As a team, the men on the bench all answered in unison, pounding the butt-ends of sticks against the floorboards below their skates.
“Praise the Priests!!”
“Amen! Alright, now go out there and GET YOU SOME ASS!!”
Marty “The Monster” Grimson was the Priests’ star centerman and, in all likelihood, the most badass beast of a man ever to play the game of ice hockey with any sort of skill or grace at any level of the game. He was six-foot-six inches tall, two hundred and fifty-something pounds, and had fists like fucking lead hammers. His eyes and prominent features were chiseled and dark due to his mixed ethnicity – the Caucasian in him being anything but pure, while the Native American blood that coursed his veins was nearly as ancient as the culture itself. He kept his long, brown hair in a single braid as a tribute to his mother’s memory, honoring her heritage the only way he knew how, but also as a rebellious “screw you” to his father who could leap backwards off a cliff and into a garden of jagged spears for all he cared. His stubbornness at times was as unyielding as a mountain, but his temper was often as sporadic as the wind. He very likely could’ve played professionally if the National Hockey League wasn’t so averse to his prowess causing permanent physical damage to their “oh, so” costly and unexpendable star players. Not that their reluctance to sign him was of any real consequence, mind you. His place in his city, and in this story, was not to be a sports hero to all the little kiddies of the greater Los Angeles community. When compared to that of national championships or lucrative marketing contracts, the weight that the likes of this man’s life will soon hold would be utterly transmundane.
The blades of Marty’s skates crunched the ice below him with his every stride, growling hungrily in the face of their opponents. The cold air over the surface of the rink was heavy with humidity, but a welcomed breath of freshness from under the thick protective pads that buffered his bones from his enemies.
The Anaheim Hell Hounds were a reputable rival with several men nearly the size of Marty who were just as mean and twice as ugly. One such unfortunate monstrosity was named Jean-Claude Le’Duprie: a black French-Canadian mountain of muscle who’d played for more teams in the league than he had teeth left in his purple gums (which would be saying more if he wasn’t missing so many). He was a brawler, and didn’t have much finesse on his skates, but could really shoot the puck well if you hit his stick with a perfect pass.
The 3rd period face-off was back at center-ice. The Hounds had just scored, making it six goals to four in their favor. The crowd was sparse, but proving themselves a part of the game by way of their encouraging cheers for the L.A. home team. Marty was the Priests’ face-off man while Le’Duprie rooted himself directly across from him, grinning toothlessly, chewing on his mouthguard, mocking Marty’s “professional integrity”.
Le’Duprie spit off to one side and blood and saliva splat on the ice beside them, his lip busted open from a competitive skirmish the two had gotten into late in the first period. Marty smiled back at the visible proof of his victory, and Le’Duprie’s cocky grin abruptly became a bit more businesslike than provocative.
“Alright, ladies, there’s only two minutes left in this game.” The referee decided to set the pace for the rest of the contest before putting the puck into play. “Let’s try an’ do this by the book. Either of you two assholes drops the gloves again, yer gettin’ yerself a full game-misconduct. We clear?”
They didn’t bother answering. They both understood entirely, but that little intrusive fact wouldn’t change their demeanor if things escalated and became heated. On the other hand, Marty meant to win this game and he wouldn’t be able to do that while sitting in the penalty box.
He loosened his grip on his stick and placed his blade on the ice, focusing all his attention toward the dot at the center of the face-off circle. Le’Duprie got his stick into position next, but never took his eyes off their real target: the logo dead-center in his opponent’s chest.
When the whistle blew, and the puck dropped, Marty swept it between his legs to his defense, leaning forward with his head down to shield the play. Le’Duprie ignored the puck entirely and cracked the shaft of his stick across the Priests logo on Marty’s shirt instead, knocking him back flat on his giant and unsuspecting ass. The crowd unleashed a uniformed “Ooooo!!” afterward that hummed through the arena, sympathetic to the force of the blow.
Le’Duprie didn’t bother gloating over his fallen adversary before he went straight for the defenseman with the puck, oafishly hacking across the already scarred ice. If Finesse could complain, it’d have Elegant on speed-dial, bitching about the Hound’s gross neglect of both.
Marty – winded, hardly able to breathe through the fire in his lungs – found enough strength in his hunger for retribution to get up and skate for the offensive zone. The impact of his teammate being slammed against the boards behind him caught his ear, so he looked back to see who had control of the play. Boards swaying, crowd roaring, his defenseman was down, but so was Le’Duprie who had stumbled over the player he’d fell and greeted the ice with the side of his face. The ice wasn’t surprised he’d said hello. Neither was Finesse, if you’d ask Elegant.
The puck was already headed up the rink when Marty’s left winger escorted it into the Hell Hounds’ zone. The winger cocked his stick, threatening to shoot, forcing the Hounds’ defenseman to the ice in a bold attempt to block the attack, but the Priests’ forward held fast.
He lowered his stick and slipped the puck behind him to a trailing Marty at the top of the zone; the Priests’ captain cutting across the ice with unopposed authority, still pushing through the pain it caused him to breathe (nursing the hot knives in his lungs only adding to his taste for retribution). Jimmy, Marty’s right winger, had skated ahead and planted his “pudgy ass” in front of the net just like his coach had said to, and in doing so, had an honest-to-God, “miserable shit’s shot in hell’s” chance at being a viable threat. He was screening the goaltender’s line-of-sight when the behind-the-back pass found the blade of Marty’s stick. The Priest captain wound up, pausing to pick his target, and ferociously blasted one toward the net for the two feet of space between Jimmy’s skates and the goal.
Through the eyes of the young Priest, the shot came at him in slow-motion but his reaction time was just as tempered. His first thought went to his “family jewels”, and he cringed in a futile attempt to protect his manhood. Not that those tiny, hairy duds were worth a damn to his mom and pop, but the term still held merit concerning the fragile, though otherwise superfluous nature of the said bodily ornaments. In any case, the speeding puck smashed into the inside of his unassuming stick-blade, deflected between his own legs and those of the sprawling Goal Keep’s, then found its way into the back of the Hounds’ net.
“Yeah! Alright! Strong fuckin’ work, Jimmy!”
The Coach raised his fist and yelled over the applause of the few thousand fans in attendance before Jimmy opened his eyes to find he was being credited for the goal.
The Hounds’ goaltender slapped a frustrated stick on the ice while Marty and the rest rejoiced for a brief, but perhaps premature carousal. Marty gave Jimmy an encouraging pat on the helmet while the others congratulated themselves with wide grins and head-bumps.
“Right place, right time, my man. Good hustle.”
“Shit, Marty… You shot it at me on purpose, you asshole!” Jimmy wasn’t upset; he was just venting, still a bit wound up, and probably feeling a little guilty for getting credit for the goal without hardly lifting a finger to score it.
Marty laughed at his seriousness and gave the back of his hockey pants a tap with his stick as they headed for the bench.
On the opposite plank of wood, Anaheim’s head coach opted to slow things down and call for a timeout. He was an older man than the coach of the Priests, probably in his late sixties. He had a glaring scalp with heavy, white sideburns, wearing a pa
infully orange warmup suit decorated by his teams’ logo: the snarling maw of a vile, houndlike beast with hellfire for a fur coat. The Priests’ coach, Coach Gary, remembered some of his opponent’s old-style hockey tactics from way back around the time of the square puck and wooden skates. He was as ruthless as they’d come and instructed his team with a blatantly conniving, unsportsmanlike like vigor.
Marty and the rest of the boys huddled up at their bench, wiped sweat from faces and splashed water in mouths. The hometown crowd was riled up, but a team like the Priests didn’t draw much more than three or four thousand fans to any given playoff game.
“Alright, we got ninety-seven seconds to go get us another one and take this game into O.T.” His team zeroed-in on his words as he set them loose. “Marty, I want you back on the ice. Jimmy, you earned yourself a break, sit yer ass down. Carl, Donny, you two stay on D. Terry, Mac, you’re with Marty.” He looked around at his team nodding in unwavering compliance. They were focused. Determined. Hungry.
“Now, I know this prick. I know what he’s thinkin’.” Coach Gary tapped the side of his head. “He’ll put that sissy Tobin on the wing and tell ’im to do whatever it takes to draw a penalty. Keep yer fucking sticks on the ice! Don’t get called for some bullshit infraction when this dick takes a dive and yer pokin’ yer shafts at his pucker.” He paused briefly, inspecting the eyes of his men to be sure his instructions sunk in. “Win the face-off. Crash the net. Get that fuckin’ goal! …Praise the Priests!!”
“Amen!!”
The boys echoed their mantra with a cheer then skated for their positions at mid-ice.
The Priests weren’t necessarily Sunday churchgoers or driven by any particular faith in God. Their puns and catch phrases were closer to sacrilegious slander than divine worship: a delicious irony outlined by their coach who God had abandoned years before when his fourteen-year-old son was killed. (An incident that held little relevance to the score of the game, but one that would hold insurmountable significance in the days to come.)
Le’Duprie waited anxiously back at the face-off circle, his eyes two acidic vats of boiling resolve eager to defeat and/or disfigure anything skating in his way.
Marty took an extra moment to let the big bastard simmer and glided toward his redheaded left winger, Mac, before positioning himself for the draw.
“Mac, listen,” he covered his mouth when he spoke to avoid his words casually drifting into the ear-holes of a Hound. “I’m gonna let Shit-Face win this one.” (“Shit-face” was what the Priests called Le’Duprie on account of his deep brown skin tone and unbearable breath. It was certainly childish and a bit distasteful, but it stuck to the miscreant like a bad rep. on school grounds.) “When he wins, it’ll go back towards his right D. Head straight for him. You’ll catch ’im off guard. Strip the puck and look for me. I’ll be headin’ right back up the middle.”
Mac nodded; Marty spit; the crowd buzzed.
Le’Duprie also covertly conspired with a winger before the draw, (likely just to toy with the Priests’ psyche as much as to formulate a plan) then drifted for center-ice to meet his nemesis head-on. He mumbled some backward vulgarity under his breath, gave his helmet a smack, then locked his stick into position on the ice. (His English swears were always a little off. When one wouldn’t make much sense, the other just wouldn’t seem as insulting as he’d intended.)
“What’s the matter, Shit-Face? You look worried.” Marty smiled provocatively, the two of them so close their helmets clacked on contact.
“Hell Hounds don’ know no fear, Marty.” Jean-Claude’s accent was apparent but diluted with a pinch of U.S. temperament from years of living in the states. His skin was unshaven, his purplish lips swollen and chapped. “Think your choir boys c’n handle the heat?”
“Won’t be the first time we’ve pissed on yur camp fire.”
The referee pointed at Marty’s stick and the ice, signaling for him to get into position. Their breaths swirled in the frigid air and Marty noticed the focus and intent roiling in Le’Duprie’s eyes. This time, Jean-Claude was slightly more involved with the play than before Marty had put that last one past his goalie.
Marty, figuring his opponent was focused on the draw, glanced at his winger, Terry, to sneak him a wink. Terry nodded, knowing he was signaling for a pick when he made his move.
The Ref’s whistle chirped and the puck dropped.
Elite athleticism on ice ensued.
Marty headed right through Le’Duprie like a sledge hammer through a cement wall, knocking him off balance, skates carving swaths in the ice beneath his blades.
Le’Duprie won the draw and swept the puck back before being pummeled, but by then Mac was already on his way to intercept. The Hounds’ D tried getting the puck to his blitzing centerman, but Mac’s stick said no, deflecting the attempt in Marty’s direction just before he crossed into the opponents’ zone. Marty captured it and paraded it boldly across the blue line, headed for the ’tender, the crowd’s posteriors heavy on the edges of their seats.
He thought for a moment he had a clear path to the net, but the last remaining D-man was closing in. The Hound lunged with his stick stretched out, desperate to gain an edge, and swatted at the puck on Marty’s blade sending it fluttering into the air. His momentum carried him through the Priest’s skates to knock him into a spin, but Marty turned ire to focus, hunting the puck in its path, and choked-up on his shaft like a bat to crack the rubber in mid-decent. The moment carried the emotional weight of thousands, jam-packing a single second with minutes of timeless commotion—
Flakes of ice took flight from the flailing body of the sliding defenseman. Fans jumped from their seats, spilling beer and nachos onto the already filthy aisles. A man in the stands sprung up and knocked his wife’s drink into her half-eaten popcorn – next to them, a child’s mouth and eyes were wide in awe of the quality of action unfolding on the ice. And behind that spectating family, a man wearing an orange and black Hounds jersey, spewing chunks of food from his mouth over relative obscenities, clenched the hot dog in his hands hard enough to squeeze ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise out both sides of his fists.
When Marty’s stick collided with the puck, it gave into the force of his swing and bent backward like an archer’s bow. When it caught up, it catapulted the cold component toward the guarded net. It flew directly for the goalmouth – a line drive into centerfield – but awkwardly, end over end, scattering shavings like shrapnel. The goalie dropped to the ice in a groin-splitting display and held out his glove to cover the goal above his leg-pad. When the knuckling puck hit the lip of his glove, it tumbled over its edge, trickling past the plain of the goal-line to kiss the back of the net; mwah.
The red goal light burst on and the siren blared, haughtily announcing the Priests’ timely success.
The boys quickly reconvened at their bench amid a union of congratulations after the tying goal that made the score six to six – the crowd around them roared its approval.
Adjacent to the revelry, Le’Duprie’s scowl at Marty and the rest of the Priests warned of an evil scheme brewing between cauliflower ears (those acidic vats for eyes spilling hot fury on the ice through the sweat over his brow).
From the bench, Jimmy caught the glare by accident and the two had made definitive, offensive eye contact. Bathed in maliciousness, the look shot chills up Jimmy’s spine. Le’Duprie’s eyes may as well have been surgical scissors on account of Jimmy feeling his balls drop off when Jean-Claude threw him an evil smile to top it off. Thankfully, Marty was gliding in from center-ice, skating in front of the bench and conveniently eclipsed the impact of the psychological neutering Le’Duprie was performing on the Priest’s young teammate.
Jimmy tried to shake it off and pick his “stones” back up from the floor when the Coach started laying out their next plan of attack.
“Okay, kids, listen up. Good work out there, but this game ain’t
over. Terry, yer gettin’ double shifted. Marty, third time’s the charm.”
“Sure you don’t want me to sit this one out, Coach?” Marty thought he was funny. His coach thought otherwise.
“Don’t get cocky.” A stern shake of his finger countered his star-player’s remark. “But this time I want Terry on the draw. Marts, you take left-point. Jimbo, yer on right wing. …Jimmy! You listenin’ to me?!”
“Uhh…yeah, Coach, left wing.”
“Right wing, you nut-less putz! Right!!” Jimmy’s averted attentions drew the eyes of the whole squad. “God damn it, Jimmy, quit playing with yer nads and pay attention!”
Marty looked down at his teammate, seemingly not nervous himself but a little concerned. “You okay, man?” he asked, sneaking his worry under the voice of his coach.
“Huh…?” Jimmy was still rattled from Dr. Ball-clipper’s heinous grin. “Yeah…yeah, I’m cool, Marty.” He glanced back up at his captain, disguising the discomfort in his eyes with a shrug.
Marty nodded back, unconvinced.
The Coach’s plan was simple: Win the face-off and move as a unit over the blue line. Jimmy gets the puck on goal and Marty and Terry crash the net to sniff out the rebound. If all went well, they’d get an offensive zone face-off if not a game winning goal.
Marty had more tip-ins and goals off rebounds than any other player in the MWGHL (a semi-professional hockey league comprising of eleven other teams spanning the west coast, Arizona, and Nevada). He was a monster on offense and not because of his size, but because of the tall numbers he’s tallied against so many opposing squads, and these Anaheim Hell Hounds went not without casualties in his war on stats.
The Priests perused onto the ice after getting their strategy straight while Jimmy hopped over the boards into position. And as if Le’Duprie could smell his perspiring fear, he stared purposely at his mark, spitefully ogling. Marty saw the look from the Hound captain and started piecing together why Jimmy had been so distracted. He responded accordingly.
Blood Magik- A Cold Day In Hell Page 2
