Zayne, who either can hold his liquor way better than I can or who did actually partake in that cocaine that Granny Murray was offering, leaps over the boards onto the ice. “Get him on the ropes, Fletch,” he hollers, skating toward me.
The rest of the team hesitate a beat. They know that leaving the bench to fight is breaking a cardinal sin and gets you ejected from the game. But Murphy’s Law is rushing into the fight, and by God, they’re following their captain.
Which is good because now it’s two-on-one, and I just took a glove to the nose, and there’s blood in my eyes.
Zayne roars as he collides with the second D-man about to kick me in the face with a sharp skate.Wow, he’s still got it!My inner child is oddly excited as both teams clear the bench while the crowd roars their approval.
The Finnish giant grabs up a forward who’s bear-hugging Jovi and ragdolls him. The refs blow their whistles, and the linemen try to separate the crush of violent players. Eddie is swinging blindly.
I grab one of the forwards around the legs who’s going after Zayne. I gotta hand it to my old hero—no one gets him on the ground. His legs are tree trunks. Zayne grabs one of the D-menpummeling me by his calf and physically picks him up then body-slams him on the ice.
Ren is in the swarm with his oversized goalie stick, slicing through the players. The Direwolves Czech monster then knocks into the fray. All the players scramble away as the two huge goalies muscle through the crush, trying to get at each other.
“Fucking communist,” Ren screams as he goes after the Czech goalie.
“Goalie fight!” The announcers are ecstatic.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” the crowd screams as the goalies circle each other then charge.
Ren takes a punch to the side of the head then headbutts the other goalie, who slugs him in the mouth. Teeth fly. The linemen jump in to separate the two men as they scream obscenities in their mother tongues.
It’s chaos.
Ren accidentally belts a lineman in the groin, and the rest of us players use the excuse to go after each other. More refs swarm up, screaming about game misconduct penalties. The coaches sling obscenities at their players while the goalies threaten to shoot each other in the parking lot.
We’re all finally herded to be crammed into the penalty box and have to sit there, bleeding and bruising, as the goalies are sent back to their nets to flip each other off while the clock counts down to the end of the game.
Jovi’s pressed right up against me, and Cookie is half sitting in my lap. Bramms’s crotch is near my head. The entire team’s crammed into a penalty box designed to hold seven max. The crowd cheers and sings fight songs.
“It’s nice to play in a full stadium,” Jovi says happily.
“Shut the fuck up.” I clutch my ribs and skate back to the tunnel to ecstatic cheers from the crowd when the timer runs out and the refs let us out of the penalty box.
Ellie is in the tunnel talking to the sports media scrum when we leave the ice bleeding and disgraced. She speaks rapidly over the roar of the crowd, her hands flapping.
My nose is still dripping blood, which runs over my upper lip to spatter on my uniform. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need stitches on my eye, and, oh yeah—we lost. Big fucking time.
And Ellie’s what? Talking about putting pucks in net next game?
“Next game?” I scream at her. The cameras swing onto me. I wipe at my bloody face with my jersey. “I am not playing another game with you as the fucking coach. You suck. You’re a terrible coach.”
“Really? Because your last one is in jail,” she screeches back at me.
“We never lost this badly with him.”
“Maybe it’s your fault. You just got called up from the minors, and you’re still playing like it.”
“Don’t put this on me,Coach,” I spit. “You made terrible calls. I didn’t have the same line the entire night.”
“I have a method.” She clamps her mouth shut. “I’m not arguing with you. Go to the locker room. We can talk about this later.”
That sets me off. The fury pulses in tandem with my throbbing eye.
I grab her. “You don’t get to dismiss me like I’m one of your preschool children. And yeah, I did look you up, and you’re not qualified to be here.”
“Really? You want to have this fight here?” she snaps. “That’s fine. Let’s fucking go.” She pulls out her clipboard.
“You missed not one, not two, but three easy shots on goal. I kept changing the lines around because I was trying to find the best player who would keep up with you because I erroneously thought that was the reason you kept sitting on the puck—because you needed a better winger. I admit I was wrong. It wasn’t them. It was you. You’re the problem. Word to the wise: if you’re gonna be a puck hog, at least get the puck in the fucking net. My grandmother could have done better.”
