Page 16 of Roughing
“Slade, are you a quitter?” Dash challenged him.
Slade scowled but shook his head. Without their fearless leader guiding the ship, my gang of not-so-merry men was rudderless.
“Good.” Dash’s attention turned to me. I’d been hoping to avoid being singled out. “What about you, Briggs?”
I held his gaze. “We can win this.” I ignored the surprised gasps in the room and the mutters of agreement.
“Okay, boys, you heard Briggs, we can win this. That team isn’t beating us. We’re beating ourselves. We’re playing not to lose instead of playing to win. We may not be a playoff team, but we can make it hard on playoff-bound teams. We’re better than our record, but we have to play together, fight together, find a way to do this together.”
One by one, heads lifted and shoulders squared. Determination replaced despair. We rose to our feet and marched toward the ice, reenergized and ready to do battle. Dash stopped me in the hall.
“What you said might not seem like much, but it’s huge.”
“It was the truth.” I didn’t want Dash’s praise or to be held up as a good example. I hated that shit. Just let me play my game.
He slapped me on the back and chuckled. He moved on, fist-bumping the line of players in the hallway.
We went into the third fired up with guns blazing. I stole the puck in the defensive zone and sent a perfect stretch pass to Dash, who pivoted and slapped it in the net. We tied the game, and you’d have thought we’d tied game seven in the Cup finals. Exuberant, I joined the group hug after the goal, earning some odd looks from my teammates. Only then did I realize I hadn’t done that before. Of course they were shocked.
With fifteen seconds on the board, the puck careened off Braden’s stick, sailed past our goalie Roman Daniels, and into the net. The buzzer sounded. Despite our best efforts, we’d lost again. The story of our short lives as a team.
“If we didn’t have bad luck, we’d have no luck at all,” muttered Jarrett Bolton as we filed off the ice. Usually, I’d have added to the misery with a caustic remark of my own. This time I shut my mouth.
We stomped down the hallway to the locker room. I stopped in front of my stall and peeled off my jersey. Braden, my defensive partner, slumped on the bench beside me. He stared at his hands, blaming himself for the loss.
Braden had been in this league long enough to know shit happens, but he was taking this loss especially hard. We’d been on the brink of earning one elusive point, and now we had nothing. With a team dwelling in the cellar of the league, every loss hit us harder and chipped away at what little confidence we could muster. I’d been one of those guys who’d helped with the chipping. Hell, at times, I’d wielded my frustration and anger like a sledgehammer.
All around me, guys expressed their displeasure. I resisted the urge to jump in and add to the destruction because it’d become a bad habit of mine. Misery loves company.
“Hey, we live to fight another day.” I smacked Braden on the back.
He lifted his head and narrowed his gaze. I read his mind: Who the hell are you and what’d you do with my surly linemate? “Yeah.” He nodded slowly, but his voice lacked enthusiasm.
I wasn’t thrilled to be stuck playing on a team that had already been counted out of the playoffs, but I dug deeper. Being negative in this situation was easy. Keeping my confidence up was way harder, and helping my teammates rather than dragging them down with me was almost impossible. Best to keep my mouth shut.
We arrived at the team hotel an hour later, and Braden approached me in the lobby. “Want to get a beer?”
I hid my surprise at being asked. Most guys on this team avoided interaction with me, but Braden was my linemate. I needed a drink, but I didn’t really want company.
“Come on. You don’t want to sit in your room alone and wallow in self-pity, do you?”
Actually, I did.
“I’m not taking no for an answer.” Braden waited. I stared longingly at the elevator. “You can get your beauty rest later.” He snatched the room card from my hand and walked toward the bar. I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought of his bullshit when Coach walked by. Irritated, I had no choice but to follow him.
We both ordered a beer and drank in silence.
“Crappy game tonight,” Braden commented.
“They’re all crappy with this team.”
Braden gaped at me and drew back slightly. “We could’ve won.”
I shrugged, not interested in saying much more.
“While you’re not Sally Sunshine, you’ve had an attitude adjustment.”
“Had to.”
