28. 28

28

Robbie McGuire

We’re playing a block of away games this week, moving from city to city. Hotel room to hotel room.

We fuck and fuck and fuck.

And we win and win and win.

We’ve become an unstoppable force, and fans and the media have started to sit up and pay attention. Our names are splashed all over the news. You can’t open a sports page without being bombarded by our faces. The headlines are splashed everywhere.

The Dream Team

A Match Made In Heaven

And my own personal favorite: McGuire and Decker - Poetry On Ice.

We’re in Minnesota, playing the Wild Dogs. It’s our last game before we head home, and I’m ready for a day off. The Dogs have never been my favorite team to play, so I can’t say I’m looking forward to the game. I’m all for playing rough, but this team has a way of taking it too far.

I feel off before the game. There’s a cold chill in my bones that I struggle to shake off, even when my dad sends me a photograph of my living room with the new sofas in it. He took delivery for me this morning and has assured me it looks great. To help fight the chill in my bones, I forward a few of the photographs to Ant with stickers of our faces plastered all over the sofas.

We’re in the locker room getting ready for the game when I send it. He riffles through his bag as soon as his phone vibrates and smiles at it when he sees my name on the screen.

He wipes the smile off his face quickly and replaces it with a scowl, but still, I see it. He smiles again when he opens the message. He tries not to, but he can’t help it.

I love seeing him like this.

The game is pretty much exactly what I was expecting. It’s a brutal attack from the second the puck drops. It’s a relentless physical and mental battle, and every time I put skate to ice, the chill I felt earlier spreads to a different part of my body.

The Dogs’ entire game plan seems to be to neutralize the threat Decker and I pose by taking me out of the game altogether. There are players all over me. Hitting me from all angles. I do my best not to let it get to me, but by the third period, I’m so exhausted I can hardly swallow. I’m flagging badly. I’ve taken more hits than I’ve ever taken in a single game. Vipers players and fans alike are yelling at the ref to open his eyes. Coach is banging his fists on the board, eyes bulging with fury.

Every time I look for Ant and find him in the mass of bodies around me, he holds eye contact with me for a second and then taps a thumb under his chin and raises it slightly.

Chin up.

It happens slowly and fast. I have both defensemen on me. A wing as well, and there’s a center approaching. There are green jerseys everywhere, a sea of them all around me. I’m drowning in them. There are players and shoulders and sticks coming at me.

They’re playing the man, not the puck, and they aren’t trying to hide it.

“High stick!” Ant screams.

I hear his voice. It comes at me and lands as a carbon fiber stick swings in an almost graceful arc. There’s a soft hiss as it flies through the air. Then there’s a lull. A quiet pause where I’m able to see everything around me moving in slo-mo—the ice, the hook of the stick, the face of the man swinging it—it all seems to happen slowly, but I’m not able to move fast enough to get out of the way.

The stick makes contact just under my chin. It lands with a dull thud that knocks my head back.

I don’t feel it, but the world around me goes black.