by Claire Adams
The player who came out in the third period was 180 degrees different from the one who had stepped onto the ice at the beginning of the game. Johnny hit the ice with all the confidence, speed, aggression, and certainty that he had ever possessed in his life. I laughed, unable to help myself, I was so delighted. Johnny was up and down the ice, barreling through other players, stealing the puck, making up for what he had lost out on earlier in the game. Before long, Johnny had managed to bring them to only two points down. He was on fire, and I was screaming along with everyone else on our side—even the people who had been booing him before couldn’t help but get swept up in the fever.
As the game continued, we were still two points down. I watched Johnny, crossing my fingers that he wouldn’t lose hope. I wondered if he noticed that the other team was struggling to keep up their defensive game, utterly confused by the change that had come over our team in a matter of only a few minutes. “If they actually pull out a win, I think you should be MVP,” Georgia murmured to me. I elbowed her, laughing and shaking my head. If the team managed to pull out a win, I was going to spend the rest of the weekend screwing Johnny’s brains out—which, incidentally, was also what I was going to do if the team didn’t manage to win.
One of Johnny’s teammates scored a point, and they were down by only one as the clock continued to tick down. I watched as Johnny aimed for the other team’s most aggressive player—the one who had sent him sprawling onto the ice facedown. I gasped, but I was secretly pleased when I watched Johnny knock into the guy hard enough to send him into the wall. He tumbled back down onto the ice as Johnny had intercepted the puck. He was flying down the ice, dodging and shoving, darting around the other team’s players in the way that only Johnny seemed to be able to do. The clock was ticking down, and I knew I wasn’t the only one clenching my hands in nervous fists. If they could get the score even, they could have a shoot-out—but only if Johnny managed to get the puck in the net. Only if he or one of his teammates got one more goal.
I saw it the moment that Johnny did—I realized that later when we were lying in bed together, talking about the game. The goalie was ready for Johnny. He knew what Johnny was going to do. So Johnny knocked the puck to the right winger; it was just fast enough that the goalie didn’t have time to shift his strategy. The right winger shot and scored, only a few seconds before the buzzer went off to announce the end of regulation time.
My heart was pounding in my chest, and I sat down heavily as adrenaline rushed through me. They had finished the game in a tie. They would have a shoot-out in order to see about breaking the tie. Georgia was explaining the rules to me. Each team had to pick a shooter and could pick either their regular or relief goalie. Each shooter would take their assigned shots, and then the shots would be tallied with the regular points and a winner would be determined. I took a deep breath; there were other good shooters on the team besides Johnny. He didn’t have to be the one to make the shots.
But of course, he was the one they chose. I held my hands tightly in my lap, watching as Johnny took the ice again. My heart was racing. I wanted this so much for him. It would be just as upsetting to me for Johnny to be unhappy over this as over anything else. I grabbed at Georgia’s hand and held it tightly.
The other team’s shooter went first, and his ability was immediately impressive. Then I watched as Johnny took up his position on the ice. “Johnny can do that in his sleep,” Georgia told me.
“Shh!” I said, flapping my hand at her. In fact, everyone was silent—even the other team’s side. It was a gesture of respect. I pressed my lips together and watched as Johnny made his way across the ice, gliding smoothly and confidently on his skates. I barely breathed as he advanced towards the other team’s goalie, switching around the puck, moving it to confuse the player. I gripped Georgia’s hand harder as he came to the crease and shot.
The shot went in—the siren announced it, and everyone roared in reaction.
We got more worried as the player for the opposing team made his second shot. If it weren’t for the fact that I knew Johnny was the man I loved and that he could wipe the floor with that guy, I’d be impressed. Georgia laughed when I said as much. “No guy is ever going to be able to stack up to Johnny in your mind,” she said. “You might as well just marry the guy and get it over with.” I rolled my eyes.
“That is not what I mean and you know it,” I told her. After a few moments, all of the raucous sound and cheering from the other team began to subside, and Johnny took up his position once more. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, saying a prayer without being entirely sure of who I was praying to. I opened my eyes in time to see Johnny take off again. He was rushing down the ice, even faster than the first time, and I realized that he was trying to psych the other player out, that he was trying to overwhelm the goalie—who might then make the wrong judgment when he went to shoot. “I’m starting to pick this stuff up without even trying,” I told Gigi in a whisper. She snorted and gave me a poke to the ribs.
Everyone held their breath as Johnny once more got into position and shot the puck, but he had not been quite fast enough to overwhelm the goalie, who barely managed to knock the shot aside. There was a groan in the audience.
The third shot by the opposing player went wide and missed, but the crowd was well aware of the remaining chance to score.
I looked at Johnny closely, worried—maybe he was not as recovered as I had thought he was. But I saw him shake it off, saw him look at his coach, and then up at me, with a little smile. He headed back to center ice, and I knew that he was going to get the next one. I smiled and gripped Georgia’s hand. Even if I had the intuition—the instinct—that Johnny had it, that didn’t make it any less tense in the audience. I looked around. Nearly everyone on our team’s side of the ice was invested in the game, wanting Johnny to make it. They had forgotten whatever stupid rumors they had heard or whatever delight they had taken in the “golden boy” being pulled down off the pedestal.
Johnny went with a different tactic; instead of trying to overwhelm the goalie, he moved more subtly, shifting and feinting, moving the puck around on the ice without even seeming to. Even I was mesmerized, watching him move from the center to the net. By the time Johnny made his shot, the goalie was utterly confused and transfixed by what he had seen. The crowd erupted—cheers on our side, groans on the other side.
“I wish they’d get it over with before you crush my hand,” Georgia said jokingly. I glanced at her; she gestured with her other hand that she was fine, that it was a joke. I eased up anyway.
It was nearly over—one way or the other. As the other player missed, everyone knew Johnny would have to make the last shot count to win. I sat back down, tapping my foot on the floor, wanting nothing more than for everyone to just shut up, let Johnny take his last shot, and let us all know what the outcome was going to be. But everyone was more excited than ever, which I could understand—so was I. I took a deep breath and watched as Johnny moved to center ice for the final time.
He was somehow combining his two previous tactics, using both speed and subtlety. I couldn’t even tell where the puck was half the time as Johnny blazed down the ice towards the goalie. I couldn’t believe that the goalie had any clue, either, in spite of trying as hard as he could to watch the movements. There was just too much to see. Finally, Johnny was in the crease, and he was shooting the puck—and the goalie had no idea where to grab for it. It hit the net, and I sagged against Georgia as the siren announcing a successful shot rang out over the ice.
The roar of the crowd was so loud that I was sure I was going to go deaf. I watched as the winning team streamed out onto the ice, cheering and screaming, happy as they could possibly be at what Johnny had helped them accomplish. I couldn’t blame them for being happy—or for lifting Johnny up on their shoulders and carrying him around as the MVP. Georgia’s comments about my status to that title notwithstanding, Johnny was an important leader on the team, and it was obvious that when he was
having an off night, the team suffered; when he was on top of it, the team was, too.
Someone presented the team with the trophy, and Johnny and another player hoisted it into the air, displaying it proudly to us all. The other team had tactfully retreated to lick their wounds and sigh about what could have happened if they had just pressed their advantage or at least kept their lead. I smiled and laughed, watching the team cavorting around, obviously drunk with pleasure at their success. Someone put a microphone in Johnny’s hands and asked him about the game—what he thought, who he credited with the win, the kinds of things that always get asked for athletes when they succeed.
“It was a rough game, especially in the first two periods, but I have a lot of people to thank for this win,” Johnny said, grinning around at everyone. “Of course, I have to thank my team. Without the team, none of us is anything. We certainly couldn’t pull it off one-handed.” I was starting to think of just how much I wanted Johnny to myself again. Maybe I can convince him to hang around and take his shower late, so we’ll be all alone…I was thinking when he met my gaze. “I also have to thank the love of my life, the woman who has shown that she will go through anything with me, that she loves me and is there for me, my girlfriend Becky.”
The crowd predictably went wild, but as Johnny and I held each other’s gazes, neither of us was even remotely thinking about the crowd. We were thinking about each other and about what was to come now that we had finally put the ghosts of the past to rest.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams