The Tournament

by Angelo Kontos

  After two periods, the score was 2–2.

  While he live-blogged at a furious pace for a few online publications, Brooks wondered aloud if fans from either team had much left in the way of fingernails. He imagined they’d bitten them to the core just to deal with the tension.

  Both teams turned over their lines quickly, keeping shifts short to maximize their players’ output and stamina. On one play, Alex poke-checked the puck off a Detroit forward trying to clear his zone and moved in quickly for a shot.

  Bucco steals it! He’s in with a shot! REBOUND!! Another shot! ANOTHER one! Eddie Mark whacks at it! Bucco! Mark! No, it stays out!

  Out of gas, Alex and Eddie put their heads down and raced to the bench for a change.

  Moments later, Detroit’s Reynolds snuck a pass to a defenceman, who pinched in from the point and got just ahead of Curtis’s backcheck to take a pass – and made no mistake with a high slapshot that gave Detroit the late lead in dramatic fashion.

  Cole Foster’s call of the goal was drowned out by cheering Detroit fans. With just over two and a half minutes left, it seemed like Toronto had little time left to get it back. They called a timeout and quickly went over a few different ways to run a play in the Detroit end. Having control of the puck would be key, especially since the faceoff was back in their defensive zone.

  Eddie leaned in to take the draw against Detroit’s Reynolds and won it quickly and cleanly. He drew the puck back to Alex, who faked an outlet pass and caught two Detroit forwards twisting as they didn’t expect him to carry the puck himself. Alex skated as hard as he could toward centre, flipped the puck deep into the Detroit zone, and chased it himself as Matt started inching out of his net for the bench.

  The capacity crowd were on their feet as Alex bulldozed his way through a check and closed in on the puck.

  Now Toronto…coming hard again at ’em…Bucco chases the puck and gets to it in the corner…and it’s centered! There’s Hill…SCOOOOORE!!!!!

  Water bottles went flying on the Toronto bench as the players jumped up to celebrate, and the shocked crowd fell silent except for the odd smattering of boos. Cole sounded like he was going to burst a vein.

  Scoooore!!! Mike Hill has…scored! And with 2:05 left, the game…IS…TIED!

  Mike raised both his arms to celebrate and kept them up as his teammates on the ice mobbed him. Brooks made three typing mistakes on his blog and was so hyper he was typing in all caps.

  Seconds later Eddie used his speed to strip the puck off a nervous and tired Detroit defenceman, before coming out front with a quick wraparound – which hit the post before sliding under the falling goalie’s pad. Replays showed the puck was right on the goal line. Toronto almost put the game away with twenty seconds left to play.

  Shortly thereafter the buzzer rang to end the period, and both teams retreated to their dressing rooms before coming out to play sudden death, series-ending overtime.

  As Cole Foster reminded viewers, these two teams would go at it until one of them scored. Whoever did so would move on to the semi-final rounds to play Ottawa, and whoever lost would be eliminated from The Tournament.

  Right before the teams left their dressing rooms to take the ice again, Alex grabbed Mike and Eddie and pulled them in close. The other guys took their cues and formed a team huddle in the centre of the room.

  “Leave it all out there,” Alex said. “Win or lose, that’s the only way we walk back into this room. Let’s get it.”

  Moments later, overtime started and the atmosphere in the packed arena was almost rabid. The teams started out by playing cautiously, like they were each protecting a lead instead of looking for the winning goal.

  Players on both sides were afraid of making a mistake that would cost them the series. By the midway point of the period there had only been one or two real scoring chances for either side. Matt made a few sharp saves for Toronto, and Detroit’s so-so goalie made his best save of the series on a one-timer from Isaac that looked like a sure goal.

  With about three minutes left and everyone starting to think about a second overtime period, Barry grabbed the puck off a feed from Mike and shot it into Detroit’s zone from centre.

  Davis shoots it in for Toronto…Bucco drops it to the corner for Hill…now out front again Davis! SCORES! SCORES! Eddie Mark tips it in! And Toronto…WINS THE GAME!

  Alex grabbed Eddie, put him in a bear hug and carried him up the ice toward their ecstatic teammates.

  Toronto wins the series and will move on to face Ottawa – and Detroit…has…been…eliminated!

  Pertia John leaned forward in her chair to get as close to the television without having to get up. She was clapping her hands and squealing excitedly as the local cable network replayed Eddie’s game winner.

  Isaac’s ex, Melanie, watched the players celebrate on her television, including Isaac – who was taking turns hugging different teammates and playing air guitar on his hockey stick. Their little daughter Sophia sat in a small rocking chair, chewing on a pacifier and oblivious to what was happening.

  Melanie’s mother stood in the background and looked on. She frowned, but did not say anything before leaving the room.

  A nurse checked in on Eddie’s friend Tommy, who’d suffered a stroke right before Eddie left for Detroit. He was now being kept alive using life-support machines. Eddie had paid for a television to be set up in the room and asked for the game to be put on. The hospital staff wondered what the point of that was and how long it would go on.

  In a cheap motel room somewhere on the outskirts of Toronto, Matt Richard’s father sat up on the edge of a bed in front of an old television set. His pants were hiked up and unbuttoned and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Behind him, a prostitute was getting dressed and collected the cash he left for her on a table.

  He watched Matt shake hands with Detroit players.

  “That’s my boy,” Matt’s father said to the woman, who could not have cared less.

  Becky and her boys watched the game together, cuddled up on their carpet in front of the television with popcorn and a blanket. Mike’s sons lost their minds when their dad tied the game in the dying minutes of the third period. The oldest boy jumped so high that he scraped two of his knuckles on the low ceiling.

  Mike was embracing the head coach, Ken Hornsby, on television after the win. Becky smiled and knew her late father-in-law would have been so proud.

  Helen and Angus had made a date to watch Game 7 together in Helen’s office, live-streamed through her computer. They put on a pot of coffee and remained quiet for most of the game, except for the odd occasion when Angus yelled out, “Aw, fuck!”

  Angus quickly realized that Helen was not her usual outgoing self and instead seemed distant. However, when Eddie scored in overtime, she leaped across the room and landed in Angus’s arms. They jumped up and down together cheering.

  Angus would not mention to Helen that he saw her going into the dressing room the other night. He knew Alex had still been in there, but he was not in a position to judge.

  Besides, who could blame her?

  The restaurant was dying down just thirty minutes before closing at 11:00 p.m. when the game ended. A group of customers were gathered by the bar to watch the game on television, and when Eddie scored the winning goal, they cheered and Megan threw both hands up in the air while stifling a yell.

  “What’s this?” her manager Earl barked. “You don’t care about your job either?”

  Megan immediately resumed working again with her back to him.

  “Sorry.”

  Curtis’s mother was in her living room alone in the dark, except for a small lamp that was right beside her. She lay on a couch listening to the radio, a different broadcaster than Cole Foster.

  Here’s Barry Davis at the point and he takes a shot…SCCCCOOOORRRRES!!!! Eddie Mark with the goal! Toronto WINS! Toronto WINS!

  Curtis’s mother reached to turn off the radio and the small lamp. She pulled a blanket right up to her chin and clo
sed her eyes as hard as she could.

  In his office, Corey watched the game from his couch with a box of pizza and a bottle of scotch. He was well on his way to being intoxicated when the game was ending. He jumped up to celebrate the overtime goal but lost his balance and fell, spilling the rest of the bottle in the process. Corey flashed a drowsy grin until he passed out with the television on.

  Havock chuckled as he held a phone to his ear while sitting in his dark apartment with the only light coming from the television. His sleeping pill should be kicking in soon.

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you this,” Havock said into the phone. “This Bucco’s tougher than his dad, that’s for sure.”

  Havock watched Alex skate up to Mike and Ken and hug them both in post-game celebrations.

  “He’s going to help me clear his old man’s debts,” Havock smiled. “Only he doesn’t know it yet.”

  Alex skated off the ice after high-fiving Freddy Rozelli at the Toronto bench.

  “But he will soon.”

  Macdonald sat up in his wheelchair and watched the television in the lounge of his long-term care facility. There were three other residents in the room as well. One of them, an elderly woman who liked to spend nearly the entire day in front of the TV, cleared her throat constantly and sounded like she was having difficulty breathing.

  Macdonald realized that he was also taking shallow breaths himself. When would this Brooks Edwards step up and use the information MacDonald had given him? What exactly was he waiting for?

  The elderly woman sitting near Macdonald cleared her throat again and then peed on the floor. Macdonald looked away as two nurses came into the room.

  At the hospital, Diana was nearing the end of her shift. The game was on in the waiting area. After she heard the room erupt in cheers, she walked over to have a look and got there in time to see Alex carrying Eddie up the ice after the winning goal.

  Diana really missed Alex and it occurred to her that in his own way, he had let her know that he missed her too.

  22.

  Seventeen-year-old Diana Cross had fallen asleep at her desk while studying for a chemistry test. In the middle of the night, the sound of feet shuffling along the carpet in her room jolted her awake. Diana’s younger sister, fifteen-year-old Tamara, was dressed in a short skirt and a revealing top. She was also wearing a ton of makeup.

  Tamara used to have her own room, but their mother had made up an excuse about needing to convert it into a space where she could work on tailoring dresses. For the foreseeable future, the sisters would have to share a bedroom. Diana knew the real motivation for this. Mrs. Cross thought that by forcing the girls to share a room, her more responsible daughter could keep an eye on Tamara, the problem child. Diana suspected that Tamara knew this too and resented it.

  Nothing had been going well with Tamara. There were missed curfews and broken promises and one disobeyed rule on top of another. In the midst of all this, Diana enjoyed the escape of school and worked hard to keep her grades up.

  It was just past midnight and Tamara was opening the window to leave the house.

  “Where are you going?” Diana whispered. “We have school tomorrow.”

  “Go back to sleep,” Tamara whispered back. “I’ll be back before everyone wakes up.”

  “Tamara, this is crazy. You’re going out on a school night. Do you have any idea how that looks?”

  Tamara swung a leg out the window and stopped to look at her older sister.

  “Seriously? Don’t be like her, Dee.”

  Diana ran over to the window and grabbed her sister’s arm.

  “Stop! Tamara, don’t go!”

  Tamara pulled her arm free and looked at Diana for a moment before hugging her.

  “I can’t handle things like you, okay? I can’t be you,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  “Tamara…”

  “Please don’t tell Mom and Dad,” Tamara pleaded.

  Right before she disappeared through the window, Tamara looked back at Diana and smiled.

  “I love you, Dee.”

  23.

  Diana went through nearly an entire box of kleenex in Dr. Williams’ office. After a while, it looked like she was holding a snowball made of tissue.

  “If you’d managed to stop her that night,” Dr. Williams asked, “what do you think would have happened?”

  “She’d still be alive.”

  “You don’t think she would have done that again?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Could you really have followed her around all the time?”

  “I don’t know, but I should have stopped her then.”

  “You know, Tamara was the first patient I ever lost.”

  “We never blamed you for anything,” Diana replied. “You did your best.”

  “I had just opened my practice,” Dr. Williams recalled. “And I was devastated. Last year I lost a teenage boy not much older than your sister. His family brought him in for help much the same way your parents brought me Tamara.”

  “I’m sure that wasn’t your fault either,” Diana said.

  “I’ve done this long enough now to know that if there was anything else I could’ve done, I would have done it.”

  “Obviously.”

  “You need to believe that, too,” Dr. Williams said. “You can beat your head against a wall the rest of your life and take pills, or not take pills, but until you realize there was nothing more you could have done for Tamara, you will never find peace.”

  “I just…I’ve always wished that I had one more chance to talk to her,” Diana said as she went for yet another tissue.

  “Do you remember the last thing she said to you?”

  Diana nodded. “She told me she loved me.”

  “Well, as far as final conversations go…it doesn’t get much better than that.”

  24.

  The morning after Toronto’s thrilling overtime victory in Game 7, Corey asked his secretary to run out and get him breakfast. His head was pounding from drinking too much, and his stomach was bubbling from the poor diet he had been maintaining for almost a week now.

  After he removed the food from inside its brown paper bag, Corey was disappointed to see how healthy the meal was: a yogurt with granola, a bowl of fruit, and lightly buttered whole wheat toast. He was craving bacon or sausage and pancakes lathered in butter and syrup.

  Beggars could not be choosers.

  Corey bit into the toast and sat down to explore news stories about the Toronto team on his computer. “PAST MIDNIGHT AND CINDERELLA TEAM STILL AT THE BALL!” read the front page of the newspaper. Corey could still not believe the team’s resurgence.

  Helen had carried through with her promise to send more of his personal belongings. Boxes and wardrobe bags were stacked five feet high and took up nearly half his office space.

  She hadn’t returned any of his texts or phone calls for days. Corey had no idea what to do next.

  There was a knock on the door and his secretary poked her head in.

  “Mr. Chambers is here to see you,” she said.

  Dave Chambers brushed past her and made his way in. He took a long look at Corey, who was sitting in a tank-top undershirt blinking as though he was struggling to see properly. Chambers walked further into the office and surveyed the food containers and empty alcohol bottles around the couch.

  Even though Corey’s eye had more or less returned to normal and his other bruises were healing, in many ways his appearance was worse than before. He was sporting a scruffy beard and emitting an unpleasant odour. His face looked puffy from drinking and lack of proper sleep.

  “She leave you?” Chambers asked.

  Corey shot him a look.

  “C’mon,” Chambers laughed. “What else could it be? She fuck around?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Wait, did you fuck around on her?”

  “Why did you come here?” Corey asked, biting his lip to control his temper.


  “Tickets for this bullshit tournament,” Chambers answered plainly.

  “What?”

  “I want you to raise the prices.”

  “I don’t understand,” Corey objected. “This thing is making money now.”

  “Not enough.”

  “You’re going to make a profit for sure.”

  “Not enough.”

  Corey leaned back in his chair and tried to articulate his tired, frustrated thoughts.

  “If we start raising prices, then that defeats the whole –”

  “Oh, spare me the Boy Scout routine about breaking the back of the working class,” Chambers scoffed. “This is a chance to make money.”

  “You are making money.”

  “Yeah, but there’s more to be made,” Chambers answered coolly. “How’d you put it when you first came to me? This is ‘an opportunity.’”

  Corey’s phone vibrated on his desk and made the sound for Helen. He grabbed it and read her text message.

  HP: We need to talk.

  “Okay, whatever you say,” Corey said as he shot up from his chair. “I’ve got to go.”

  Chambers stood and surveyed the messy office again. “Want me to send a hazmat crew in here to clean up?”

  Corey grabbed Chambers by the elbow and escorted him toward the door.

  “I have things to do,” Corey said.

  “Just say sorry to her,” Chambers advised. “That goes a long way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Maybe grab a shower too.”

  25.

  On his way to a press conference at the old Arena Gardens, Alex had a surreal moment as he ducked into a convenience store near his apartment to buy a pack of gum and bottle of water.

  As he lined up to pay, one of the newspapers on display featured a photo of Alex carrying Eddie up the ice after his heroic overtime goal. It was on the front page.