Cage.
“You’re up,” O’Brien says, nudging me forward. My brow lifts at his words.
No fucking way. He’s putting me in during overtime in the Stanley Cup? I know my shift is coming up, but he thinks I can do it. Leo skates to the bench, his time up, and then Coach motions for me, Remy, and Leo to get back out there. He’s throwing in his first line.
“No fucking way. You serious?”
“If you don’t want the chance...” he smirks, “I’ll give it to Ryan.”
I barrel over that wall quicker than I ever have before.
As I circle the ice, I can’t look up at anyone as they announce my name. The crowd intensifies. Never have I heard them this loud. I can’t look up because the nerves are so fucking amped right that I think for sure if I make eye contact with anyone, I’ll choke.
I can hear my dad beating against the glass but can’t look. Here is his boy, the little boy he gave up a career at playing in the pros for, playing in his first Stanley Cup game.
My heart is in my stomach thinking about how he must feel right now.
The final countdown is there with thirty seconds in this overtime period, each excruciating second longer than the last.
With my jaw set, my eyes shift from the ice to their goalie, ready, rocking from side to side in front of their goal. Taking a deep breath, I envision the route I want to take. I want it. All I have to do is get the puck in the goal somehow. I want it bad. I want it for so many reasons. I want to win this Cup for our team, for my family, and for Ami. I want to show Ami that there’s good in this world. Life isn’t always bad, sometimes good things do happen, and they can make all that bad shit simply... fade.
Just like falling in love, becoming a legend, winning in a sport, a Stanley Cup, a game, finding your way, your mind, body, heart, all of it operated on muscle memory. You experienced it before, and your body reacts to the signals you give it, things like playing hockey, falling in love, giving away your heart. But something, an unexpected action that you haven’t done before, lingers under the surface, one your muscles have no memory of doing.
I do what I say I won’t do. I glance up and see Ami pressed against the glass with her cell phone, her eyes on mine. We get caught for a moment, lock together, until I give her a cocky nod.
I can hear the giggle she lets out, well not really, the crowd is pretty fucking loud, but I like to think I hear it.
With the puck on my stick, I charge forward, hunched in position, keeping control and avoiding the defense. It’s the critical moment when my concentration turns to commitment. I take off from the red line, sweeping right and then left and back right. Changing puck possession from side to side, I pass to Remy. Remy gets it back to Leo, and then when I think he’ll take the shot, he passes it back to me. I use my stick handling speed to my advantage, like some kind of find-the-ball-under-the-hat game. Their goalie keeps up, his eyes low on my movements, anticipating my move.
Their defense is strong, blocking, but I take the wrist shot and sweep it under the goalie’s leg to catch just the tip of the crossbar. It bounces off his pad and goes in.
Lucky fucking shot, but it goes in.
The Blackhawks haven’t won a Cup since 1961, the second longest drought in NHL history. And tonight we win. I might have scored the goal, but I can’t take credit for it all by myself. It’s Remy who keeps it in control, judging the right time to pass to Leo. It’s Leo who waits until I find an opening. We won—together.
Since playing in the NHL, I’ve never made a show of a goal because I don’t score that much. I’m not out there to score. But hey, when you’re the one who won the game with the winning goal in overtime, a strip tease is warranted in my mind. I didn’t give a strip tease, but fuck if I’m not excited. I’m shouting and jumping and pumping my fists, ripping my helmet and stick away, gloves gone too, and then my team is all over me. I can’t see anything besides my boys piling on me, all with the same exaggerated enthusiasm.
From the time I was a little boy, red-faced, frozen hands, and a runny nose, I’ve dreamed of one moment, like any kid who likes to push a puck around. Hoisting that Stanley Cup.
As I look at Ami, the meaning behind what we are and what we’ve overcome holds just as much, if not more, meaning now.
She smiles at me and I wink, hoping she understands she is a part of this. She helped make this happen, whether she knows it or not.
