Taking a breath, I drop back to the bench and watch the face-off. Ren and Willits are right outside Felton’s zone, making damn sure no one can come near him. The puck drops. It’s in play for maybe thirty seconds when a ref blows their whistle.
I groan. “What now?”
The ref doesn’t bother to consult the other or the linemen as he glides into the position to make the call. It’s not the same ref who penalized Felton. It’s the other.
“Number eighty-three, Washington. Tripping. Two-minute penalty,” he calls then skates away.
Nason cackles beside me. Washington’s eighty-three looks around as if asking if this is truly a thing. The other ref comesstraight for the one who just made the call, and while I can’t hear the confrontation, I can almost imagine what it sounds like.
“What was that? There was no trip.”
“There was no goaltender body check, so I thought we were just making bullshit calls.”
“He put his hands on another player.”
“Another player in his crease when the puck was fifteen feet away. And his touch wouldn’t have hurt a fucking newborn.”
Okay, I’m probably wildly exaggerating, but I think I’m near the right track. The ref who penalized Felton skates away, and it’s clear that he’s not happy. The crowd is yelling “You suck, ref twenty-eight,”over and over again. I appreciate the numbers they wear around their upper arms. It makes cursing them in our offtime more direct.
With the two teams evened up, there is no power play. We’re playing four-on-four, and I jump back in when Jackson Troy makes his way to the bench. My feet hit the ice and I dig in, shooting off toward the puck in our zone. It’s Ren and Zenia now, making a barricade in front of Felton.
I dive in for the puck. My stick hits it a few times, but Washington is being a good obstacle and getting in the way of freeing it. It takes what feels like a year before the puck is loose, having been spit out and toward our goal.
Ren takes a whack at it and sends it flying toward the other side.
We make it through the two-minute penalties without scoring but also without another incident. However, if we think the bullshit is over, we’re wrong. Ref twenty-eight is out to be an asshole, and the other ref keeps trying to balance it out.
He even stopped at our bench after the second intermission and apologized to Coach for the bullshit, though not quite in those words. I saw him head to Washington’s bench too and talk to the coach there. It seemed amicable. Even though the bullshitcalls are aimed at us, it appeared that Washington’s coach understood what was happening.
In the end, we lose 2-5, and I’m pretty sure that’s in large part because of the ref. Not just the fucked-up calls he was making, but because all the bullshit targeting was certainly messing with our heads.
The locker room is quiet as far as voices when I step inside. There’s a lot of slamming around because everyone is pissed. But otherwise, there doesn’t seem to be anything to say. I stop beside Felton on my way to my cubby and grip his shoulder.
“You good?”
He looks up at me and shrugs. “I didn’t body check him.”
“We all know that,” I assure him.
“This wasn’t a game between us and the Hermits. It was between the refs,” Denny says, shaking his head.
“That one—twenty-eight—should be fired,” Marion says.
“He should be penalized,” Zenia agrees. “Fined. Put on suspension. Whatever.”
“Something,” Felton agrees, nodding as he continues to strip off his gear.
I study him as I head toward my cubby. Felton has a habit of taking losses on himself as if he’s the only one on the team so it’s his fault. He’s gotten better since Ren shut his family out of his life, but there are still times when he takes losses personally.
That doesn’t seem to be an issue tonight for which I’m thankful.
Coach stops in the locker room, and while we expect some kind of pep talk, he leans against the door and frowns. Not at us. I’m not sure he knows what he wants to say, but he shows his support by being here and sharing in our aggravation.
“Please tell me something can be done about that,” Willits says.
“The game is over,” Coach says.
“No. We’ll take the loss. It’s whatever. I mean the ref. That was absolute shit, and the fact that we were always on the receiving end is clear targeting.”
