SEVENTY-ONE

Chapter Three

SEVENTY-ONE

CHAPTER 2

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2ND - 9AM

-

Faster than the speed of lightning, Dad slams his callous hand on the center of the steering wheel, outraged at the car in front of him who's not moving the vehicle even when the light is green.

My dad suffers with intense road rage, and nothing makes me laugh more than him. I remember our last tournament of the last year's season - it was against none other but the Copper City Sons and we raced out of the Carmichael arena faster than you can say 'winner'.

Hell, we didn't even bother to stop for food till we reached the midway mark on our destination home. The entire run we were going well over the speed limit and Nate was braced to his seat out of fear. 

Today, though, is perhaps really similar. Like usual, we're running late due to Nate forgetting something in his hockey pouch. This time, it was his mouth guard. In reality, we could've just picked a new one up at Source For Sports, which is where we were at a few minutes before this traffic jam incident.

"Nate, why do you always forget your stuff, you f'n dummy?" Dad shouts playfully over the electronic blaring out of the Suburban. Finally, the vintage sack of junk in front of us finds the gas pedal.

"Okay there Mr. We-Should-Go-Get-Chips-And-Dips-For-Tonight," Nate replies, sneaking a glance at the time.

"Stop looking at the time, honey, you won't be late for warm-ups, I promise," Mom smiles as she rubs his knee. Then comes the oh-so-frequent pep-talk till we get to the arena. Normally, I just drown them out because all of our tourneys this year have been against the shittiest teams from our division.

This time though, I fully pay attention to the speech and even occasionally pitch in. I mean, this is a huge tournament - we're currently tied for first with them, the two of us being undefeated. If we lose this, not only will our ranks be bruised, but so will our egos.

We pull into the arena's parking lot in a dismantled U-turn and Nate hops out of the backseat, already opening the trunk and slouching his bag over his shoulder. 

As he comes around the vehicle to close his door, Mom and I shout: "bang bang!" Since his first game back in 2003, we've shouted that out to him. It boosts his ego so much, to the point that every point he scores, even he shouts it in the goalie's face. And Nate's known to get hat tricks pretty often.

He smiles and exchanges glances with us one last time, then boots it towards the change room. While glancing into his eyes, I read him fully. He's afraid. To be honest, though, I don't blame him: last season was just as heated as this one is and ended badly. Nate and Brazier were up at each other's throats, going for the puck when Brazier slithered his Bauer stick in between Nate's legs as he was skating. This resulted in Nate breaking a rib due to his fall. Miraculously enough, though, Brazier got away scott-free, claiming that Nate skated himself into it.

Outraged, the team decided to get revenge and six of our players got kicked out due to it.

The worst part isn't even that - our boys always choke in finals. Last season's finals resulted in a sweep up until they played a seven period overtime game against Copper City and lost 4-5.

This game meant a lot.

"Nat, you know what we're gonna do here?" My dad says with a mischievous grin glued to his lips. His chubby cheeks, covered in stubble, bulge. In response my mom flicks her head upwards curiously.

"I'm gonna make us park the furthest away from the arena because you forgot my flippin' deodorant at home and I want people to smell my toxicity for the least amount of time possible," he says, adding in a few french swears every now and then. My family comes from an extremely french town in Canada so we're pretty fluent in the language.