The reaction is instant.
One second they’re standing there jawing, the next Sam shoves Hughie straight in the chest, hard enough that Hughie stumbles back into the net and the mesh rattles behind him. And Hughie just snaps. He snarls, low and ugly, like a dog that got kicked in the ribs and decided it’s done being nice.
And holy shit.
I’ve played with Hughie for years. The guy once apologized to a ref for thinking about arguing a call. He’s calm and measured. I mean, the guy is completely unshakeable. Nothing gets under his skin. Watching him flip that switch feels like gravity just fucked off and left the building.
Sam keeps talking, leaning in, saying something low and nasty, and Hughie doesn’t blink. He just glares at him from under his mask, eyes sharp and lethal.
“Don’t,” Hughie growls.
“Don’t what?” Sam snaps back, and the restraint he usually wears like body armor is completely gone.
Then Sam shoves him again. Harder.
That’s when Hughie swings.
He drops his blocker and throws a right straight into Sam’s jaw, clean and vicious, the crack of knuckles on bone echoing across the rink. Sam stumbles back half a step, shocked more than hurt, and then instinct kicks in and he lunges forward, his gloves are off and his fists flying.
At that point I’m already moving.
No one takes a run at my goalie. I don’t give a fuck who you are.
Sam throws a sloppy punch that clips Hughie’s shoulder, and Hughie answers with another one to the ribs, driving him back again, but Sam gets one in and it glances Hughie’s cheek, snapping his head to the side. I’m there in two strides, grabbing a fistful of Sam’s jersey and yanking him back so hard his skates scrape the ice.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I bark, shoving myself between them and planting my skates wide in front of Hughie like a wall.
Sam tries to twist around me. His expression is murderous and he’s definitely still fired up. “Get off me, Thatcher-”
I don’t hesitate as I cock back and drive my fist straight into his chest, right over the sternum, knocking the air out of him and sending him stumbling backward onto his ass.
“Stay the fuck away from my goalie,” I snarl, my voice is low and deadly. “You wanna fight, you do it with me.”
Terry’s there a second later, grabbing Hughie by the shoulders and hauling him back, captain voice on full blast. “Enough! Jesus Christ, enough!”
Hughie’s chest is heaving, eyes wild behind the cage, knuckles already red. He doesn’t fight Terry, but he’s vibrating with fury, like it’s taking everything he has not to go again.
And then he turns.
Not slowly and definitely not to explain. He just turns and storms off the ice with his gaze straight ahead like he’s got somewhere to be and nothing in this rink matters anymore.
“Where the fuck are you going?” I shout after him.
He doesn’t answer. Shocker.
Sam sits there for a second, breathing hard, staring at the ice like he can’t quite process what just happened. When he finally looks up at Terry and me, his face is a mess of anger, shame, and something that looks an awful lot like regret.
Then he gets up without saying a word, and skates the other direction.
The rink feels dead fucking quiet after that. We’re standing there at center ice with our sticks still in our hands, gloves half-off, guys staring from every direction like they’re waiting for someone to yellpsychand reset the drill. And for maybe thefirst time in my life, I genuinely have no clue what the fuck just happened.
Coach skates over fast, sharp cuts in the ice, and his face is pure thunder. The kind that makes your spine straighten before your brain catches up. He stops in front of us, eyes snapping between me and Terry.
“Someone want to explain why the fuck my first-line center is trying to kill his own fucking goalie?”
Silence.
Not the defiant kind. Just blank, useless silence, because I couldn’t explain it even if my life depended on it. I replay the last thirty seconds in my head and it still doesn’t make sense.
