Page 1 of Next Season

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RILEY

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” —Henry David Thoreau,Walden

Wednesdays = orange tape.

Okay, that was a personal preference and a tried-and-true ritual, but as anyone who’d ever played hockey could attest, certain rituals were sacred. For me it was right sock first, left knee pad last, and orange tape on Wednesdays.

Hey, hockey players were a suspicious bunch, and we all knew that the slightest deviation from routine could result in catastrophe.

Check this out:

The Slammers’ center, Mickey Romajski, tore his ACL the weekend after he’d accidentally used a teammate’s towel in the shower. For a germaphobe like Mickey, it was a no-no and possibly the cause of injury. Another teammate, Jake Moran, cracked a rib two days after he’d uncharacteristically sat on the bench to pull on his shoulder pads instead of standing as usual. Both injuries were sustained on the ice, but not on the same day as the routine hiccup, which might mean they had nothing to do with messing with tradition, but you couldn’t be too careful.

And how ironic was that? Caution didn’t fly in this game. The most superstitious D-man out there still had to play like a badass ’cause this was hockey, for crying out loud.

So as my teammates engaged in their own rituals, I taped my stick and gave my pregame “we got this” speech like a good captain. Or co-captain. This would be the night we’d turn our lukewarm start to the season around. This would be the night we’d come out strong, beat our opponent to the puck, pass like a finely tuned machine, and create scoring opportunities at will…no problem.

Except therewasa problem: As I neared the end of my roll of tape, the color looked more yellow than orange. Like the manufacturer had started with yellow and switched to orange and—Fuck me. This was the wrong color.

No wait. It had to be the light. No issues here, folks. Nothing to worry about.

I pushed aside the tinge of apprehension and focused on my surroundings. The locker room was a flurry of fist bumps, words of encouragement, and then someone blasted a raucous beat to pump us up. We were warriors going into battle, and victory was ours for the taking.

We hoped.

We skated out to tepid applause and jeers as per normal for the visiting team. Some crowds were more brutal than others, but it was still early season and anything could happen. And after a particularly off-key rendition of the national anthem, I took my place on the bench, swallowing my annoyance when my co-captain, Ben Childress, lost the face-off.

So…co-captain. Yeah, not gonna lie, it sucked. Sort of like being given a sliver of a slice of chocolate cake instead of the chunk you’d been promised. Three years into sharing the C with a twenty-five-year-old phenom from Boston, I’d thought I’d resigned myself to reality, but some nights…not so much.

At thirty-five, I was one of the old-timers now. My minutes were down, and I resented every fucking thing about that. Childress wasn’t a better forward than me; he was just younger. Ben was also hotheaded, impetuous, and had a tendency to pick stupid fights, which was how he’d earned the nickname Chili.

Case in point: He not only lost the puck, but he pissed off Buffalo’s beast of a center. He’d probably called him a pussy or insulted his parentage or made fun of the mole on his left cheek. Who knew? Chili was a dick, and he loved the sound of his own voice.

Needless to say, the tone was set from that first slap of sticks. This wasn’t going to be pretty, and Buffalo’s fans fucking loved it. They wanted blood on the ice. Preferably ours.

Childress ate up the animosity, egging on the crowd with his arms raised. By the second period, you could practically see the energy roll through the stands like a wave onto the ice. So much for tepid.

I hopped over the boards with the second line and found myself battling with Buffalo’s new star, a quick twenty-one-year-old kid with fire in his eyes who’d sized me up and decided I wasn’t a problem. I didn’t like that. I kept up with the little shit, slicing in front of him and easily stealing the puck.

I could hear Childress’s whoop of glee above the crowd and Minski’s holler for me to pass as I deked around a D-man and tore off with a breakaway that couldn’t have been a sweeter opening if it had been gift-wrapped with a red ribbon and served on a silver platter. I didn’t need Minski. I had this one. The goalie was hugging the right corner, but there was just enough space to sling it in on the left. I angled my hips, gaining speed as I pulled my stick sideways, and—flew through the air, landing in a heap against the boards.

A collective gasp was followed by raucous cheering. I didn’t take it personally. It was all part of the game, right? One minute, you were on the precipice of greatness and the next, you were tasting your own blood, staring up at white lights.

Was that my blood? Christ, there was a lot of it. And those lights were fuzzy now, dimming in my periphery. Someone was calling my name.

“Trunk! Trunk, can you get up?”

“Fuck, that’s a lot of blood. Is he okay?”

“Get the medic out here. Hurry the fuck up. Move it, move it!”

No way. No medic.

I had to get up. Blood was no big deal. I’d been here before.Gimme a Band-Aid, I’ll be okay.

I tried to speak, but nothing came out. The darkness was edging out the light and voices sounded warbled, as though everyone was talking at once with their mouths full of marbles. The sound and the light were fading fast, and my head hurt like a motherfucker. And blood…