The Brick Wall

Chapter 2

Curtis POV

  As soon as Miss Nelson is stepping out of her apartment door, I'm passing Lennox off to her. "Love you, baby girl," I tell her with a quick kiss to her cheek. "Be good." She gives me a gummy smile because of the scruff that just rubbed against her soft face.

"You should think about shaving, Curtis," Miss Nelson suggests, take her from me.

I learned early on that the older woman knows absolutely nothing about sports, but especially hockey. Trying to get her to understand superstitions was a lost cause. "Can't just yet," I tell her. "She's due for a bottle in about an hour and then maybe a nap. You want her at yours or mine?"

Miss Nelson is already nudging my door further open so I shrug and step out of the way. "If I don't hurry I'm gonna get yelled at again."

"Go! Go! We're fine, aren't we Len?"

I can't stand when she calls my little girl Len. I feel like as her father I should be the only one allowed to give her a nickname. And as soon as she's big enough for some goalie equipment, she'll be Brick Wall Junior.

  "Let's go! Where's the hustle, ladies?" Head coach Mark Anson yells at us from the bench.  

  I crouch down, ready and waiting for them to get back over to my side during the scrimmage.  One might think a goalie gets a break when the team has a breakaway to the other side of the rink. 

  They're idiots.

  I study each and every players movements, watching, waiting. Not only am I keeping my eyes on the ten players between myself and the other goalie, I'm also following the puck. At any given moment an opponent can catch a lucky breakaway and I need to be ready.  

  You don't have to be one hundred percent crazy to be a goalie. Ninety-nine percent will do just fine. 

  Assistant coach Buddy Orman blows the whistle, my skates immediately leaving my crease to join the rest of the team center ice. 

  "You guys are playing like shit!" Orman screams out, his clipboard goes flying across the ice. "You guys don't think Everett needs to be stopping some pucks, too? Come on! Horn! Get your men together!"

  Thaddeus Horn, the captain of the Renegades, moves to center dropping his gaze upon each player. "Wingers on one side, defense on the other," he swivels on his skates, grinning at me. "All down on pretty boy, Everett."

  He thinks he's going to manage to pull one over on me.  But I've never let him know this is my favorite drill, ever.

Coach Orman drops a load of pucks down at center ice. It doesn't matter who is on which side, they'll cross over with one another, zig and zag the whole way trying to get one by me.

"Let em rain, boys!" I yell out from behind my crease, stick tapping against each post before slipping further out.

Twenty players come across the ice, flying towards me, attempting to get the frozen rubber puck across my line.

And twenty pucks are blocked, knocked off to the side or caught and tossed out.

"How many?" Anson calls out. I slip my mask up, revealing my shit eating grin, "Zilch, coach."

"Good job, Everett. Now the rest of you," he pauses, "figure out how to score!"  I watched as Anson carefully walked towards my side of the rink, figuring he's about to go over some sort of play  he wants me to prepare for with our upcoming game in two days.  "Good work Friday night. Think you can do it again?"