The Tournament

by Angelo Kontos

  The season was lost, so they could all really dig in now.

  Following that update, there was a brief snippet on some tournament that had just started the other night. Courtesy of the local cable channel, a few highlights were shown of the game between Toronto and Minnesota.

  A few minutes later, Freddy fell asleep with the remote control in his hand.

  5.

  Diana fell asleep that night reading about The Tournament while sitting at the same tiny desk she had in her bedroom since she was a little girl. When she started her post-secondary studies, her father wanted to buy her a bigger one, but she refused. She liked her “little girl” desk.

  She had been looking at an article about The Tournament on her laptop browser when her eyes glazed over. Diana woke up again in the middle of the night and felt a stiff pain shoot up her back from having fallen asleep in a chair. She winced and stretched slowly.

  Try as she might, she could not shake the incident earlier in the ER.

  During the traumatic time immediately following her sister Tamara’s death, her family doctor, Dr. Williams, prescribed Diana medication to help her function and sent her for grief counselling, which she stopped attending after only a handful of sessions. Other than meeting Alex, Diana could not point to anything good coming out of those meetings. She wasn’t comfortable sharing her inner turmoil with a bunch of strangers sitting around in a circle.

  Dr. Williams had also encouraged her to try natural approaches for anxiety and stress, everything from herbal teas to scented candles to playing soft music. When the doctor eventually suggested years later that she wean herself off the pills, Diana almost had a nervous breakdown.

  No way. Not possible.

  “Diana, you’ve functioned at a high level for a long time,” Dr. Williams pointed out.

  Diana literally trembled as she spoke. “I can’t right now, please. Just let me get through medical school.”

  Her doctor backed off and Diana excelled in medical school. During those years, her relationship with Alex flourished and she was as happy as she could ever remember being.

  Once Diana became a doctor herself, Dr. Williams became more persistent about stopping the medication. Recently, she had written Diana another prescription, and held the paper up before handing it over.

  “This is the last prescription I’m going to write unless I see a real effort to reduce and get off this medication,” she told Diana.

  Dr. Williams was a generous, kind person who felt tremendous sympathy for Diana and her family over what happened to Tamara. In fact, Diana’s parents had managed to drag Tamara to the doctor’s office to seek help about a month before she overdosed. Although Dr. Williams did her best and no one ever came close to blaming her for what happened, Diana always believed their doctor felt guilty for not being able to do more.

  In her bedroom now, Diana turned a lamp on and walked over to the long mirror that hung on her closet door. Her eyes looked puffy, she felt dehydrated, and she was certain that she had lost weight. She laughed at the thought of Alex seeing her right now. He would have put his arms around her and told her she was beautiful…and he would have meant it.

  Diana knew Alex would take playing for Toronto seriously and would scratch and claw his way through games to win. That was just how he was. She also knew that he was still reeling from his mother’s death and how that tragedy brought everything back to the surface for him: his fears and insecurities, his inability to ever really deal with the root causes of his anger. Alex could become so angry.

  God, she missed him.

  Diana went into her closet and grabbed a suitcase. It was time for a break.

  6.

  With all the effort that went into organizing the first game of The Tournament, it almost seemed as if everyone forgot there would be a second game. It reminded Alex of when he started teaching at the college and how much he prepared for his first day of classes. At the end of that first day, he was relishing how well everything went – before realizing he had to do it all over again for the next class and the one after that.

  Fortunately, Toronto’s one-woman organizational machine, Helen Peters, kept everything running smoothly. Tickets continued to be sold, the building was adequately staffed, and everything ran on time. As politely as possible, Ken asked Corey to avoid giving any more speeches to the team.

  Out of all the players, Alex spent the most time at the arena. He noticed that Helen was always outside the dressing room when he came to the rink. She seemed to linger, and they always exchanged friendly smiles. Alex was trying to concentrate on hockey, but he could almost not handle how attractive she was.

  He was not about to fool around with a married woman, although he knew someone else would try to if Corey didn’t get his act together. Helen clearly deserved better than that self-righteous hot-air balloon.

  The team’s second game was against Hartford, who had been blown out in their opener 9–2 by Detroit.

  COLE

  Good evening once again hockey fans from coast to coast and to our neighbours south of the border in the United States. This is Cole Foster here with you for Toronto’s second game of this tournament, against Hartford.

  Toronto is coming off a 2–2 tie in their opening game and Hartford will try and rebound from a 9–2 pounding they took from Detroit, who may be early favourites to win this thing!

  It looks like it’ll be a similar crowd gathering here at the old Arena Gardens in the great city of Toronto, three thousand or so. Eddie Mark’s in again to take the opening faceoff for Toronto.

  Hartford wins the draw, and here we go!

  The first period of the game played out in very similar fashion to the first period of Game 1 against Minnesota. Barry and Alex asserted themselves on defence and hammered away at the Hartford forwards as they tried to advance toward the Toronto goal. Eddie had still not won a draw, but he was flying all around the ice checking the opposing centre closely.

  Curtis made noise around Hartford’s net and held his ground as he absorbed punishment from their defencemen. He even drew a penalty when one of their players hacked away at his leg and cross-checked him in the back. On the ensuing power play, Mike took a shot that deflected off Curtis’s rear end and into the net – his first garbage goal.

  Going into the second period, Toronto seemed more relaxed and controlled the puck for most of the time. Scoring chances from Mike, Isaac and even Eddie, who put a wicked-looking wrist shot off the top part of the left post, had the crowd of three thousand excited, but did not result in a goal. Hartford had very little game, but their goalie was holding them in there. The score could have easily been 3–0 or 4–0 by now if Toronto could just bury another one.

  As the second period was nearing its finish and with Toronto still up by one goal, Ken walked up and down the bench and yelled at his players to tighten up their breakouts. A minute later, Isaac made the first of two careless, lazy passes that resulted in turnovers. Matt made nice saves on both shots, and after being reminded to avoid making such passes, Isaac was promptly benched after he made yet another one by blindly throwing the puck up the middle of the ice.

  On the bench, he and Ken glared at each other.

  As the third period was about to begin, Ken felt increasingly nervous, like the game was one bad play from blowing up.

  Then on a harmless-looking rush, one of Hartford’s wingers came up the ice and moved to his left as Alex kept him out on the perimeter. Afraid that Alex would crush him, the forward let go a wrist shot from a bad angle and it went right through Matt’s legs to tie the game 1–1.

  It was a bad goal, and Matt looked up at the sky like many goalies do after letting in a stinker. Alex skated over and tapped his pads for encouragement.

  “Don’t worry, buddy,” Alex said. “We’ll get that back.”

  As the puck dropped and Eddie lost another draw, everyone could see the air leaking out of Toronto’s balloon as Hartford came in and scored again after Matt kicked a bad rebound rig
ht out to the opposing team’s centre.

  A minute later, Alex fanned on a clearing attempt and a Hartford winger picked the puck up from the boards and leaned into a fairly average slapshot that caught the short side. Matt looked up at the sky again – that was another one he should have had.

  And on it went, until with about three minutes left Alex stepped into a nice drop pass from Mike and unleased a beautiful, angry slapshot that went in and out of the net so fast it confused the Hartford goalie. Alex stood at the blueline out of breath as Ken called for a timeout with Toronto trailing 3–2.

  Despite Toronto controlling the play and buzzing around Hartford’s zone for the remaining few minutes, the puck was eventually cleared the length of the ice and the game was over.

  Toronto’s first loss. Their record was now 0–1–1.

  7.

  Diana stepped off the elevator and searched her purse for keys. Lately she kept forgetting them everywhere, and now she wondered if she’d done so again. But she soon found them and unlocked the apartment door. Before going inside, she took a deep breath.

  Everything had become so stressful lately. Alex was understandably preoccupied with his mother’s health. Recent tests showed a slow but steady progression in her tumours, and Alex thought that because the growth was not as aggressive as what doctors initially suggested, it meant that his mother had a better shot of beating her illness.

  In fact, he informed anyone who would listen that his mother was a fighter, a warrior.

  Diana found herself in a no-win situation. If she remained silent, Alex poked and prodded her to give a medical opinion: What does this mean, what does that mean? What about this new experimental drug that’s being tested in New Zealand? There’s a radical procedure being tried for this type of cancer in Mexico; had she ever heard of it?

  If Diana tried to paint a realistic picture for Alex about the test results, or the severity of his mother’s prognosis, he argued with her and brought up internet research. Diana went to medical school, but Alex knew how to use Google.

  She entered the apartment and found Alex sitting at their computer. He was holding a credit card and ordering something online.

  “Hey babe,” she said before planting a kiss on his forehead.

  Alex did not look up or acknowledge her.

  “You buying something?” she asked.

  “Yeah, this tea I found online.”

  “What’s so special about this tea you found online? You don’t drink tea.”

  “It’s not for me,” Alex replied. “It’s for my mother.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s named after this lady whose picture is on the bottle,” Alex explained. “There’s like fifteen testimonials from people who swear their tumours shrunk after they drank this stuff.”

  Diana sighed and this irritated Alex.

  “Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve got to try,” Alex said. “I’ve got to try everything.”

  “Babe, there’s no tea, or pill, or anything else that’s going to make this magically go away,” Diana said.

  “Well, whatever,” Alex responded. “It’s just tea. Nothing to lose.”

  Diana leaned in closer to the monitor. It wasn’t long ago that if she’d leaned in this close to Alex after a long day’s work, he would have picked her up off her feet and carried her somewhere in the apartment. In the time they’d lived there together, they had consummated every part of the place except the balcony, even though they discussed that too.

  But now Alex moved away from Diana, which hurt her a great deal. She missed his affection, his strength and their connection. She missed him.

  Diana read a few lines about this wonder tea and stopped herself before she became really annoyed. Apparently, “Sandi” from Milwaukee swore up and down the tea saved her from inoperable cancer. There were others like Sandi who left a trail of similar comments.

  “Will your mother drink this?” Diana asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She doesn’t like tea either.”

  Diana loved sitting down with Alex’s mother and having a nice coffee. They both liked their coffee black. No tea.

  “Who the hell cares if she doesn’t like it?” Alex exclaimed. “Jesus, Dee. Are you serious?”

  “Babe, this is not –”

  Alex got up from the computer, brushed past Diana and went to their bedroom.

  Before slamming the door behind himself, he yelled out, “It’s fucking tea!”

  Diana slept on their couch that night. Alex never opened the bedroom door.

  8.

  Isaac Banion took his first small honorarium for playing in The Tournament and went right to the local drugstore to buy soaps, shampoos and personal grooming supplies. Helen gave out cheques through her office and even though everyone else scoffed at what they called “jury pay,” for Isaac it was more money than he had seen in a long time. People downtown had grown accustomed to him playing his guitar and were becoming less generous about parting with their loose change.

  After leaving Helen’s office with his money, Isaac had an idea and he quickly brushed past one of the newer players on his way back inside.

  “Yes, Isaac?” Helen asked.

  “You think I could get some tickets?” he asked.

  “For what?”

  “Whaddya mean? For a game.”

  Helen pondered his request. “Sure. I don’t see why not.”

  “Amazing. Thank you,” Isaac smiled before putting on his sunglasses. “You’re very sexy.”

  “Get out.”

  Isaac woke up early the next morning and spent an hour fussing over himself. He shaved his patchy, uneven beard and washed and conditioned his long hair. He even trimmed his eyebrows and nose hairs. Isaac then put on a clean, tight pair of jeans and a dress shirt that he’d lifted off a delivery truck outside a men’s clothing warehouse. Merely looking at the shirt made him feel ashamed, but it really was the only nice one he had.

  Isaac checked himself out one last time in the bathroom mirror before putting on his only pair of semi-decent shoes, and he tried to convince himself that things would go well. After picking up a teddy bear from the local dollar store, he stuffed the hockey tickets that Helen gave him inside an envelope and awkwardly taped the envelope to the bear. He ducked into a nearby subway station and nearly an hour later was standing in front of a small bungalow in the city’s west end.

  Isaac couldn’t decide whether or not he should keep his sunglasses on. He put them on and then took them off again. He did that a second and third time before deciding to just leave them on.

  After several minutes of staring at the front door, he finally walked up the steps and rang the bell. He rang it a second time and cocked his ear to ensure he could hear the chime. He knew that showing up there was a risk, but it wasn’t like he could have called ahead.

  Following a third attempt, Isaac was about to give up and leave when the door swung open. An attractive woman came out on the porch and looked at him so intensely it seemed like her eyes were burning right through him. She was dressed in a plain T-shirt and jeans, and Isaac instantly remembered why he had been attracted to her the first time they met.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked loudly. “What do you want?”

  Isaac suddenly felt silly holding a stuffed toy with a crumpled-up envelope taped to it.

  “Hey, Mel. I wanted to see…you know, I came to, um…” Isaac stammered.

  “What do you want, Isaac?” she repeated.

  “I just came, you know, to give you something.”

  Isaac held out the bear and Melanie snatched it furiously. She opened it and studied the tickets.

  “What the hell is this?” she demanded.

  “Listen…”

  “No, you listen,” she snapped and pushed the bear back on him with the envelope still attached.

  “I told you to NEVER do this,” she said with a finger pointed. “I will not put her through your bullshit, your st
upid music dreams, your fucking crimes, none of it.”

  “Melanie, you don’t understand,” Isaac protested.

  “I understand just fine,” Melanie responded. “I understand you’re a thief who’s going to end up dead in a ditch or in jail, and I will NOT let her know you just so she gets to experience that.”

  “It’s not like that,” Isaac said meekly. “I’m back on my feet now.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Isaac looked at his feet. “Look, you’re not being fair about –”

  “I’m not being fair?” Melanie repeated incredulously. “I’m not being FAIR? Fuck you!”

  Melanie rained her free hand down on him in anger as Isaac put his hands up to cover his face. His sunglasses were knocked off in the process.

  “You deadbeat piece of shit!” she seethed.

  Isaac stumbled backwards and scampered off the porch.

  “Okay,” he said. “Just stop.”

  Melanie was practically gasping for breath and was still clutching the tickets. Isaac picked up his sunglasses and put them back on. Her anger was making him nauseous. Still clutching the bear, he turned and hurried back toward the subway.

  The teddy bear and envelope were thrown into the first garbage can he came across.

  9.

  After Toronto dropped their next home game by a score of 3–0, their win–loss record dropped to 0–2–1. They had one more scheduled at the Old Arena Gardens before their first road game of the round robin. So far, their collective effort was below average in almost every category, according to local scribe Brooks Edwards, who seemed tortured by having to cover these games.

  He published this report card:

  DEFENCE: C+

  OFFENCE: D

  COACHING: C+