Sacrifice

Chapter 4

There's no feeling in the world like sitting in a dressing room with music blasting before a big game. Everyone is laser focused taping their sticks and stretching to prepare to start the season in one hour. It's time to go for a warmup outside consisting of running, lunges and stretching. Ryan leads warm up every game in the middle with everyone forming a circle around him. He led the stretches and yelled out to switch sides. At the end of warm up they play keep up with a soccer ball before heading into the room to put on their gear. This was most of the guys favorite part of warm up to keep things light and have a few laughs before preparing for battle.

Montreal had a great team this year, a favorite to win the championship. They had a seventeen-year-old French sensation named Xavier Richard, who has always been compared to Ryan as the two top players in Eastern Canada. They've played against each other multiple times a year since they started hockey and always draw media attention. Ryan is just under six feet and plays a skilled and fast game, while Xavier is a tough six-foot four pure goal scorer who plays with an edge. Everyone knew the arena would be packed with scouts from schools all over the country to see this match up between the two stars.

"Five minutes until game time fellas!" The assistant coach yelled over the music. Ryan was visualizing with his eyes closed aware of the massive amount of pressure on him. He always thrived under pressure and came up big when the team needed him.

"Let's go boys!" Logan screams as everyone else starts to cheer and strap up their helmets to walk out to the ice. The team walks out onto the ice to hear the loud "Boo" chants from the hostile Montreal hockey fans. This crowd was five times as big compared to the Brampton turnout of about 70 people at home games. The atmosphere was electric as the home team walked out with a roar of screaming fans. The entrance was intimidating for Brampton as they all gave each other un easy looks from the bench.

"Come on buddy, we need a huge game from you if we're going to have any kid of chance against these guys." John says to Ryan as they fist bump on the bench. Anthems were done and now it was time for puck drop. Ryan lined up at center ice ready for puck drop against Xavier. Xavier looked at Ryan with an arrogant smile.

"Great team you guys put together this year" he says sarcastically. Ryan just looked at him and ignored his voice. The referee dropped the puck and Xavier wins the face-off clean back to the Montreal defenceman. It was a physical first period with lots of hits on both teams. The period ended 1-0 with Montreal heavily outshooting Brampton 16-5, while controlling most of the period offensively. In the dressing room between periods the team remained positive and believed they had a chance.

"Great job between the pipes there Adam, you're the reason we're still close in this game," Ryan says to the goalie. Ryan only had one shot on net that period because Montreal planned to play intense defence on him. Its easy to defend against a team with only one player to worry about. Every time Ryan touched the puck, he had two players skating full speed towards him trying to take his head off. If he was going to be successful this year he would have to learn how to play with opposing teams planning against him.

Halfway through the second period the puck squirts out from the corner and finds Ryan standing in the slot with one defenceman to beat. He faked the shot to freeze the defenceman while sliding to his left and shooting a backhand shot over the goalie's shoulder. All his teammates jumped on him as they celebrated and shut down the Montreal crowd. It was now halfway through the game tied at 1 goal each. The team was now energized and playing better as a team generating more offensive chances.

"Ryan's line up next!" Coach yells with two minutes left in the period. Ryan hopped over the boards to a puck race and as soon as he stepped on the ice Xavier blind sided him with an elbow to the head. Ryan collapsed to the ice and lied there for five seconds as everyone on Brampton's bench started yelling at the referee. Ryan didn't feel right and stood up to skate to the bench but immediately fell again. He had no sense of balance and heard loud ringing in his ears. Everyone in the building knew he had a concussion. After being helped to the dressing room the trainer tested him for concussion-like symptoms. Ryan was in a daze and went to the hospital that night with the team medical staff. This would hurt Brampton's chances of winning any games while he was gone, let alone the game against Montreal which would eventually be a 5-1 loss.