Face-Off

by Michael Betcherman

  RAZORBILL

  FACE-OFF

  MICHAEL BETCHERMAN is an award-winning screenwriter and author with numerous credits in both documentary and dramatic television. He is the author of two young adult novels: Breakaway, which was shortlisted for the John Spray Mystery Award, and Face-Off. Betcherman lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter.

  ALSO BY MICHAEL BETCHERMAN

  Breakaway

  FOR MY FATHER,

  IRVING BETCHERMAN,

  1924 – 2012

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Some events that are referred to in this book were inspired by the warfare that broke out when the former Republic of Yugoslavia split into several independent countries in the early 1990s. However, Berovia and Maldania are fictional places and do not represent actual countries. The island of Charos does not exist. The Berovian language is a creation of the author.

  ONE

  Alex stood in front of the mirror. He stared at the stump sticking out of his shoulder, where his right arm used to be. A doctor in a white lab coat was standing behind him. He caught Alex’s eye in the mirror. “You’ll get used to it,” he said with a reassuring smile that didn’t reassure Alex one bit. Alex looked at his reflection in the mirror again. He’d never get used to the sight of that. Not in a million years.

  The strangest thing was that he couldn’t for the life of him remember how he lost his arm. He had both of them at the game the night before. Obviously. He wouldn’t have been selected to represent his province in an international hockey tournament if he only had one arm.

  He remembered walking out of the arena following Team British Columbia’s loss to Team Michigan, his goalie stick in one hand and his hockey bag in the other. He took the bus straight home, unpacked his hockey bag, and went into the kitchen and made himself a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich—a task that required two hands. When he finished eating he went into his mom’s office to say good night. It was past ten o’clock but she was working on her computer, as usual. After that he went to his bedroom, played a hockey video game on his computer—another task that required two hands—and went to sleep.

  So how did he lose his arm? The doctor was watching him through the mirror. “Shit happens,” he said with a shrug.

  The doctor’s cellphone rang. He appeared not to notice. It rang and rang and rang.

  Alex woke up and turned off the alarm clock on his bedside table. He’d been having dreams where he was missing a limb for as long as he could remember. When he was little, the dreams terrified him. He’d wake up screaming, and he wouldn’t stop until his mother came into the room and calmed him down. The dreams didn’t terrify him anymore. They just made him sad.

  “You don’t have to be a shrink to figure out why you’re having them,” his friend Lara said to him once. “You miss your dad.”

  Alex’s dad died when he was one.

  Died wasn’t really the right word to describe what happened to his father.

  He was murdered.

  At the time Alex and his parents were living in Berovia, a small country on the island of Charos off the coast of Italy. Berovia was at war with its island neighbour, Maldania. It was the latest in a string of wars between the two countries that went back centuries. The hatred was so deep-rooted that when Alex’s mom, a Berovian, married his dad, a Maldan, their families disowned them.

  One day, a few months after the war began, Alex and his mother fell ill. His dad went out to get a doctor. He never came back. The next day Alex’s mother found out that he’d been killed by Berovian soldiers.

  Alex didn’t find out how his father died until he was seven. He would never forget the feeling of utter devastation that overwhelmed him when his mother finally told him. “Why did they kill him?” he asked after the shock wore off.

  “Because he was a Maldan,” his mother answered. “No other reason.”

  She and Alex came to Vancouver a few months later to live with her brother, Roman. Alex didn’t have a single memory of his father. All he had to go on was his name— Darko Petrovic—and a few pictures in an old leather photo album. He often wondered what his life would have been like if his father had lived. It made him angry to know that the men who murdered him would never pay for what they’d done. How could they? Nobody even knew who they were.

  TWO

  Alex got off the bus in front of the Thunderbird Arena on the campus of the University of British Columbia. For the twentieth time since he woke up that morning he wondered if Coach McAndrew was going to start him in goal for the game against Team Oregon. Alex had played well during the tryouts and had been disappointed when McAndrew named Eddie Davidson as Team B.C.’s starter. It wasn’t just a matter of pride. Scouts from a number of U.S. colleges were in town for the tournament, called the TelCel Cup after its corporate sponsor, and it was Alex’s dream to get a scholarship to one of them. It was a golden opportunity to showcase his talent, but first he’d have to get off the bench.

  If Davidson had been sharp against Team Michigan in the tournament opener, Alex knew McAndrew would stick with him for tonight’s game. But Eddie had let in two shots he should have stopped, and that was the difference in the 4–2 loss. Even though Eddie was a good guy, Alex couldn’t help feeling glad that he’d left the door open. The question was whether McAndrew would invite him to walk through it.

  Alex was wearing a jacket and tie, despite the July heat wave that was now into its second week. Coach McAndrew said the dress code was mandatory. The players had groaned when he made the announcement but the coach didn’t want to hear about it. “You’re representing your province,” he explained in a tone of voice that made it clear the subject wasn’t up for discussion. “You’re not going to show up wearing hoodies and unlaced sneakers.”

  A few of the players complained about McAndrew being “old school,” but Alex agreed with the coach. Corny as it sounded, he was proud to have been chosen to represent his province, and wearing a jacket and tie made the event feel more special, more professional, even if it was damn hot.

  Alex loosened his tie as he walked into the arena, lugging his bright red Team B.C. hockey bag with his name stencilled on the side. His footsteps echoed on the cement floor. He could hear the crunch of blades and a dull roar from the rink.

  “Hey, Alex. Wait up,” a voice called out. Kenny Nelson was coming through the entrance. He was the only other player on Team B.C. from the Richmond Cougars, the local rep team Alex played for.

  Alex stopped to wait for him. Two middle-aged men were standing by the concession stand. They were both wearing U.S. college jackets, one from the University of Minnesota, one from Boston College.

  “We’re losing six seniors this year, including our best player,” the man in the Boston College jacket said.

  Alex’s heart started beating a little faster. The two men were college scouts, he realized, and one of them was from the University of Minnesota. The University of Minnesota! Alex would be thrilled to get a scholarship to any big-time U.S. college, but Minnesota was the alma mater of his favourite player, the Vancouver Canucks goalie, Lou Roberts, and it was at the top of his wish list.

  “I hear Stevens is leaning to Notre Dame ’cause his old man went there,” the man in the Minnesota jacket said. Alex knew he was referring to Eric Stevens, the Team Oregon star. Stevens had broken scoring records everywhere he played, and his size and speed had NHL scouts salivating.

  “It ain’t over till it’s over. We still think we’ve got a good chance of landing him.”

  “Big game tonight,” Kenny said as he joined Alex.

  “It is,” Alex answered. Team B.C. had to defeat Team Oregon to keep its hopes of advancing to the medal round alive.

  The two of them walked up an aisle that led to the rink. “It’s a long
way from Triangle Road,” Kenny said. Alex nodded. The arena, with its professional scoreboard and 5000 seats, was a big step up from their home arena in Richmond, where a few hundred fans could watch the game provided they didn’t mind sitting on each other’s laps.

  Team Michigan was playing Team Maldania. “How did Maldania get invited to the tournament?” Kenny asked. “They suck.” The Maldans had been thrashed 9–0 by Team Oregon in their first game and were down 7–1 to Michigan with less than a minute to go in the game.

  “The owner of TelCel was born in Maldania,” Alex explained. “He’s trying to help them develop their hockey program.” The thinking was that Team Maldania would improve by playing against superior competition, and if that was the case then they were certain to get better. The other seven teams in the tournament—four from Canada and three from the States—were head and shoulders above the Maldans.

  “I didn’t even know they played hockey there,” Kenny said.

  “Apparently they don’t,” Alex answered dryly, pointing at the scoreboard.

  Team Michigan’s left-winger fired a point-blank shot from the slot that the Maldan goalie kicked aside with enough force to send it to the corner, out of reach of the opponents who were ready to pounce on the rebound. He made it look easy but Alex knew how hard it was to control the puck like that. He noticed that the goalie had a Lou Roberts mask just like he did—white with a lightning bolt on the forehead. And his uniform number was 33, just like Lou, and just like Alex.

  A moment later the game ended and Alex and Kenny headed to the locker room. The two scouts were still talking to each other. For the twenty-first time that day, Alex wondered if he was going to start.

  He’d find out soon enough. Some coaches liked to keep their goalies in suspense until the last minute. His coach in Peewee would give his pre-game speech and then he would toss the puck to whoever was going to start. If there was a reason he did it that way, Alex had never figured it out. It just seemed cruel.

  Thankfully that wasn’t McAndrew’s style. Before the first game of the tournament he had called Alex into his office and told him that Eddie Davidson would be starting. “It was a hard decision,” he said. “You both played well during the tryouts. I’m going with Eddie because he’s got more experience than you. It doesn’t mean I don’t think you can do the job. You showed me what you could do last year,” he added. He was talking about last year’s semifinals where Alex played brilliantly in Richmond’s 2–1 loss to the West Vancouver Lightning, the rep team McAndrew coached. Alex was pretty sure that was the reason McAndrew invited him to try out for Team B.C.

  “Coach wants to see you,” Charlie Boyle, the assistant coach, said to Alex as soon as he walked into the locker room. Here we go again, Alex thought, nervously snapping the rubber band he wore around his left wrist.

  The door to McAndrew’s office was open. “You wanted to see me, Coach?” Alex asked, steeling himself for bad news.

  “I’m going with you tonight,” McAndrew said, running a hand through his thinning red hair.

  “I under …” I understand, Alex was about to say until his brain caught up to McAndrew’s words. Holy shit. I’m starting. He could feel a smile spread across his face. The coach was looking at him, waiting for him to say something. “Thank you,” Alex said.

  “Just play your game and you’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you,” Alex said again. The reality of the situation hit him before he was out of the coach’s office. He was the starting goalie in an international hockey tournament, in a must-win game against a powerful opponent led by the best seventeen-year-old hockey player in the universe. His stomach was always churning before a game but now it went into overdrive. Don’t screw up, the Voice warned.

  The Voice was a negative inner voice that had played on Alex’s insecurities for as long as he could remember. Even when he played well, the Voice was there, lurking in the background, whispering that the Alex who played well was an impostor. Alex knew his biggest problem was his lack of self-confidence. “You can’t be solid between the pipes if you’re not solid between the ears,” was the way one of the coaches at goalie camp put it. Problem is, the Voice piped up, you’re not solid between the ears.

  Alex sat down at his locker, took off his clothes, and began to put on his equipment in the same order he always did. Goalies tended to be superstitious and he was no exception. Jock, underwear, pants, left skate, right skate, left pad, right pad, chest protector, Team B.C. jersey.

  He knew his teammates were also feeling the pressure, but it was different for a goalie. Anybody who knew anything about hockey knew that the goalie was under more pressure than anyone else on the team. If a position player made a mistake that gave the opponent a scoring opportunity, the goalie could always bail him out with a good save. When a goalie made a mistake it showed up on the scoreboard.

  He wondered why on earth he ever decided to become a goalie. It was a question he asked himself before every game. But he knew the answer. It was the high he felt when he was on his game, the belief that he was invincible, that nobody could put the puck by him. It was seeing his teammates play with more confidence because they knew they could count on him to keep the other team off the score sheet; it was seeing his opponents play hesitantly because they felt like they were shooting the puck at a brick wall. “You have to want to be a hero if you’re going to be a goalie,” was the way Lou Roberts put it in an article Alex once read.

  The flip side of being a hero was being the goat, letting in a goal that cost your team the game. That was every goalie’s fear, and Alex was no exception, which was why it felt like somebody was operating a jackhammer in his stomach.

  Everybody went silent as Coach McAndrew came out of his office and made his way to the centre of the room.

  “Listen up,” he said. “I know we have to win tonight if we’re going to move on, but you’ve got to put that out of your mind and stay in the present. If we want to win we’ve got to do it one shift at a time. We’ve got to finish our checks and we’ve got to come up with the puck every time we go into the corner. We’re representing our province, men. Let’s make them proud of us. Bring it in.”

  The team gathered around the coach. “One. Two. Three. Defence,” the team roared and stormed out of the locker room.

  “Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee.”

  Alex stood on the blue line beside the rest of his teammates as the arena echoed with the last notes of the national anthem. There had to be at least three thousand people in the stands, by far the biggest crowd he had ever played in front of. A powerful feeling of pride at playing for his province swept over him. The pride was accompanied by a sense of what was at stake. This is the biggest game of your life, the Voice reminded Alex, just in case he’d forgotten.

  Alex glanced at the U.S. team standing at the other blue line. He didn’t need a program to identify Eric Stevens. He was a head taller than everybody else. And he looked mean. Real mean.

  Alex put on his Lou Roberts goalie mask and skated down to Team B.C.’s end of the ice. His teammates came by one-by-one and tapped him on his pads with their sticks to wish him luck. He skated from side to side, scraping the ice in the crease. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, but he knew the butterflies in his stomach would keep fluttering until he faced his first shot.

  Stick on the ice. Square up to the shooter. Stand your ground, he said to himself, steadying himself with the mantra he repeated before every game.

  The first shot wasn’t long in coming. Twenty seconds into the game Eric Stevens roared down the left wing, blew past Don Herron like he was standing still, and fired a bullet at the top corner that Alex deflected with his blocker at the last moment. Bring it on, Alex thought, as the self-doubt flowed out of his body and the confidence flowed in.

  Five minutes later Kenny Nelson steered a rebound past the U.S. goalie to give B.C. a 1–0 lead. Three minutes later the home team scored again. Team Oregon dominated the second period but Alex kep
t them at bay. Early in the third, Eric Stevens finally managed to beat Alex with a shot from the slot that he could only wave at. The Americans kept the pressure up but they couldn’t put the puck past Alex. With ninety seconds left, Team Oregon pulled their goalie. The Oregon players buzzed around the B.C. goal like a swarm of angry bees, firing shots from every angle in a desperate attempt to notch the equalizer, but Alex was up to the task.

  When the final buzzer sounded, his teammates jumped over the boards and raced to the goal to congratulate him. Everybody knew that his heroics had saved the day.

  The celebration continued in the locker room, but the conversation soon turned to Team Oregon’s game against Michigan the following day. The eight teams in the tournament were divided into two four-team divisions. Only two teams in each division advanced to the medal round. B.C. was in the same division as Michigan, Oregon, and Maldania. Assuming B.C. beat Maldania, which was pretty much a given, Michigan would have to defeat Oregon in order for Alex and his teammates to move on.

  Everyone quieted down when Coach McAndrew came into the room. “Nice win, men,” he said. “You guys should be proud of yourselves. You beat a heckuva hockey team tonight.”

  “You were awesome, man,” Len Dawson said to Alex after McAndrew left the room. “We wouldn’t have won without you.” The other players nodded in agreement. Alex kept his head down but inside he was sky high. Lou Roberts had it right. “You have to want to be a hero if you’re going to be a goalie.”

  THREE

  “See you tomorrow, Kenny,” Alex said as they came out of the locker room.

  “Later. Great game, man.”

  Alex walked to the concession stand. The girl behind the counter was cute. She glanced at Alex’s Team B.C. bag. “Congratulations,” she said. “You guys were fantastic.”

  “Thanks.” The girl gave Alex an encouraging smile. He smiled back at her, but as usual, he couldn’t think of anything to say.