Page 76 of The Understatement of the Year

I choked on my last swallow of coffee.

“Didn’t think so,” Bella mumbled.

—March—

Brain Bucket(or simply Bucket): the helmet.

—Graham

The regular season ended with Harkness ranked number one on the Eastern seaboard.Sports Illustratedwanted to interview Hartley and Orson, so the press office was setting it up. But Hartley wasn’t wild about giving an interview. “Anyone else want to be captain?” Hartley asked in the locker room before practice. “I’m taking applications.”

“Whiner,” Rikker teased him. “You get to talk about your game stats, not your sex life. How tough could that be?”

“Eh. They want to ask me a bunch of questions about what it’s like to represent an Ivy League school. They’re going to photograph the dining hall during Sunday dinner. How do I talk about Harkness without coming off as an elitist jackass? I’m just a poor kid from a shitty part of Connecticut.”

“Then just say that,” I suggested. “Tell the truth.”

“What would you know about that?” Bella mumbled, walking by with a stack of practice jerseys. She tossed one at me without meeting my eyes.

Bella was still pissed at me, and though she kept her reasons to herself, every guy in the locker room knew it.

“What on Earth did you do?” they all asked me during the first week of Bella’s freeze-out.

“More like…whodid you do?” Trevi asked.

I didn’t know what was worse — the fact that the whole world (except me) had already known that Bella had a thing for me. Or that my love life was up for discussion. It sure didn’t help my raging case of chronic paranoia.

Also, I missed her. Our relationship had never been simple. Or even honest. But there had been happy nights together, with the two of us tucked into a booth at Capri’s telling jokes into the wee hours. It sucked knowing that I’d blown up our friendship.

For the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, we were matched up against Central Mass. It was a three game series. During the first game, we cut through their defense like a hot knife through butter, winning 3-0. Coach warned us that they’d come out swinging for the second game, and that we’d better be ready.

He was right.

Game two was fast and brutal. I got sent to the sin bin before the first period was over. But their side had even more fouls. There was one player in particular, a giant of a guy with a nasty attitude. His jersey actually said TRODER on the back. What kind of a name was that? He had a way of sweeping my teammates’ skates out from under them when the refs weren’t looking.

He was egregious, and I was sick of it. Before the game was over, I was sure I could teach him a lesson. I just needed to bide my time, watching for an opening.

It never came.

In the meantime, I saw Rikker and Hartley score one of the most exciting goals I’d ever seen in any hockey game, ever. The second period was almost over, and Rikker took a shot on goal that missed. Quick as lightning, he skated behind the net to retrieve the puck. But instead of skating it back around, Rikker popped the puck off the ice and over the net.

Hartley couldn’t see much of what Rikker was doing, though, with the goalie in the way. Working on sheer instinct, Hartley raised his stick at precisely the right nanosecond. Tipping the blade, he smacked the puck back toward the net.

Four thousand jaws dropped as it ricocheted off his stick, flying into the goal.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and Hartley stood there looking stunned even as the scoreboard lit up with his goal.

We were all a little stunned, actually. And that proved dangerous for me. When I wasn’t watching, that asshole Troder got me. One minute I was shipping the puck around behind the net, passing to Big-D. And the next moment I was sailing head-first toward the ice.

Shit!

That simple sentiment was all I could manage as the bright surface raced toward my eyes. Then everything went black.

—Rikker

I didn’t actually see Graham take the hit.

Instead, I heard Trevi say, “oh fuck,” in a sort of awed voice that made me turn to look. And when I saw one of our players spread out on the ice, I just knew it was him.