It’s now two to nothing.
Max steps toward Coach Harris. “You done pissin’ about then, mate?”
Coach says nothing. Literally looks like he’s going to puke if he opens his mouth.
Finally makes a motion, which has our first line hopping over the wall to take the line change.
Every single one of us is fuming, which makes the play rough and scattershot. Passes are messy. Guys are stabbing at the puck, whacking each other with their sticks. One jab gets too aggressive, and a punch gets thrown.
I don’t see who started it.
Maybe Liam.
Maybe Dom.
Either way, we’re all in it as soon as we smell blood. I’ve got a Toronto defender’s jersey in my hand, his helmet is on the ground, and my free fist is pummeling his face.
This won’t end well for us, but it feels good to battle like this, to get the frustration out. And the crowd is wild for it, too. They want blood, so we give it to them.
The refs pull us apart, and somehow we end up on the winning end as the ref sends their center to the sin bin, and we resume on a Reapers power play.
I look at Dom, and he nods. He knows what we need to do.
As soon as the puck drops, with just a couple of minutes left in the period, we both scramble. We move out of formation, thus pulling defenders out of position. Their center gets caught up by our two defenders and tries a pass-back, but it goes loose. Dom is fast, so he gets to it first, scooping it up and sending it flying right past the goalie’s outstretched glove and into the net.
The buzzer goes. The crowd erupts.
Moments later, the period ends. We all head to the bench, then out and down the tunnel. Everyone’s talking at once, most of the guys fuming about the lineup switches. Dom and I just stay quiet. There’s no point in complaining when the odds are stacked against us.
“Line changes shouldn’t matter at this level of play,” Coach Harris is saying. “Every single one of you ought to be able to jump in flawlessly. This is about doing your job out there, doing the job you get paid to do. Don’t blame line changes; those are part of the game. Get your heads in the right place.”
“I’m giving serious consideration to the idea of using my skate as a weapon,” Dom says under his breath. “Fucking clown.”
“Mmhmm,” I hum. “But we know it’s not really his fault. What does the Don have on him, I wonder?”
“If I know you, you won’t stop until you find out.”
“Indeed,” I agree.
“It’s fucking weird, playing for that guy.”
He means Campisi, of course. Darrell Harris is a pawn. He’s a nothing. Not a player in our world outside of hockey. Campisi, for whatever reason, chooses to remain relatively anonymous regarding his ownership of the team. Technically, it means we should be oblivious to the overlap of our hockey and non-hockey worlds. But, of course, word gets around. Our worlds aren’tthatbig, after all.
“This is about betting, then?” Dom asks.
“Surely,” I answer.
“Well, then, let’s go make some loser a winner, then.”
I grin, and one fist-bump later, we’re on our way back out toward the ice.
We managed to tie it up in the second half, but they held us to a tie in the end. It’s still a win, in my book, because we were obviously meant to lose and we did not.
After we shower, I get sent down to do media, where I have to pretend I don’t know that our coach set us up for failure.
“What did you think about the early line change?” a journalist named Harper Lee asks. She’s pretty and petite with auburn hair and pale skin. She wears eyeglasses that seem to change at every event. She’s a nerdy, persistent little thing. Dominic says he thinks she’s cute, but she makes me nervous, like she knows more than she should.
“It was odd,” I admit. “Felt like we had momentum. But I try not to question the coach’s choices.”
