“A long weekend, then. You’ll find the time. Before this girl’s wedding. Her brother might not think about that on his own, so you need to tell him.”
“I will.” I take a deep breath. It’s only January. There’s time. Not a lot of time, but…time.
Liz returns with popcorn and beer for all of us, which I’m glad for once the game gets started, because Sloane is so full of questions, I need something to wet my throat between the answers I have to yell in her ear.
Both of my roommates are surprised at how much I know about the game, but it really comes in handy when some weird things that happen—like a delayed penalty against Buffalo, so the LA goalie sprints to the bench.
“Why did he just abandon his post?” Sloane squeaks.
I laugh. “Buffalo isn’t allowed to touch the puck right now, so they can’t score. The second they touch the puck, the play goes dead. So LA gets an extra attacker to—” And the whistle is blown. “Do nothing, it turns out.”
The goalie glides back to his net.
“Now they’ll go on the PK. Penalty kill.”
She nods sagely, but then immediately asks why Buffalo only has four skaters.
“Because they just took a penalty.”
“I’m lost.”
“Just hold your breath for two minutes.”
The game stays scoreless until there’s one minute left in the first period, and LA takes a penalty, which should be an advantage for Buffalo, but something goes wrong and suddenly LA has a two-on-one shorthanded advantage and they score.
“What? How did that happen?” Sloane says, bewildered.
“That’s hockey,” Liz mutters.
Both teams go back to the centre of the ice. Logan is back on now, and he chops his stick at the puck with a vengeance, winning the face off, chipping it to a teammate.
And…
“Yes,goooo,” Liz yells, on her feet. We’re all on our feet, because Logan has somehow found a new gear, and he’s on a breakaway.
The goalie comes out to meet him, but Logansnipesit, the puck zinging past the net minder’s shoulder and hitting the back of the net.
His arms go into the air.
I jump out of my seat.
Just like that, the game is tied, and the period is over.
“I love hockey,” Sloane says breathlessly as we flop back into our seats.
The game remains tied one-one all the way to the last five minutes of the third period.
Then Buffalo takes a penalty.
A minute later, they getanotherpenalty, so it’s five-on-three for LA for a minute.
But you need the puck to score, and Logan is a beast at the face-off dot, winning every single face off over the world’s longest minute-long double penalty kill. And as the first guy bursts out of the penalty box, Logan snaps the puck halfway down the ice, landing exactly on that guy’s tape.
Logan picks up speed, joining him, even though he’s now been on the ice for almost two minutes and has to be absolutely gassed, and they’re two-on-one.
His teammate passes the puck back and for a second it looks like Logan is going to return the pass, but then he keeps going, the goalie guesses wrong, and he jams the puck into the corner of the net.
Twirling around, his eyes scanning the entire arena, and there’s no way he can see us all the way up here, but points in my direction anyway, and I can’t breathe.
