Rebel Glory

by Sigmund Brouwer

  We went through the doors at the end of the hallway and stepped into midmorning sunshine.

  We had the steps and the spring sunshine to ourselves. She didn’t let go of my hand. Nor did she waste any time.

  “Craig McElhany,” she said, “I don’t like listening to speeches and I don’t like making speeches. But you’re stuck with this one anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are officially my favorite guy.” She studied my face. “Come on, smile. I hope that wasn’t bad news.”

  “It’s great news,” I said. I found myself staring at the ground because I suddenly felt shy. So when she gave me a hug, it was a surprise. A nice surprise.

  She stepped back. “Now for my speech.”

  I waited.

  “Remember the game you wore a ponytail wig?”

  I nodded. “The tattoos still haven’t come off my arms. The guys bug me about them all the time.”

  She gave me a quick smile, but got serious again. “Remember when you said you would die if my plan didn’t work and you couldn’t play hockey?”

  I nodded again. I also remembered the strange look she had given me when I said it.

  “Remember that I told you no matter how much fun hockey is, there are plenty of things more important?” She poked me in the chest. “I’m going to get mad at you if you didn’t learn anything in the last month.”

  “Sure. Lots.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m glad to be playing hockey again.”

  Wrong thing to say. Thunderclouds of anger covered her face.

  “Listen, McElhaney, I don’t care how good a player you are, if hockey is all you have in your life, you’re a loser. A serious loser.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing.” She was steamed and not afraid to show it. “Maybe next time it’s an injury that puts you out of hockey. And even if you actually get through an entire hockey career, you’ll have to retire someday. Either way, you won’t be a hockey player the rest of your life.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not finished. You can’t let your happiness depend on how you’re playing hockey. Because when hockey goes, so does your happiness. And you can bet sooner or later there will come a day when hockey goes.”

  I was beginning to understand. When I thought I’d been kicked out of hockey, I had been miserable.

  “Instead,” she went on, “build yourself a life. Friends, family and faith in God are things that are really important. Develop other interests too. Become someone other people want to be with. When hockey works for you, great; it’s a bonus. If hockey doesn’t work, you won’t be destroyed, because you’ll have all the other stuff to fall back on.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but she didn’t let me.

  “Maybe it’s part of those walls you build around yourself. Maybe if you relaxed, the walls wouldn’t be so important. Like with your mom. Your face looks so hurt every time you talk about her, but you won’t even let her talk to you. Maybe she regrets what she did. Help her out and give her a chance.”

  “Just a second—”

  “Look,” she said, “if hockey becomes fun for you instead of a matter of life or death, you won’t be so scared of playing badly. And I’ll bet when you’re not scared of playing bad hockey, it’s going to be a lot easier for you to play good hockey. And when you’re having fun with hockey, maybe you won’t have to be so serious with everything else.”

  I tried one more time to say something, but again I was helpless as she kept going full speed.

  “Someday you’re going to be an old man, and you’ll have the memories of your games. Instead of being afraid on the ice, why don’t you try to enjoy it as much as possible for the days when you look back and miss hockey?”

  She took both my hands in her hands and her frown became a smile. “If you don’t believe anything I just said, I hope you’ll believe this last part. You’re my official favorite guy because you’re you. Not because you’re a hockey star.”

  With that, she stepped onto her tiptoes and kissed me briefly on my cheek, then marched away from me and back into the school.

  I stood there as stunned as if someone had slammed me with a body check into the boards. She had gone from warm and friendly, to really mad, to giving me a kiss. All in under two minutes.

  Women.

  chapter twenty - one

  I stood on the blue line, waiting for the ref to drop the puck to start the game. The roaring of the crowd in the Centrium seemed to become part of the blood pumping through my heart. I began to understand some of what Cheryl had told me. This was an incredibly exciting moment. Instead of feeling fear, I should be soaking in this excitement and trying to hold on to the memory of it forever.

  As I began to understand, I felt like a stone shell around me began to crack. If I didn’t spend so much time holding on to my worries, I could actually enjoy this. The skating at full speed, the concentration of trying to make a good pass, the joy of giving it absolutely everything I had.

  I grinned and waited for the puck to drop. Let’s get this one going, boys. I’m ready.

  The puck dropped. Mancini picked it out of the air and knocked it back to me. The Hurricane winger rushed in. I faked a pass across to Jason. It froze the winger briefly, long enough to let me push right and around him.

  That gave me a few seconds of clear ice. I raced ahead with the puck and dished it off to Burnell just as the center rushed toward me.

  Burnell took it in across their blue line. I had momentum going and, instead of hitting the brakes, I followed the play, making sure our other winger, Louie Shertzer, had dropped back to cover my position on defense.

  Burnell barreled around their defenseman, and I busted straight to the net. I didn’t care how many guys I had to take out to get there, but they were going to pay the price for getting in my way.

  The other defenseman elbowed me in the ribs, then wrapped his arms around me. We fell in a heap and went sliding toward the net.

  Something bounced off my helmet. I thought it was a stick blade until the roar of the crowd exploded like a jet taking off.

  A goal! Not a stick blade off my helmet, but a puck! Burnell had dropped the puck back to Mancini, and Mancini had fired a low screamer that had deflected off my helmet into the top corner of the net. First shift and a goal!

  I rose, screaming and jumping. Two guys pounded my back. So this was hockey without fear. I could learn to like it all right.

  Next shift I managed to stop a sure breakaway for the Hurricanes by intercepting a long pass up the middle to their center. I cradled the puck with my stick and took two steps forward before firing a slap shot around the boards into the Hurricane end.

  Three shifts later I body-checked their biggest forward so hard we were able to hear him slam into the boards above the roaring of the crowd.

  I was on fire. The rest of the Rebels were on fire. For the first ten minutes of the first period, we fought for position in their end like bears clawing for honey. We came away with another two goals.

  With nine minutes left in the first period, and a 3–0 lead, we looked unstoppable.

  Then, suddenly, our passes in their end began to bounce and tumble instead of slide across the ice with smooth precision. We lost a bit of our zip. Instead of beating their defensemen to the puck, it seemed like we were skating uphill.

  Slowly, the game began to turn in their direction.

  When they crossed the line at center ice, the Hurricane forwards had all the speed we had lost in their end. Their passes were slick and quicker than bullets. Jason and I scrambled just to stay in position against their furious attacks. Against our second line, the Hurricanes scored two quick goals, and we felt lucky to survive the final four minutes of the period without giving up any more points.

  The first period ended with us ahead by only one goal—3–2—and with the crowd much too quiet. It looked like we were going to fold during the biggest game of our season
.

  Our dressing room was quiet during the break between the first and second period too. Coach Blair only spoke once during the entire break. He spoke quietly, and worry lines made him appear much older. I understood. His job depended on this game.

  “This one is yours if you want it, boys,” Coach Blair said. “Skate like you did the first half of that period, and we’ll be in the playoffs.”

  We took his advice.

  We opened the second period exactly the way we opened the first period. In control.

  The teams had switched ends for the second period. The Hurricanes now defended the half of the ice we had been defending in the first period. We defended the other end.

  Switching ends seemed to improve our luck. When we attacked the Hurricanes, our passes were bullets again, sliding slick and fast along the ice.

  Better yet, the Hurricanes struggled during their attack against us, just as we’d struggled against them when they were defending the net in our end during the first period.

  We scored another goal in the first five minutes, going ahead 4–2.

  Then, unbelievably, the game began to slowly turn against us again. Our passes lost their zip, and it was a killer to try to skate fast through their end. As we began to get worse, they began to get better. I took a tripping penalty trying to stop their center, and the Hurricanes scored during their power play. Next shift they scored again, on a long shot from the point.

  Tied 4–4, with twelve minutes left in the second period, we were fading fast. We couldn’t seem to get anything right in the Hurricane end. But they were getting everything right in our end.

  I was sitting on our players’ bench, gasping for breath and watching the second line struggle against the Hurricanes, when I heard a familiar voice call my name.

  I looked behind me into the crowd. Cheryl was at the side of the Plexiglas that protected our players’ box. The same Plexiglas that someone had leaned over to dump cola on me a few weeks earlier.

  Only Cheryl wasn’t ready to dump a drink. Instead she flipped a crumpled ball of paper over the Plexiglas. It landed in my lap.

  I couldn’t shout and ask her what it was about. She was already moving away, and I was supposed to be concentrating on the game.

  I shook my hockey gloves off my hands and opened the paper. Drops of sweat fell from my nose and blotted the ink of her neat handwriting.

  I saw Teddy here. I followed him after the first period. He spent some time in a locked room underneath the stands at the back of the arena. Does this mean anything?

  I didn’t have time to wonder.

  Jewels Larken, our backup goaltender, was screaming for me to hit the ice. I did as our team changed players on the go. The Hurricanes zoomed into our end at full speed, passing the puck back and forth like it was a ball on the end of a string.

  We fought and scrambled to stop them, but their speed was too much. Thirty seconds later, the crowd moaned as the puck zinged into our net. Now we were down 5–4 and playing so badly I wondered if we would ever move the puck into their end again.

  “Man,” Hog said as we slowly returned to the players’ bench, “I can’t get nowhere against their defense. It’s like skating through glue.”

  “I wish we had that problem in our end,” I said. “It’s like a sheet of glass for the Hurricanes.”

  Then it hit me. Skating through glue in the Hurricanes’ end. Skating on glass in our end. And Teddy spending time in a locked room underneath the stands at the back of the Centrium.

  As I stepped into the players’ box, I waved for Coach Blair to move toward me.

  “Can you call a time-out?” I said to him. “I think I know why we’re losing. And I think I know how to stop it.”

  The Hurricanes scored once more, and we left the ice down 6–4 at the end of the second period. I had never heard our dressing room so quiet. Most of the guys stared at the floor. For a full five minutes, not one single word was said.

  Hog Burnell broke the silence by firing a couple of questions at me. “Mac, what did you say to Coach Blair during the time-out? And where did Coach Blair go at the end of the period?”

  How could I explain to Hog that I had a crazy theory and that Coach Blair and security guards were checking it out as we waited here?

  “Did any of you guys find the ice real strange?” I answered. “Like slow in the Hurricanes’ end and fast in ours?”

  “I did,” Mancini said. “Man, I couldn’t get anywhere in their end. And every time I tried to pass, the puck stuck or bounced.”

  I nodded. “Soft ice.”

  “Not in our end,” Jason said. “Their wingers were killing us.”

  “Well,” I told them all, “Teddy was here tonight. This may sound stupid, but I think he was—”

  The dressing room door opened and Coach Blair stepped inside.

  “We got Teddy,” Coach Blair said to me. “Red-handed. Exactly where you said he would be. And doing exactly what you guessed.”

  Coach Blair looked at his watch. “I want to tell all of you what happened. And when I’m finished, I want you to go out there and take it to the Hurricanes. Under fair conditions.”

  “Fair?” Mancini echoed.

  “You guys know the ice is made over a layer of refrigerated pipes,” Coach Blair said. “Well, Teddy had stolen a set of maintenance keys. He could get into any room in this building, including the control room for the ice. That’s where we caught him less than five minutes ago.”

  “In the control room?” Hog said.

  “In the control room. Teddy was doing his best to make sure we lost.”

  “But how?” Mancini asked. His eyes widened as he figured out the same thing I had earlier. “I know! Slow ice and fast ice!”

  “Exactly,” Coach Blair told him. “At the beginning of the first period, he adjusted the temperature of the pipes in the Lethbridge end to make it slower. He made it faster in our end.”

  That explained it all right. The temperature change wouldn’t be instantaneous. It would take time. Like about half a period. At the beginning of the game we had come out skating and passing until, halfway through the period, the ice had begun to warm up and slow us down. At the same time, in our end, it became easier for the Hurricanes to skate and pass the puck on colder, harder ice.

  “During the break after the first period,” Coach Blair said, “he went back in and reversed the settings.”

  That explained the second period. We had switched ends with the Hurricanes, and Teddy needed to make the other side of the ice slow. Again, it took about half a period.

  “We figured he’d go back in again after the second period to switch temperatures for when we switched ends in the third period,” Coach Blair said. He smiled at me. “Correction. We didn’t figure it. Actually, Mac guessed it.”

  “I had help,” I told everyone.

  “From the cute blond who put those tattoos on your arms?” Jason asked. “The one who threw you a note? We were betting it was a love note.”

  I changed the subject. “Coach Blair, did Teddy explain why he was doing all this?”

  “Yup. And you were right about that too. Teddy has a gambling problem and owes tens of thousands of dollars. He was so desperate he hired on with the businessman from Fort McMurray who wanted to drive the price of the team down. Teddy is willing to testify in court, and it looks like the guy will get nailed.”

  “Teddy was behind everything, right?” I asked.

  Coach Blair confirmed that too. “Teddy even had a friend dump cola on you, Mac. Teddy figured if he could mess up your game, he’d have a good chance of messing up the Rebels.”

  “What about me?” Jason said. He shivered. “Those stupid cockroaches.”

  “Bad break for you,” Coach Blair said. “Teddy thought he was dumping them in Mac’s duffel bag. Remember one of your numbers fell off? Teddy wanted to put the cockroaches in Mac’s bag—number 3—but put them in number 33 by mistake because one of the threes was missing. He said that’s what
gave him the idea of switching your bags around later, so you could find the wallets in Mac’s duffel bag.”

  “But, Coach,” I said, “Jason should have been able to see the cockroaches as soon as he opened the duffel bag.”

  “Road trip,” Coach Blair said. “Teddy said he dumped them in the duffel bag just before he threw the equipment on the bus. The luggage compartment of the bus is unheated. We spent three and a half hours on the road. As the equipment got colder and colder, the cockroaches must have burrowed into the cracks of Jason’s equipment. And naturally, half frozen, they wouldn’t have started to crawl around until Jason had warmed them up by skating around before the game.”

  Jason groaned.

  “Teddy was proud of that one,” Coach said. “He remembered something like that happening to a teammate. They practiced in an old wooden arena, and they didn’t know the dressing room was infested with cockroaches.” Coach Blair laughed. “Sorry, Jason. But it was a funny story. The cockroaches had nested in someone’s equipment, and the guy didn’t find out until he was skating on the ice. He peeled his equipment off right then and there too. Of course, for the other guy it was just a practice.”

  Jason kept groaning.

  “Teddy was just trying to throw you guys off your game. He figured even if you found the cockroaches before you dressed, it would have done that. In fact, he intended to keep doing these little things, hoping to get you guys from thinking hockey.”

  “Flat tires?” I asked. “Fiberglass? Skate rivets? Everything?”

  “Yup. Yup. Yup. And yup. Does that make any of you guys angry?”

  We all roared, filling the dressing room with our shouts of anger.

  “Good,” Coach Blair said when we stopped yelling. “The law will take care of Teddy and the guy who hired him. You guys just need to worry about beating the Hurricanes. Get out there and show that anger in this final period.”

  We came out storming. Five minutes into the third period we had already taken nearly a dozen shots on their net. Two were mine—a slap shot that dinged the crossbar of the net, and a wrist shot from the top of the face-off circle that the Hurricane goalie barely managed to knock aside with his blocker.