We were down by two, and sometimes you used a fight to rally your team. It wasn't personal. At least tonight it wasn't personal.
"Aren't you gonna ask me to dance?" I asked, trying to get him going. My job, as a defenseman, was to prevent forwards from making a goal and tie them up during a faceoff. Playing my role well, that was what I was doing. Judging by my time spent in the penalty box tonight, I'd say I was on my game.
"We'll dance all right..." Matzy nudged me again, but my eyes weren't on him. I watched the puck in the linesman's hand trying to anticipate the drop. "...'til you're fuckin' bleeding."
Leo and the Red Wings center squared up.
"Sounds like fun," I told him. "Let's go. C'mon, let's go." I butted my stick in his ribs.
When the puck dropped between the two centers, Leo got possession, and I dropped my gloves, at the same time as Matzy. I could hear the crowd come to life, roaring in excitement, passionately rooting their team on. They loved a good fight.
We circled for a moment, both of us finding steady footing before I took the first swing. The linesman watched, making sure nothing illegal was done as our teammates gave us room.
My first swing landed on his shoulder. He pivoted and connected with my jaw before I pounded three more good punches against his.
I wasn't afraid to bleed, and I was a good fighter. You had to be in hockey, but matched up against Matzy was sure to be a challenge of sorts.
Though it'd been a few years, this wasn't the first time Matzy and I sparred.
Before we had a chance to do damage, Matzy lost his footing and crashed to the ice. The linesmen broke it up after that.
Escorted to the box, our teammates beat their sticks against the boards, prompting uproar from the twenty thousand fans already on their feet as
Dropkick Murphys
blared through the arena.
Leo caught me, skates grating against the ice as he stopped before me, full of excitement, banging his helmet against mine. "You look fucking great, man!" Leo always exaggerated. "Don't stop roughin' 'em up. That's what you do, Mase, don't forget it!"
I smiled around my mouth guard clamped between my teeth as blood dripped from my lip. Leo handed me my gloves as the door to the penalty box opened.
The linesman to my left waved Leo away. "That's enough."
I spent fifteen minutes in the penalty box, five for fighting, five for a major, and five for instigating, since I threw the first punch, while Matzy got five for fighting. We chirped back and forth in the box, just for pure intimidation purposes and entertainment for the fans who continued to beat on the glass surrounding the penalty box. It was my third trip to the box tonight, so I sat back and watched after a while.
That fifteen minute penalty was nothing compared to my record of forty-five minutes just off one play a few weeks ago. PJ Moore, a defenseman with the Boston Bruins, and I had a shady past ever since the junior leagues. He wanted to go and I just wasn't feeling it so, instead, he took a cheap shot at Leo Orting, our center, as he was climbing the bench after our shift, nailing the back of his legs with his stick.
He skated away, retreating to the bench, like he could just get away with it.
He thought wrong.
I may not have wanted to fight him, but I wasn't about to let him get away with a dirty hit like that, on Leo of all guys. I chased him, jumping the bench with a swift spearing motion, dropped my gloves, and fought him and two of his teammates. I believe their team trainer even got some shots. I received five minutes for spearing, five minutes for fighting, five minutes for a second fight, ten minutes for intent to injure, ten minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct, and ten minutes for major misconduct. I was camped out in the box the whole fucking game, but I didn't regret it. He never took a cheap shot like that again.
A lot of things happened in the penalty box. Lots of boobs—couldn't complain there—lots of popcorn thrown and beer offered, and tons of shit talking.
My time in the box was predictable. Spitting out blood, I had my own commentary to yell at the boys as they pushed the puck around. A selection of words, mostly inappropriate to the children sitting behind me, but the way I saw it—if their parents brought them to a hockey game—they needed the full experience, and that included my choice phrases.
"C'mon boys, push the fuckin' puck!" The penalty keeper turned toward me with a smirk, knowing I was only getting started. "Push it!"
Leo had the puck racing toward the corner, pumping his legs with exaggerated enthusiasm. He bumped the right wing for Detroit. He turned to protest, but Leo stole the puck again and streaked up the right wing. Shelby Wright, our right wing, broke away with him and cut an opening at center. Leo saw him and angled his body toward him as though he was going to pass and then didn't. Shelby swung sharply to his left to stay onside, his skates chattering violently.
Leo chuckled, his eyes bright with excitement, as this goal would tie the game. He moved against another center for Detroit, faked left and right, then pretended to stumble against him, Leo laughing as they both fell. The Detroit center wasn't impressed and struggled to find his balance once again.
Kelly Boyd, another right-winger fresh off a shift change, charged up to them, spraying snow in the center's face. Kelly hacked at the puck, pushing it loose before passing back to Leo, who positioned himself to the right of the crease.
"Fuckin' A, Orting! That's how you move the puck!" I yelled toward our star center when he faked left and then right, fooling the goalie for Detroit when he spun around and snagged the upper right of the net. "That's how you do it, man!"
The whistle blew, and I was out the door heading back onto the ice as the lights flashed with the goal, and "Chelsea Dagger" blared through the arena.
A hockey game would stop at least a hundred times for things like off-sides, icing, penalties, pucks frozen under bodies and along boards, in a goalies' hands, and the occasional release of pent up frustration. That number varied depending on the game and the team we were playing, but for the most part it remained the same. And though the game stopped at the whistle, for us and the devoted fans cheering us on, it never really stopped. It was a passionate sport that people believed in. It was the same sport that had little boys hacking at pucks in sub-zero temperatures until their fingers were blue.
It was who we were as hockey players and the heart of everything we believed in since we learned how to skate and push a puck around. You never told a hockey player it was just a game, because to him, that was an insult of the worst kind. Nothing mattered more to our souls and the amount of heart we put into this game. True to the words, no bond was greater than the ones you bled for. I believed that and played the game that way.
My team—the Chicago Blackhawks—we were brothers that would lay everything on the line to protect our own.
The way I saw it, a team was only as good as their unity, and unity in hockey was everything. You even learned that back in the junior leagues. Just like any team or marriage, when it was good, it was really good. When it was bad, it was fucking horrible, and you were left constantly searching for the romance again. It was never fun to be on a team where there was weakness where there once was power—or discovered distance where there once was desire. No team wanted that.
To a hockey team, the bond was more than winning. There was unity, culture, politics, and everything in between you found with a professional sports club, and you couldn't avoid that. When we lost, we were just a hockey team. And it seemed, though we never wanted to admit it, we were just a team.
We all worked toward the same goal, as did any team—winning. Once you found that, you got that romance of a hockey team back and it was a good feeling.
We had the romance now. Our team was on a seven-game streak and pulled off the eighth straight victory that night against the Red Wings.
After a win, the same energy swirled within the players. Something that wasn't funny or was too personal, too embarrassing, too important became hilarious as we boarded the bus to head back to Chicago.
The boys were rowdy, shooting off one-liners at each other, harassing the rookies, fucking with the coaches, and playing practical jokes, mostly fueled by Leo and me. While most were preparing for Christmas and living normal lives, we were the Chicago Blackhawks.
One would think it was just another win, but they didn't understand because to a hockey player, it wasn't just a win. It couldn't be understood by anyone other than a hockey player who'd struggled between that distance and desire or weakness and power, and who'd spent his life pushing a puck around.
"Can you believe this snow?" Leo asked sometime after we hit I-90 West heading toward Chicago. We usually flew home when the drive was longer than a few hours, but with the sketchy weather, we were forced to drive when the plane froze. I couldn't understand the logic behind driving if the plane was frozen. That just seemed dumb to me.
"No, I can't," I mumbled miserably, glancing out the bus window. Leo sat beside me looking like a kid in a candy store as he watched cars sliding around trying to gain control.
It was really coming down. I knew any chance at getting home to Pittsburgh in this snow was slim. I really wanted to be home with my family for the holidays, in a place where I felt comfortable, rather than in a city I barely knew. The thrill of the victory was high, but there was a low present from not being able to spend Christmas with my family.
Caitlin, my younger sister, hounded me endlessly about being home this Christmas for God knows what reason, probably so she'd have someone to fall victim to her frequent abuse. My younger sister was a brat, but I still loved her.
If you haven't already noticed, I'm a hockey player. And yes, in case you're wondering, I have all my teeth. Sure, two are fake, but I have them.
Last season, I was the number one draft pick for the Chicago Blackhawks. I always liked Chicago, so I was more than thrilled to be signed to a team I grew up watching. I was from Pittsburgh, though, so naturally I was pulling for the Penguins to pick me up, but I fit in well here in Chicago and couldn't ask for a better group of guys to play with. We had the unity and had formed a strong bond together the last two seasons, and that was what made winning hockey teams.
I started playing hockey when I got my first pair of skates at two years old. Sam, my dad, was a die-hard hockey fan. Seriously, though, someone should have him committed with how insane he could get about the game, but all that insanity and willingness to help me was what got me into the NHL at nineteen.
So while I had my skates and stick at the age of two, they finally allowed me to have the puck when I turned three. The reason for the no puck rule stemmed from something about me drilling the puck through the window a few times. I didn't remember this, but my dad had told the story to just about anyone who would listen to him for more than five minutes.
Once I had the puck and stick together, it was love. Ever since then, nothing compared to the way I felt on the ice. I grew up playing in the PAHL, Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League, through the various midget levels until I was fourteen and was eligible to play for the Ontario Hockey League Major Juniors, which was overseen by the Canadian Hockey League—their governing body for professional hockey.
You had to be fifteen to play, but since my birthday fell in February, and thanks to my very persuasive father, I was drafted. I played in Erie, Pennsylvania, for the Erie Otters. The OHL consisted of twenty teams that were broken down into two conferences, Western and Eastern, and then by four divisions with five teams in each division of East, West, Midwest, and Central.
The Erie Otters were in the Western Conference, Midwest division.
I liked playing up there. It was only a two-hour drive for us, but I ended up having to be enrolled in school there because the traveling to the games alone involved too much, and driving the extra two hours home wasn't an option. My family rented a house up there, and that was where we lived. They were willing to do anything to allow me to play, even it meant uprooting our family and their jobs.
I'd say my dad was the biggest hockey fan out of all of us, having played the game himself until he was nineteen, but my mom and younger sister were just as die-hard. They were at every game back then, cheering me on.
The goal with playing junior hockey was to learn the game, understand it, and get noticed. The Major Juniors was where hockey players got noticed and was where the NHL drafted from. In junior hockey, you lived a pro lifestyle as a teenager and experienced everything the pros experienced, aside from the money. Sure, they paid you, but not nearly as well as they did in the NHL. I used to get a hundred dollars a week, and that was pretty cool when you were fifteen, but now I saw close to a hundred thousand. And just like the pros, you ate, breathed, and slept hockey nine months out of the year. The other three months you just dreamed about it and perfected your game.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, considered the Major Junior League professional level. That meant by playing in a division of the Canadian Hockey League, I lost the eligibility to play for universities in the United States, but I could play for Canada if I wanted.
That wasn't my focus. I wanted to play in the NHL and had since my first slap-shot.
To enter the NHL draft you had to be eighteen by September 15 of that year, which meant I couldn't enter the draft until 2007. I was listed first overall in the NHL Central Scouting Bureau and International Scouting Services' respective rankings of prospects that year and went on to be selected first overall in the draft by the Chicago Blackhawks.
And now, here I was, my second season in the NHL, game thirty-six, already in the record books from our 2009 season. With an eighty-two game season, not including playoffs, the season was still underway.
For now, we had that unity, and we were looking good with twenty-four wins. We had that romance.