AN/: I'm finally back. Special thanks goes out to Silver Winged Duck, IronRunner97, and Loose Cannon Doccy for their help in finally helping me get this chapter pushed out. I'm sorry it took so long and that it's so short. But this chapter has been one of the hardest for me to write in a long time. More explanation after, but I'd like you to have a chance to read it first instead of listening to me rant. Enjoy.
"There's always something in the game you wish you would have done different. That's why players improve, because they learn from what they did before. They might have been guessing before, but now they know." -Gordie Howe a.k.a. Mr. Hockey
Chapter 4: We Few, We Happy Few
All it takes is a few taps on a cell phone. I had an "urgent" line to all the old hockey boys from the good 'ol days, and I did my best to keep the messages short and sweet.
Within a few moments this message was sent out over the airwaves: "Big Show, Wednesday night. 1900. Bring whoever and whatever goodies you want. It's finally happening."
Responses came in thick and fast. Out of twenty names, eight put themselves down in the affirmative. Not bad for pretty short notice.
The old rink in Volsten was our ice palace back in high school. Many hours were spent racing around the rink in rec leagues or just grinding it out in practice. It was a bit run down and dilapidated but the ice was still some the best in the country. I can still remember the first time skating back in Cranston, and remember just how shocked I was at the difference in the ice. A bunch of old timers kept the rink up day in and day out for us, even after we moved on for the next generations of Volsten skaters to find their talents and skills. It was a wondrous place, and I hated being the only one out there
So, I called my best friend, Nils Sturm, from high school out early the day before the big meet-up to skate and talk a bit. Nils was a year older than me, and the captain of Volsten high school team when I was an assistant captain. He was a little bit taller than I was but a bit more lanky and skinny with super bleached blonde hair. A full blooded Belkan, a fact he spoke very little about, he had dark blue eyes that could put fear into almost anyone. As the team's top defenseman, he anchored the Volsten team with great shutdown play as well as commanding respect from teammates and opponents alike. He had a distinctive scar below his right eye from where an errant puck had dislodged the plastic visor from helmet cutting him rather badly. Whenever Nils would get one of his typical ear to ear grins, that scar would become extremely visible. A lot of the younger guys back in the day called him 'Narbe Nils' or 'Scar Nils' as a result. When he showed up to the rink, gear in tow, the barrage began.
"Oh, here he is, Herr Kommandant thinking he owns me entirely now," Nils yelled as I walked out to greet him in the parking lot.
"Why would I own you? You might as well be a zombie now with how that scar has taken over your life!" I barked back, giving Nils a friendly slap on the back.
The old captain shrugged, "Verdammt, We're both old men now, aren't we Ross?"
"And we aren't getting any younger."
Nils chuckled as he heaved his bag up over his shoulder, "No. We sure aren't."
We both headed inside to the rink to get our gear on and of course, Nils had his anticipatory radar fully activated and operational. The way he was watching me as I got ready, he could instantly tell I was much more nervous than usual. A slight shake in my hands, a bit of hesitation in putting on my skates, little small things here and there that to a hawk like Nils meant a great deal.
"What's this thing tomorrow really about Ross?" Nils asked as he wrapped up the grip on his stick with friction tape, "You're going crazy over there."
"Well…"
"Just spit it out, there's no point in keeping it a secret from me."
That was true. Once Nils found out about a secret, he wouldn't stop until he found out what it was. During my junior year, Nils pestered me every day for three months until he finally figured out that Trisha and I were officially dating. Even though I was mad about it, Nils kept it quiet.
"Trisha and I are getting engaged, at least I hope she says yes to getting engaged," I muttered. I felt almost embarrassed at even mentioning the whole event. Nils didn't even appear fazed. He continued on with his work as if I hadn't ever said anything.
"I'm happy for you," Nils replied out of nowhere after a few silent seconds, which made me jump up a few centimeters, "You and Trisha are made to be together. She'll say yes. I wouldn't worry so much about it." I took a moment to take a deep breath as I pulled my helmet on and closed the latch loosely. Nils and I had our old green and white Volsten High Rams jerseys on as we took our first steps back on the ice through the swinging team bench door. As it closed I threw a couple of pucks out onto the fresh ice for us to mess around with if we wanted to. "Hell," Nils laughed as he took one of the pucks and quickly pushed it back and forth on the ice, "Since Olivia said yes to me, I have no doubt Trisha is going to say yes to you. We give each other so much crap, you guys seem like a perfect movie couple in comparison."
I laughed, "That's what you think."
"Sure, I think a lot of things," Nils snarked back as he took one of the pucks and winded up into a slap shot into the empty net down across the ice which seemed far away from the center of enclosed rink. He brought his stick down in one quick motion, eliciting an almost deafening crack as he made contact with the puck. The black rubber disc flew away in a flash and hit the netting with the dull thud. Nils smiled back at me, "But, I know you guys will work out. Just have a little faith. It goes a long way."
"Alright, sensei," I replied waving him off, "Let's actually see if you still got your moves, old man."
"Pah!" Nils barked, "Guess I still have a few things to teach you!"
The next night took an eternity to arrive. A whole cast of former Volsten Rams hockey legends descended on the Ice Palace for one more game, one more night under the lights to strut their stuff and show why they had won a national title.
Trisha didn't really know much about the festivities for the evening beyond the basic reunion info. As she drove the old pick-up truck over to the rink, I proceeded to almost sweat myself to death in the passenger seat. For once in my life I was dead silent. My eyes were bolted to the floor of the truck's cabin. I couldn't hide my anxiety any longer. Trisha glanced over ever few seconds but never really tried to say anything, a few times she looked like she tried to say something but nothing ever came out. After a while Trisha didn't look over anymore. She probably chalked it up to some pre-game routine since I hadn't played against these guys in a long, long time.
When we arrived at the palace and I got out to grab my gear out of the truck bed, Trisha's curiosity got her talking.
"What's wrong?"
Trisha glared at me from the other side of the truck bed. She looked worried and I felt even worse for making her feel that way. But now, I knew I could get it over with.
I sighed.
"You can tell me. You know you can, Ross."
"Let me show you something," I said quietly, gesturing towards the front of the truck. While my hands were hidden from view, I pulled out that fateful small felt box.
God, please, make me calm now.
When we finally met in front of the truck, it took only a moment for Trisha to see the little black box. Her eyes widened. She knew exactly what it was. When I got down on one knee, her eyes immediately began to water.
"Trisha Walden," I spoke, my voice clear of the wavering and stuttering that I thought it would have, "Will you marry me?"
It was silent for what felt like an eternity. Trisha clasped her hands over her mouth and collapsed to her knees. Now we were at eye level, staring right into each other's deepest parts of our souls. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me, the tears still flowing, and with a whisper, the words finally came.
"Yes, yes, yes."
I wrapped my arms tightly around her as I gently lifted her back to her feet. I placed the little silver band on her left ring finger, and we shared another big hug and a long kiss together. But it wasn't quiet much longer. The whole hockey gang were hiding behind their cars the whole time, and they burst into yelling, hooping and hollering as they ran over to congratulate us. Trisha was beyond holding back her emotions and so was I. Nils came over to us with a muted and warm smile as he hugged us both.
"Herlizchen Glückwunsch an deiner Verlobung," Nils calmly said as he took both Trisha's and my hands, "May you live in good health and love each other well."
"Thank you Nils," Trisha replied, giving him another hug, "You'll always have a special place with both of us."
"And I thank you for such a high compliment," Nils said with a bow, "Now, I think it's time we played together one last time, boys!"
It took a few minutes for everyone to get their gear on and on the ice since everyone was desperate to get a word of congratulations in with either myself or Trisha.
Our slightly reduced turnout meant we were only playing half the rink, and with only one goalie, things were going to be a little tricky.
The goalie in question was David Lehner, a former All-Osean ranked player, and a fellow member of the Osean U20 national team I was apart of that lost in the World Championship finals a few years back. With his silver and black striped goalie mask on, he seemed to be more of a giant bear than a 21 year old kid from the north part of Volsten. David was already skating around the net waiting for us to get ready, banging his stick into the ice.
"Come on ladies, you gonna talk all day and mess with your freaking hair or are we playing?" David shouted as he skated back over to the bench where most of us were almost finished getting our gear together. I was already done but busied myself with shooting the breeze with some old teammates, particularly my former linemate on the left wing James Young and Nils' old defensive partner Dirk Hornqvist. Young was a black haired, cocky son of a bitch who was quite the sniper. At the time he was working his way as an undrafted player in the minor leagues but was playing even better than he had in college. Hornqvist was another Belkan who formed our so-called "Weißherz Wall", the nickname coming from a treacherous mountain pass in the far northern reaches of Belka, which had only successfully been climbed once in its history. Hornqvist played on the defense with Nils, which made our top defensive pair the two towering blonde-haired blue-eyed Belkans, although Dirk's fate hadn't involved any major scars yet.
Nils, of course, was going to play on the other side of our 3-on-3 scrimmage match. I had Young and Hornqvist on my side, while Nils had another Yuktobanian player, Andrei Kucherov along with another Belkan, Max Wolff.
Both teams had one player who could substitute in and out when the defense forced the offense out of the blue line zone which made about a third of the whole rink and 2/3 of the half we were playing on.
With everyone ready, those starting the game slowly drifted out to the ice and took a toss of a puck to see who would be on offense first.
Nils' team won and so, James, Dirk and I all backed up into the zone and readied ourselves.
"Game on!" Nils yelled as he slotted the puck up against the boards to let Kucherov and Wolff crash the net and try to force us to clear the ice in front of the net, or the slot, and allow an easy scoring opportunity. Lehner quickly filled up the net and used his leg pads to close off the sides as Dirk and I doubled back to chase the puck with James occupying the slot.
Although Wolff got the puck first, Hornqvist quickly locked him up with a body check against the boards which allowed me to steal the puck from under their feet and rush back for a change to the attack.
"Counter! Counter!" I yelled as I passed over to James and he looped around from right to left, with Dirk and I skating out and back in from the blue line as we showered ice up into the air from our quick stop and go.
James turned his back to the net as he skated backwards, and drew Kucherov out away from myself and Nils immediately skated over to Dirk to cut him off from a passing option. He knew I didn't like to take a slap shot from the far slot, so he was daring me to go in and take Lehner one-on-one.
James sent the pass, gluing the puck to my stick not a moment later. I accelerated as I reached my stick out ahead of me with my left hand, making Lehner shift slightly to mirror my move to his stick side. He was flexing his glove hand in anticipation, guessing that I was going to drag him out and try to shoot to the right at the last minute. I pulled my stick back in as I moved the stick all around the puck. He opened up his legs as I closed in. It was a game of chance now on who would win, especially since I could see Wolff coming in from my left and Nils from my right. I decided to just poke my stick forward in one quick motion to try and get it through his legs.
As soon as it went between his pads, Lehner slammed his legs together, hoping to catch the puck before it got enough momentum to go through and into the net. But he wasn't quick enough. The puck trickled through Lehner's pads and into the net.
BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOAHHHHHHHHHHHH. BWOOOOOOOOOAHHHHHH.
The old ship horn sounded, signaling a good goal. I raised my stick to the air as Dirk and James hurried over for some slaps on the head and quick congratulations. I went back to the bench to switch out with our substitute, Volsten's former second line center Sam Lecavalier, a tall, lanky, but fast, player. We bumped fists as I took my seat on the bench next to Nils who switched out with his substitute, a defensive center Ian Howe, who'd probably get into a half-hearted fight before the night was over.
Although that whole sequence from the start to the goal took maybe thirty to forty five seconds, it was a hell of a workout. An average shift for a player would maybe only last another fifteen to twenty seconds if you were lucky.
Nils bumped me on the head with his helmet, "Nice work. Wanted to see if you still had it after not having a goalie to stop you yesterday."
I grunted, "Lehner's good. Even though he's only playing for fun now, I still don't know how he makes it so tough. If I hadn't shot on him a million times before in practice, I probably wouldn't have scored. You gotta be perfect with him."
"Amen to that," Nils sighed as he took a drink from his water bottle, he glanced over to see Trisha coming to join us for minute, "And look who it is, the girl of the hour."
"Having fun out there, you two?" Trisha smirked as she shuffled over and took a seat next to me, lying her head into my shoulder.
"Ach, it's not too bad. Ross hasn't scored ten goals yet."
Trisha laughed, "He's not that good anymore."
"Hey!" I lightly barked back, "Don't help him out. He's got enough ammo as it is."
"You're not wrong," Nils muttered back as he quickly hopped up to his feet. It looked like we were going back in, right in the thick of the action.
"Switch! Switch!" James yelled as I hopped over the bench wall and back onto the ice.
"Good luck," I heard over my shoulder from Trisha as I hurried out back to try and set up a defense. I held up a hand in reply as I rushed off back to battle.
That moment stuck in my head a long time after that night. I probably was just reading too much into it then and even now. For some odd reason, it seemed more sad than the moment I had to say goodbye outside Heierlark two days later. This moment seemed like a final goodbye to my old life, my old friends, my old way of being. When I went to Sand Island I knew I was going to come back a different person, whether I truly wanted to admit it or not. At the time, I didn't really feel nervous. I just had this lingering sense of melancholy. I wasn't upset about having to go. It was my job. But having such a clear cut point at which you could really tell your life was changing forever was a sobering moment.
Six months was the duration of my posting at Sand Island. I just didn't know my stay would be a little longer than expected.
And that there would be a war in the meantime.
I guess no one could've predicted that.
AN/: A fairly emotionally laden chapter, I would say. This chapter was definitely a leap out of my comfort zone into a more emotionally and character driven section rather than combat driven. Although I would argue that emotional and character stuff was my major weakness before(case in point, Hounds of War), but now I'm getting used to it. I'm not one who just loves sappy, romantic stuff, but I felt like I needed to have this development before Ross leaves to start his real journey to war. It gives a lot more to both his and Trisha's characters. Of course, please let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you guys after being away for a little while. My plan is now to stop messing around and start cracking again. I'm not going to promise on any sort of schedule since graduation is near and I have to start working on my thesis papers so I'll try to get some things done. Once summer hits I plan to go on overdrive to get a lot of material out before I have to start law school in the fall.
Also sorry to those who are hockeyed out by now, it'll be a long while before it becomes the main focus again. But the NHL playoffs are almost upon us! Go Bolts! (And hopefully IronRunner97's Islanders can finish ahead of the Capitals. Crossing my fingers)
Thanks for stopping by und auf Wiedersehen!
Karaya 1