The Tournament

by Angelo Kontos

GOALTENDING: D

  POWER PLAY: F

  PENALTY KILLING: C

  OVERALL CHANCES OF WINNING THE

  TOURNAMENT: F (only because G is not an option)

  JOKE POTENTIAL: A

  Toronto’s next opponent was Detroit, early powerhouse favourites to win The Tournament. Their fan base was rabid, and they routinely sold out their local arena in the Motor City. A blue-collar town with a struggling working class, they totally bought into what The Tournament was supposed to be: an almost anarchic response to the rich big leagues.

  Detroit was undefeated after four games and their only remotely close contest was the first game, against New York, which they still won by two goals.

  There was a quiet uneasiness in the Toronto dressing room before the pre-game skate. Alex felt it as he sat in his stall and taped one of his sticks. Every one of his teammates looked like they wanted to be somewhere else.

  When the teams lined up for the opening faceoff, Detroit’s players were a confident and loose group. They smiled and laughed together before giving Toronto’s guys a fierce stare-down.

  Their forwards took every opportunity to hustle and hit Toronto, and they were not above the odd cheap shot when the referee was looking the other way. Some of Toronto’s players, like Alex, Mike and the new defenceman Barry Davis, all of whom could not be intimidated, became irritated instead and took foolish penalties. Alex had taken three in the opening period and Ken was not impressed. He benched his captain after Detroit scored on both power plays.

  By the middle of the second period the score was 5–0 for the visitors’ side, and it seemed a merciful tally considering how dominant Detroit was in every aspect of the game.

  Entering the third, the score was 7–0. Ken pulled Matt from the net and sent out the backup goalie instead. During the second intermission Ken had informed Matt in the dressing room that he was getting the hook.

  “Don’t take it personally,” he told him. “I’d pull everyone if I could.”

  Matt nodded and had no objection. He was glad to be out of the game and sorry that he’d agreed to come back and play on this team.

  In the third period Detroit players kept pouring it on, and a few of them were downright obnoxious.

  Before a faceoff, one of their centres lined up against Eddie and sneered at him.

  “You can have this one,” he grinned. “I feel sorry for you losers.”

  Remembering what happened to his friend Tommy the last time he let an opposing player get under his skin, Eddie just gritted his teeth and did not respond. He also lost the draw, again, and the Detroit centre skated away laughing.

  Another player asked Isaac how long he spent brushing his “girly hair.” In response, Isaac promptly cross-checked him in the face and took a five-minute major penalty and game misconduct. Detroit scored two more times on that long power play: 9–0.

  Cole Foster seemed exhausted from calling so many goals for Detroit.

  The crowd booed loudly. Helen and Angus stood near the glass and watched.

  “Jesus,” Angus said. “They suck something awful.”

  Corey got up and left the stands before the game ended.

  As the minutes were finally winding down and Detroit scored yet another goal on a harmless-looking wrist shot to make it 10–0, Toronto’s backup goalie froze a loose puck in his crease. One of the Detroit forwards stopped abruptly in front of him and deliberately sprayed ice in his face.

  Before any Toronto player could react, the Detroit forward skated by Barry Davis and grinned at him.

  “What are you gonna do, you pussy?”

  Barry dropped his gloves to go after him, but another Detroit forward came across and punched him on the jaw before he could take another step. Alex dove in and within a few seconds all the players had grabbed hold of each other. Only Barry and Alex had to be seriously restrained by officials as everyone on the ice was thrown out of the game.

  Detroit players skated away smugly. The same player who made fun of Isaac’s hair pointed at the score and laughed at the Toronto bench.

  In all the years he played, Alex could never remember being this humiliated in a game. It was the lowest he had felt in weeks. Usually the last one to leave the arena, tonight Alex could not get out of there quickly enough.

  10.

  Several years had gone by since Eddie Mark first decided to go to Bridgepoint Health in the middle of the night to visit his friend Tommy. Going into a patient’s room so late was not allowed and this was strictly enforced, for the most part. Once in a while, however, the nurses would make an exception for someone like Eddie who tugged at their heartstrings. They noticed that Eddie was checking in on Tommy more than Tommy’s own family. As far as the nurses were concerned, he could visit his friend whenever he wanted to.

  Following the 10–0 debacle, Eddie went home and plopped down on his super videogame chair. He sat motionless in the dark for the next few hours, alone with his thoughts, and continued to reflect on this horrible tournament he’d agreed to join. At some point he looked at the time on his game console and saw that two hours had gone by. Knowing that he was much too wired to sleep, he put on a jacket and baseball cap and headed over to Bridgepoint.

  When he arrived on Tommy’s floor, he encountered a new nurse. At first, she seemed to tense up and began to recite the protocol for visiting hours. Eddie let her finish before asking her to look in Tommy’s file. He knew there was a note in there allowing him to visit Tommy at any time.

  She reluctantly pulled the file. She found the note and gave Eddie a surprised look. Eddie smiled politely and walked toward Tommy’s room.

  He turned and saw the same nurse following slowly behind him. Eddie decided that if she gave him a hard time, he would tell her off, even though it was completely against his nature to get into verbal arguments.

  Eddie’s thought process stopped cold when he looked inside Tommy’s room. Some of Tommy’s clothes were scattered around on the bed and Eddie saw the cup with the large straw that Tommy typically drank out of…but there was no Tommy.

  He was gone.

  11.

  It had been nearly two hours following the 10–0 blowout when Curtis checked his phone for messages. He half expected to find one from his mother, but she’d stopped talking to him after realizing he hadn’t quit playing in The Tournament despite her stern instructions to do so.

  After getting himself showered and changed following the game, Curtis trudged along to his car with his equipment bag slung over his shoulder. He heard his phone beeping and saw there was a voicemail and text from his jerk manager Earl to go to the restaurant as soon as he could for a meeting.

  The last thing that Curtis wanted to do right now was sit across from this petty, angry little man. Despite his exhaustion, Curtis was working the breakfast shifts and outselling most of the other servers. There were no problems he could think of, but he didn’t want to get in Earl’s crosshairs because he needed this job.

  As he grabbed a coffee and donut from a drive-thru on his way to the restaurant, Curtis wondered what this could be about. He had been hoping to get to the warehouse for a quick hour or two of sleep before operating the forklift.

  The restaurant was quiet when he arrived. He went to Earl’s office in the back and found the bastard sitting there going through receipts with exaggerated scrutiny, like he was studying a missing piece of evidence from the Kennedy assassination – versus what he was really doing - adding up how much food and booze the place sold that night.

  “Sit down, Lewis,” Earl said without looking up.

  Curtis sat and waited…and waited. Earl was in no hurry to speak with him. Curtis sighed and folded his arms.

  After a few minutes, he began to nod off.

  “Am I keeping you up?” Earl asked abruptly.

  Curtis rubbed his eyes and straightened up in his chair.

  “No, boss,” he replied. “Why’d you want to see me?”

  “Well, Lewis,” the manager said. “Her
e’s the thing: our little arrangement is not going to work anymore.”

  Curtis felt a painful rumble in his stomach and tried to ignore it.

  “What do you mean?” Curtis asked. “Why not?”

  “We need you back on your regular shifts,” Earl replied.

  “But…I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know why. I’m playing hockey.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Earl laughed. “What’d I miss? You in the Olympics or something?”

  The rumbling in Curtis’ stomach grew louder and another shot of pain made him realize he needed to find a bathroom soon.

  “I thought we had a deal,” Curtis protested. “I’ve been working during the day like we agreed. What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t need to explain the needs of the business to you, Lewis.”

  Curtis tried to focus and act like nothing was wrong. It had to be the late-night donut. He knew that he might only be able to stay in Earl’s office for another minute at the most.

  “You listening, Lewis?” Earl asked.

  “Huh? Yeah, I’m listening,” Curtis answered and wiped some sweat from his brow.

  “The needs of the business,” Earl repeated.

  Curtis shot up and went for the door.

  “Hey, where you going?” Earl called out.

  “I gotta go,” Curtis said.

  “Lewis!”

  Curtis opened the door to leave, but he stopped and turned around to look at his manager.

  “Starting tomorrow, you’re back on your regular shift, or you’re fired,” Earl said. “You understand? I don’t give a damn about your little bullshit hockey tournament. That’s a dumb excuse for a guy your age. You have responsibilities.”

  Curtis stood by the door with a hand on his stomach. Responsibilities? Curtis knew who that sounded like.

  “We’ve got the rib special on tonight,” Earl said as he turned back to the receipts. “Feel free to have some. I know you bros like that kind of thing.”

  As Curtis ran to the staff bathroom, he wasn’t sure if he had diarrhea, was going to vomit, or both.

  12.

  The undisputed number-one goalie for Toronto was back on his boat a few hours after giving up nearly all the goals earlier that night. Matt was in bed with Rachel. After some quick and relatively sloppy intimacy, she fell asleep and was snoring. For his part, Matt was nowhere close to sleep.

  Although he realized the result of the game and the team’s dismal record could not be pinned on him, Matt also knew that he had not been sharp in net. Maybe it was his age or the fact he had not played in many years, or both. Whatever it was, he felt lousy.

  And he was clean, too. That was the part driving him crazy. For the first time in forever, he was clean. Was that not supposed to improve your strength? Your athletic performance? Your sexual performance? Rachel did not complain, but it occurred to Matt afterwards that she probably should have.

  When Corey found Matt on this very boat a month or so ago in a drug and alcohol–fueled stupor, he convinced him to go to rehab and join The Tournament by playing up to Matt’s ego. The team needed him, and he was such a great goalie during the Deep Six dynasty.

  “What’s a team without a good goalie?” Corey asked Matt. “Nothing, that’s what. Teams need to build out to their goalie.”

  Matt knew what Corey meant was that teams should build from the goalie out, but he had not felt like correcting him.

  All Matt really liked about Tranquility was all the sleep he got in a bed that was far superior to his. The rest of it he could have done without…the fancy meals, the “difficult conversations” he had with staff there about the evils of substance abuse and finding his “motivation.”

  It was not rocket science. What he’d been doing to himself was bad and he always knew that, but he just did not care. So why did he agree to strap on goalie pads to play in some dumb tournament?

  Matt got out of bed and opened the small laptop he always kept on top of his little beer fridge. He wanted to check his e-mail, for possibly the fifteenth or twentieth time since arriving home. After powering it on he noticed something was wrong with the WiFi connection.

  “Piece of crap,” he muttered and slammed the laptop closed.

  Matt climbed back up on the bed and leaned over close to Rachel. He pushed on her shoulder until she woke up.

  “Hey,” Rachel muttered through squinty eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “You got any blow?” Matt asked.

  Rachel propped herself up on her elbows.

  “I thought you weren’t using.”

  “I need to straighten out, okay? Do you have some or not?”

  Rachel got up and grabbed her purse. She pulled out a small vial and gave it to Matt, who opened it and sprinkled a line on the coffee table.

  “Hey…don’t forget about me,” Rachel smiled as Matt rolled a small piece of paper.

  He let her go first.

  13.

  The evening just kept getting worse for Corey. He sat through as much of his team’s embarrassing performance as he could before leaving the rink and heading back to his office.

  On the way there, he impulsively decided to arrange a late-night rendezvous with his Associate Lawyer mistress. Corey had set up a system where he would send her a text that started with “My Office” and ended with a made-up work excuse, like “bring the Evans tax file.” She went along with it.

  He tried one of those texts tonight, but did not get a response. After proceeding to his office anyway, Corey turned on the light and sat at his desk, where he found an envelope with his name on it.

  It read Confidential – Tort Judgments. There was a note inside from the Associate Lawyer:

  My aunt is very sick and I have to go overseas. I came by to tell you, but you weren’t here. I’ll see you as soon as I get back. Think of me, because I’ll be thinking of you.

  Corey held the note up to his face. She must have sprayed it with perfume because it smelled like a flower. He put it back in the envelope and jammed it through a shredder under his desk. It was not long ago she was making demands, but Corey had put his foot down and things were good now.

  The hockey team was another story. If the team stayed on its current course, it would continue to be a punchline for reporters like that Brooks what’s-his-name. As Corey sat there and looked out at the city through his office window, he wondered if he misjudged how good these guys could still be.

  In the meantime, Helen finally collapsed on her bed at home. She and Angus were the last two to leave the arena and when she returned home, the babysitter reported that her son was running a small fever. The sitter had tried calling Helen during the game, but Helen left her cellphone in her office the entire time and was so preoccupied she forgot to even look at it afterwards.

  “Why didn’t you give him something to bring the fever down?” Helen asked.

  “I don’t have written permission to do that,” the sitter said plainly.

  “You need written permission to do that?”

  “Well, yes, Mrs. Peters. What if he has an allergic reaction to medication? Then I’d be blamed –”

  “Okay, I understand. Let me just get your money.”

  After the sitter left, Helen gave her son something for the fever and sat by his bed until she felt the fever go down and he fell asleep.

  Helen did not bother contacting Corey. She could just imagine what his response would be: “I’m at the office, Helen. I have to work late…the Evans tax file.”

  As images of the 10–0 shellacking she watched Toronto go through flashed through her mind, the last thought she had before drifting off to sleep was…

  “The Evans tax file…right.”

  14.

  As soon as he’d dumped all of his hockey stuff in his tiny apartment, Isaac grabbed his shiny guitar and decided to go somewhere outside to jam. He lacked the energy to head all the way over to his usual spot near Union Station, so instead he just skateboarded a few
blocks over to a nearby park and sat on a bench.

  No one who ever saw Isaac play guitar would dispute how good he was at it. Even his ex Melanie would say that. In fact, they met while Isaac was performing in a cover band years ago. Melanie sat with a bunch of girlfriends at a table in front of the small stage that night and Isaac could not stop looking at her.

  The rest was history, and Isaac wished he could erase some of it.

  This hockey team was starting to make him miserable. After his old buddy Alex convinced him to play, it gave Isaac a boost at first. He was even dense enough to think that if Melanie finally saw him getting his act together, they might be able to turn the page and he could see his little girl again.

  Isaac was strumming his guitar slowly on the bench when three teenage boys came stumbling out from behind some trees, laughing and drinking out of bottles that were inside paper bags.

  One of them looked over at Isaac and pointed.

  “Hey, look…Jimi Hendrix got attacked by bees.”

  Isaac chuckled. Not bad.

  He kept playing and expected them to move on, but they did not seem in a hurry to go.

  “Yo, old man, can I see your guitar for a sec?”

  “How about you just be on your way, little dude?” Isaac responded. “I’ve had a long night.”

  The three boys looked at each other and then at Isaac again. They stopped laughing.

  “Yo, my boy asked to see your guitar,” the first one said.

  “So?” Isaac responded calmly.

  “So, let him see it, you little bitch!” the third one jumped in.

  “No one touches this guitar but me,” Isaac explained. “So why don’t you boys finish drinking your milk and get lost?”

  Isaac knew he was pushing it, but his guitar was truly off limits.

  The three boys huddled together and whispered to one another. Isaac moved closer to the edge of the bench, and the rest happened quickly. One of them threw his bottle at Isaac, but the kid’s aim was way off. The bottle flew out of the bag, sailed past Isaac and landed on the grass behind the bench.