Duke was the last one… but he ran back to his bag real quick. I watched him take out a Snickers bar and a can of Mountain Dew. He placed them on Nick’s cubby seat before giving the #33 a knuckle punch, then looked up to the ceiling before leaving.
That almost broke me down.
I sat there alone in the silence, staring at it from across the room.
I could practically feel him sitting beside me saying,“You’ll be in the big show one day, bud. My best friend, Benny Griffiths, big timeNHLer.”
That memory finally pushed me to stand up and head out to the huge homecrowd.
I touched the #33 before leaving, closed my eyes, and sent up a prayer.
“Thank you, buddy.”
The entire warm-up, I couldn’t even make a shot come close to the net.
During the last minute, we always skated around our side and shot pucks toward our goalie to get him amped up… Well, my shot went super wide and one of our defensemen named Whitty had to duck to avoid taking a puck to the helmet. He shot me a ‘what the fuck’ look and I cringed.
As the American and Canadian anthems cued up, I kept my eyes up on the rink rafters in an effort to ignore just how packed the stadium was…
The first two shifts seemed to go by in a second… and then it was our turn…
While gliding to our offensive corner for a face-off, my entire body shook with nerves and I couldn’t stop my eyes from darting around.I felt like our back-up goalie JJ at the Ice League– scaredshitless.
“Fuck,” I muttered as I leaned over my stick.
As soon as the puck dropped, I went in to snatch it but was tossed on my ass. I shook my head out and hopped to my feet to catch back up with the play… but the rest of my shift went that way as well–I was a step behind everyoneelse.
When I hopped back over the boards, Coach gave me a smirk. “First play jitters,” he patted me on the back. “It’s alright. Get it together, son.”
Duke eyed me warily… I knew what he was thinking… I couldn’t even keep up with him out there. I was immediately afraid our “mojo” wouldn’t work out here. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I wasn’t NHL good… Maybe I was only meant for theminors.
I felt my nose flare as I took in a deep breath while trying to push all the negative thoughts to the back of my brain. Duke elbowed me in the stomach and pointed to thestands.
I followed his glove to the left side of the net… and spotted a wide-eyed Savannah.
She was looking right at me… and giving me the calm motion.
I felt a laugh bubble up in my chest.
“Just like in the backyard, man,” Duke told me with a smile. “We’re finally here. Enjoy it,” he urged.
Our next shift out, I was actually able to track the puck and keep up with the play… and I was able to get my stick on the puck and give a nice pass to Duke, which gave him a breakaway.
When we entered the team box, Coach gave me a firm nod… So I guess that went a little better…
While I waited for my next shift, I kept my eyes on Savannah. She smiled and gave me a thumbs up and a couple other motions… which I tried to decipher, but I’d definitely have to ask her about later…
After our next face-off, things finally clicked.
Duke was able to deke around a defenseman and slide a pass over to me, and I slid it back to our D-man for him to take a shot…
And suddenly the goal light was shining…
I had my first NHL assist.
Duke gave me a knuckle punch as we skated back to the bench.
“We got it, buddy! Let’s do it again!” he said happily while shoving me in the gut.
