“Okay, I’m going to pinch your eyelid together to apply the glue,” the trainer said. “It’s probably going to hurt a bit, but don’t move and remember to keep your eyes shut.”
Alex winced as the trainer pinched his eyelid. It did hurt. The trainer stopped and started again…and then again.
“Damn it,” he said, clearly struggling.
“Just be cool, man,” Alex said. “You can do it.”
Alex felt his eyelid pinch again, but the fingers felt different; smaller and thinner.
“Hold still,” said a female voice that Alex instantly recognized, “or I’m going to glue your eye shut.”
Alex felt a shot of adrenaline run through his body and his heart thumped inside his chest. He grabbed the hands that were touching him and opened his eyes.
Blood trickled off his injured eyelid and dripped onto the floor. Diana calmly re-gripped his hands and pushed them back down, much the same way she had when they first met several years ago.
“Let me finish this,” she said softly.
Alex kept looking at her and didn’t want to close his eyes, but he eventually did so.
“Give me the glue,” she said to the trainer, who let her take over but was thoroughly confused by what was happening.
After cleaning his eye again and applying the cold, gel-like substance to his eyelid, Diana and the trainer tilted Alex back up.
“Open your eyes,” Diana said.
Alex felt a small tug on his treated eye, but he managed to open it. Despite the tugging feeling, he could see clearly, and the bleeding had stopped.
“Good job,” the student trainer said as he studied Diana’s work.
“Can you get these straps off?” Alex asked the trainer as he continued to look at Diana intently.
The college student removed the straps, and Alex stood up. He reached out for Diana and pulled her in close. She didn’t seem bothered about being pressed against his bloody jersey as he held her tightly.
“I’m going to be outside,” the trainer said awkwardly and ran out of there.
Alex and Diana stayed in that embrace for several minutes without saying anything. Her head was tucked in perfectly under his chin. He took a deep breath.
“Alex, the game,” Diana whispered.
They pulled apart but continued to hold hands.
“I’m…uh,” Alex stammered. “I did so many things wrong You deserved so much better.”
“Your team needs you, Alex,” Diana said. “We’ll talk later.”
“I missed you,” he said and stroked her hair with his hand. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Diana’s smile filled the room, and with a quivering lip she fell into his embrace again. After a few minutes, the buzzer ended the first overtime period.
“I’m here now,” she said.
“So am I.”
The second extra period made this the first game to reach double overtime anywhere in The Tournament. After a Game 7 OT thriller followed now by a double-OT effort in the first game of the semifinals, Toronto fans needed a strong heart to withstand the stress.
Alex’s return to the bench triggered a huge ovation from the packed crowd. With dried-up blood on his jersey and his eyelid glued together, he had warrior status and his teammates would follow him through the gates of hell.
The pace of the next overtime slowed considerably. Both teams kept their shifts very short, and players were showing signs of fatigue on both sides. Brooks wrote on his live blog that this was an indicator these guys were not professional athletes – as if pro hockey players could play all night without ever getting tired.
On the next play, Mike carried the play into the Ottawa zone and skated past their forwards before parking himself behind the net with the puck, looking for an outlet pass. Curtis and Isaac crashed the goal crease in front and tangled with Ottawa defencemen. Barry and Alex were on the point and took turns trying to sneak in for a shot, but they were both well covered.
Mike continued to hang on to the puck behind the net and the anxious crowd roared at him to do something.
Here’s Hill behind the net trying to figure something out…Hill…waiting…waiting…comes out front…
…SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORES!!!!! Mike Hill! Solo job! And Toronto wins it!!!
Mike was immediately mobbed by all his teammates against the glass as the home crowd went ballistic. By pure coincidence, they celebrated right in front of Mike’s wife and children, who were seated behind the glass. While he was drowning in a sea of teammates’ jerseys, he caught a peek of his three boys and Becky jumping up and down, cheering at the top of their lungs with all the other fans. It was one of the single greatest moments of his life.
Back on the bench, Freddy caught the replay of the goal on the scoreboard.
After what seemed like an eternity holding onto the puck behind the Ottawa net, Mike had moved to his left – as though he was either going to pass it to someone in front or perhaps step out and try a shot. As he got everyone to move with him, he hit the brakes suddenly, spun himself around and came out the other side with a backhand wraparound that just beat the sliding Joseph Walter. The Wall realized what Mike was doing a second too late.
Freddy smiled. Give him something he’s not used to…Atta boy.
Back on the Toronto bench, Ken stood there with his hands clasped together, almost in gratitude.
And what a night, tonight for Toronto…oh my…oh my…
Alex was leaving the ice, his stick raised to salute the fans, when he heard the broadcasting legend make that comment.
You don’t know the half of it, Alex thought as he hurried to the dressing room.
28.
Following the huge Game 1 victory, Ken decided to stop by Pertia’s home to celebrate and catch up. The nursing service he’d hired to take care of Pertia sent him daily e-mails on how she was doing, but he missed her company – so he sacrificed a chance to get some much-needed sleep in favour of sitting in her kitchen and chatting over a late-night tea. When Ken walked into her living room, she was wearing a “Just Toronto” T-shirt he had gotten for her.
After a long conversation that lasted into the wee hours of the night, Ken tucked Pertia in and kissed her on the cheek before locking her place up with his key and taking the few steps next door to his place.
Ken was still running off the adrenaline from the game, so much so that he walked by his phone three times before remembering to check for messages. He still had an old-fashioned answering machine. Once in a while, his older brother would call, or he might get another message from one of Pertia’s panicked children. They must be afraid of being written out of her Will, Ken thought.
The light on his phone was flashing and he pressed it. Ken froze when he heard the message:
“You’re going to get yours.”
Ken forced himself to play it back a second time. The voice was raspy and sounded like the caller had put a hand over the receiver so no one else would hear him…but Ken knew exactly who it was.
29.
Curtis could barely believe that a few hours after the game he was speeding over to a stranger’s house with Megan sitting in the passenger seat of his car. She was biting her fingernails nervously.
He thought that he would walk in on Megan wearing one of his oversized T-shirts, or maybe just her bra, as she knew her tattoos made him crazy. He expected her son Jimmy would be in bed and being with Megan would cap off another incredible night.
However, when he unlocked the front door and stepped inside, he found Megan fully dressed. She was a wreck and speaking far too quickly to understand. Curtis grabbed her by both shoulders and asked her to take a deep breath and slow down.
When she came come home Jimmy was not there. He had started hanging out with some guys at school who were bad news…one of their fathers had a criminal record…
She kept biting her nails.
…Her son sent her a text saying he was at his friend’s house but not to go there…to just stay
home with her BIG HOCKEY BOYFRIEND…Megan heard this kid’s father had been arrested recently and was out on bail…she did not want Jimmy there.
“Okay,” Curtis said as he pulled her out to the car. “Let’s go.”
Jimmy had left his cellphone’s GPS tracking feature on, and they were able to trace him to his new friend’s house, which turned out to be less than ten minutes away. As skittish as she was when they arrived Megan steeled herself.
“Stay here,” she told Curtis. “I’m going to get him.”
Megan knocked on the door and Curtis watched from the car as a middle-aged man dressed completely in leather answered it. He was wearing dark eye makeup.
After listening to Megan, the man laughed in her face, went back inside and slammed the door. Curtis got out of the car and was about to start pounding the door furiously with his fist, but he reconsidered and knocked normally instead.
The door swung open a second time.
“Listen, bitch,” the man started to say before looking up at Curtis, who towered over him.
“Her boy,” Curtis said flatly. “Ask him to come out here…please.”
Curtis and the man stared at each other. The man’s dark eye makeup was intense.
“Whatever, man. You don’t have a right to –”
Curtis grabbed the man’s face with his massive hand and squeezed his cheeks together. The man tried to pull free, but he couldn’t come close to matching Curtis’s strength.
“Y-you can’t h-h-hurt me,” he sputtered. “You’ll go to j-jail.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Curtis said. “And then one day I’ll get out. Guess where I’m coming first?”
Curtis pushed the man’s face away with great force. He fell to the floor and looked scared.
“Her boy,” Curtis repeated. “Ask him to come out here…please.”
Within a minute or so, Megan’s angry-looking son showed up at the door wearing a bandana.
“Yo, what the hell, Mom?” Jimmy shouted.
This time it was Megan who stepped forward.
“Do NOT speak to me like that,” she fumed. “Get in that car right now!”
Jimmy paused long enough to glare at Curtis before storming over to the car and getting inside.
30.
Mike knew what he was doing was risky. He also knew that his thoughts had become uncharacteristically obsessive, but like most people with obsessive thought patterns, he could not figure out how to stop them.
Following his extraordinary goal to give Toronto a hard-fought win in Game 1 (his game-winning shot was the team’s 71st of the night against The Wall), Mike drove all the way home with his family. The car ride was full of energy and excitement as the boys could not stop talking about the game and how cool their dad’s game-winner was. Becky even let Mike blast classic rock music without complaining.
The Hill family ordered a late pizza and ate it, camping style, on the spot where Becky and the boys watched Toronto’s road games on television. After everyone went to bed, Mike told his wife that he needed to go for a drive.
“You’re not going back to the city now, Mike? Seriously?” Becky asked.
“No, just a quick drive to cool down,” Mike said. “I’m wired from the game.”
“Mike…”
“I just want to get some air,” Mike responded.
Tom of Tom’s Fishin’ stumbled up the front steps of his house and dropped his keys again. Cursing, he picked them up and tried without success to unlock the front door. He gave up and knocked with an open palm.
“Baby, didja lock me out again?” Tom laughed. “C’mon, open the door.”
A side window opened, and a woman poked her head out. Her hair was messy, and she had clearly been woken up.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she groaned. “The kids’ll wake up one night and see you.”
“You gonna open the door?”
“You have to promise to stop.”
Tom did not respond. Instead, he practiced the motion of taking a few steps and throwing his shoulder forward.
Mike had parked in the distance and tensed up in his car.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tom’s wife or girlfriend asked.
“Wha’s it look like?” Tom slurred. “I’m gonna knock tha door down.”
“Oh God, Tom! You are such an asshole!”
She disappeared from the window and moments later opened the front door.
“Just get inside,” she sighed.
Tom tripped on one of the steps as he made his way into the house. On the way by, he planted an obnoxious kiss on her mouth.
“Love ya, baby,” he said.
After the door closed, Mike gripped the steering wheel tightly. The man who killed his father was a drunk and a degenerate…and he got away with it. He was still getting away with it.
He had gotten away with too much.
31.
After the game, Alex and Diana had arranged to get away from the noisy Arena Gardens and meet at “The Rock” – one of their favourite hangouts in Yorkville. For years, they’d enjoyed scaling a huge rock and sitting at the very top, which was at least ten feet from the ground. When he arrived with two coffees, he found Diana already sitting up there.
“Coffee this late?” Diana asked.
“I was hoping we’d be up for a while,” Alex smiled, reaching to hand Diana the coffees so he could climb up.
For the next half hour, they sat on The Rock, sipping their coffees in relative silence. Diana did not object when Alex reached over and held her hand.
Finally, he managed to say, “I really missed you. I don’t know how to explain it. I have a lot of regrets…I hope you believe me.”
“I believe you,” she replied and squeezed his hand. “I do.”
She broke another uncomfortable silence by asking Alex how he became involved in The Tournament.
Alex explained his initial meeting with Corey Peters at a coffee shop downtown; how the Deep Six were all tracked down and reunited; how he found Ken Hornsby and convinced him to come back and coach. Alex even told Diana about how Freddy “The Flash” Rozelli joined the team. He pointed out that no one expected The Tournament to become so popular.
Diana listened thoughtfully and smiled at certain points. She mentioned that he looked much better than the last time she saw him, at his mother’s funeral.
“You were there?”
“Of course, I was there.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“You didn’t see anybody.”
Alex then turned to the subject of his mother’s illness and how it paralyzed him. He told Diana that he could now see how the entire situation made him paranoid.
“When the walls closed in on her,” Alex said, “I had to do everything I could, but I wasn’t thinking rationally.”
“You were in pain, Alex,” Diana said. “It was a horrible time. Your mother deserved better.”
Alex nodded and took another sip of coffee.
“You were right to leave,” he said.
Another period of silence followed before Diana spoke again.
“I was taking pills.”
Alex looked at her. “For how long?”
“A long time,” Diana replied. “Basically, since Tamara died.”
“I always thought something was going on, but I should have asked.”
“I didn’t want you to, and you probably sensed that,” Diana continued. “When I left, it wasn’t just because your mother got sick. I thought you were bothered by your past, and you weren’t facing it. That was affecting us.”
“You weren’t wrong.”
“But I was doing the same thing. How many times did I ever talk to you about what happened to my sister?”
“Not really ever, I guess.”
“We thought we had this strong relationship,” Diana said, “but we weren’t there for each other for the most important things.”
“I don’t think that was intentional.”
“I’m not s
ure that matters.”
They decided to get down from The Rock and walk. Alex felt completely awake as he walked with Diana, although his knees hurt and were screaming at him for ice and some rest. He stopped walking and pulled Diana in close again.
“I really can’t see a future I care about without you in it,” he said.
“Me neither,” Diana smiled. “But we’ve both been running from things, Alex. If we’re going to have a chance, we need to work through that.”
“I’ll do anything.”
Before thinking about it for too long, Alex pulled Diana in for a long kiss. He wanted to take her home with him – to their home – but he was afraid to ask. No rush. It had been a long, emotional day. It was surreal just to hold her again.
“Can I walk you back to your house?” he asked.
“From here?” Diana asked back. “That’ll take over an hour. You just played two hockey games in one night.”
“I know.”
The walk did take just over an hour. They stood by the front lawn of Diana’s parents’ home and faced each other. Alex leaned over and kissed Diana on the cheek, exactly the way he did on their first date so many years ago.
“You going to walk home from here now?” she asked.
“Are you crazy? I’m going to get a cab.”
32.
While he sat behind the glass, Matt’s father had spent much of Game 1 pointing out to everyone around him that his son was just as good as Joseph “The Wall” Walter of Ottawa. Most of the people near him were annoyed, as he continued to talk endlessly, taking a break only to aggressively consume two overloaded hot dogs. Ketchup, mustard and relish leaked onto one hand while he used the other to wipe his mouth. He also inhaled two beers each period and complained after alcohol service was cut off.
After the game, he was allowed to hang around outside the Toronto dressing room to wait for his son. It usually took Matt a while to get ready because of all the extra goalie equipment. He finally appeared and his father put an arm around him.
The Tournament Page 34
