Chapter 197: Joey VII—Cold Draughts
“What was that shot for, Danny?” Joe asked as soon as the National Anthem had been sung and the lights turned back up. He saw the purplish smudges ringing Danny’s throat, the evidence on Patrick’s displeasure. He had never seen Patrick inflict anything like that upon a teammate, not once in eight years.
Danny’s fingers flew to his neck and he grimaced, looked back at Joe with helpless eyes. “I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t…”
“You know what happens when a goalie takes one in the helmet?” He said in a low voice.
Danny shook his head. “No? I mean that’s why they have a helmet, not much right?”
Joe raised his eyebrows. “It’s not a pleasant feeling, and it doesn’t go away very soon, you’ll be feeling a whole lot better before he does. I saw you take that shot Danny, and if you’re having a problem with him, express it some other way next time, got that?”
Joe saw the look in Danny’s eyes, saw the regret, the denial, he saw that the boy had heard his words and was taking them in; he was satisfied with that much.
“Yeah, Captain,” Danny said. “I’ll apologize to him later…”
Joe nodded and didn’t answer him as he skated into the face off circle and Danny went to the bench. He didn’t want to be overly concerned with another teammate, but Joe could already tell that it wasn’t Patrick’s day, once again. Danny had hardly helped the situation any. Joe had seen the determined set to Danny’s eyes when he cranked out the hardest shot he had ever known him to shoot right into Patrick’s face. It wasn’t going to be Patrick’s day…
“Aaah,” Joe gasped as he lost the face off. He skated back, took a quick glance to see Hejduk’s position, made brief eye contact with the defensemen. It happened in a flash, they were only seconds into the game, Joe didn’t see it but he heard the horn, heard Patrick curse, heard the throbbing cheers of the crowd.
Joe shook his head and looked at Patty, saw the goalie bobbing his head, lost in a gleaming white mask. He skated to him; Patty’s eyes were shining with emotion. “You gonna be okay?” Joe asked.
Patrick nodded. “It will be nothing.”
Joe tapped his pads quickly with his stick. “Hang in there.”
He took a
squirt of water into his mouth, spit it. He listened to Hartley’s voice only
half heartedly, he watched more the crowds, the pulse of the building. This was
certainly not the old Montreal Forum, the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Habitants.
This was a glittering, deluxe
Joe was not a superstitious man by any means but he had never failed to feel the aura in the old building, the drafts, and the thick air that was heavy with its own arrogance. This building, it certainly had never had any character of its own that he could discern, until tonight that is.
Joe wrinkled his nose, shrugged his shoulders and exhaled heavily. There was something different about the building tonight, he had just realized this. Was it the intensity of the crowd, the size of it? There was something familiar here, almost stifling. It was like the feel of a warm, damp towel being pressed into the back of one’s neck when one didn’t want it there. He squirmed in his seat, wanting to be off the bench, wanting to be on the ice, skating fast, the wind cooling the sweat of his throat.
He squinted in Patty’s direction, saw the goalie bobbing his head, hunched over, chattering to himself loudly his voice carrying over the ice.
If I feel it, Joe thought to himself, and then Patty must be ensconced in it.
He leaned
forward over the bench, gazed at his teammates at the other end of the ice.
“Come on,” he said loudly to no one in particular, “Come on Peter, shoot it,
shoot it… YEAH!”
Joe raised his stick in
celebration from the bench, heard the hushed disappointment of the crowd.
Smiling, Joe looked at Alex Tanguay. “We’re good now,” he said. “All tied up.
We can move on this, we’ll build on it.”
Alex smiled, the young man’s eyes squinting. “Yeah this good!”
“Yeah!” Joe replied and he felt a little more at peace when he sat back on the bench, knowing they were not down in this game anymore.
It didn’t take long, however, for that feeling to crawl back on him. This time it felt like the skittering of small animals on his skin, he felt the goose bumps prickle and he shook his head. “Stop it,” he muttered quietly. “Stop it now.”
A cold breeze brushed over his body and he frowned.
“Ooo,” Alex Tanguay said with a slight giggle, “Did you feel that draft?”
Joe looked quickly at Alex and then in the opposite direction, he saw his teammates down the bench, all of the cringing and looking at each other with confused smiles. “Damn, they need to fix the air conditioning here,” Rob Blake laughed loudly. “That was a wicked draft.”
That explained it. Joe nodded and felt more comfortable with that. Everyone else was feeling it; obviously it was a climate control problem. There was nothing odd on a spiritual level about that. He looked back at the ice where a new face off was being taken, he saw the players and even the ref pause and look around. Apparently the draft had reached them as well.
That’s when Joe noticed Patty, he saw the goalie look around, hug himself and then double over, almost sliding all the way back into his net, his back touching the crossbar of his posts. Someone should tell Patty that it was just an air conditioning problem before he took too much of it to heart. He saw Patrick quickly cross himself, then he set up for the face off. Yes, someone definitely had to talk to him before something else happened.
It was
during that shift; Danny Hinote tried to clear the puck which was picked up by
the
“Lucky goal!” one of the coaches said, “Lucky goal! Let’s get a good one…”
“Dammit I’m sorry,” Danny Hinote said as he swung his leg over the bench. “I should have had that cleared…”
“Not a worry,” Joe said as he jumped on the ice, left the stifling air of the bench. He inhaled, skated into the face off, won it, and sent it up with Reinprecht on the wing. He lagged a bit as he entered the zone he skated into an open slot, three men over compensated into that slot, Reinprecht sent the puck to Mike Modano who snapped it into the net, cutting through Jose Theodore’s five hole.
“Yeah!” Joe cried and
he felt his blood bubbling with bliss as he hugged Modano and Reino, barked and laughed with them. That was two now. Joe
glanced at the stats as they skated back to the bench.
“This looks like it’s gonna be one of those days, eh Joey?”
Joe looked at Keaner; saw the smiling leprechaun like face. He found himself smiling back. “What kind of day is that?” he asked.
“Well poor Patty,” Keane said. “It just won’t be his day.”
Joe laughed. “You know what Keaner. As long as we score the last goal of the day, I don’t think Patty will mind so much.”
Keane nodded. He looked up at the scoreboard. “Yeah, lessee four goals in this game, we’re ten minutes into the period. This looks like the fans’ll get their money’s worth.”
It swept over Joe’s skin again, he cringed, felt the cold wetness, the heavy dampness, it was gone… Joe looked at Keane whose eyes were wide, his mouth pursed as he looked at the ceiling.
“You feel that Keaner?” Joe asked.
Keane sniffed, “Yeah, yeah, looks like the ghosties are finally back.”
Joe laughed, he hadn’t thought about that, Keane used to be a Hab captain in the old Forum. “You don’t actually believe any of that stuff do you?” Joe asked.
“Sure,”
Keane said, “Why not? Besides,” and Keane gestured over to the net,
Joe shook his head, smiled. “You’re a wack job, you do know that Keaner?”
Keane nodded but within that instant they heard the horn blare again, the crowds screaming. Joe frowned, saw Keane shake his head. They were down again, 3-2. “Well,” Keane said, “Even if I didn’t believe it, he does, and that’s all that matters sometimes, especially if it’s not his day.”
Joe frowned as he stepped back onto the ice; he skated quickly over to Patty. “Patty!” he barked. Patty looked at him; his eyes were dancing, glistening.
“Leave him alone.”
Joe frowned. He hadn’t seen Patty’s lips move, Patty reacted as if the voice had come from over his shoulder; he swatted his stick against the post. He would never believe that much was true.
“What did you say?” he asked, not in an annoyed voice, but a concerned voice.
Patty shook his head, “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter…” His voice trailed off into French and Joe knew the goalie was no longer talking to him.
It wouldn’t be the right thing to do to pull him here, in this game, in this city, but was it the thing they needed to do? He skated by the right post, brushed his fingers over the cold metal, felt a thrill in his arm as if his funny bone had hit a corner. He didn’t know why he said it, felt the need to. “You leave him alone, eh?” Joe said. “Back off.”
“He belongs to me.”
Joe sighed; they should pull him if they wanted no further incident….
Joe won the face off again, skated into the offensive zone he passed the puck to Modano who was behind the net. It was Forsberg on the other wing. Modano passed the puck to Forsberg who shot it through the seam. Joe felt it on his stick, didn’t need to look at it to know he needed to wrist it.
It left his stick, he saw Theodore throw up his arm to catch it, saw the disk disappear under his armpit and into the net. The red light was on. He lifted his stick, dodged an angry crosscheck and skated in behind the net, fell into Mike Modano’s hug, was squeezed by Forsberg on the outside.
“Hey,” Joe said. “Let’s keep it going like this tonight, it doesn’t look like it’s gonna be an easy night for the goalies. Let’s be the last ones standing.”
The first period ended with a three to three tie. Joe didn’t feel at all disappointed with it. He met Patty as the goalie was leaving his crease, “We’re gonna have fun tonight.” Joe said and he grabbed the crook of Patty’s arm, made sure the goalie was watching as he stabbed his stick into the air in the direction of Patty’s lonely goalposts. “And THEY aren’t going to ruin it for us. It’s all in your head, it’s your decision. You hear them, and you can tell him to back off. We need you. You don’t need them.”
Patty wrinkled his nose, nodded. “We will see….”
In that moment a frigid cold blast of a draught swept over them, he saw the anger in Patrick’s eyes as the goalie said something in French, shrugged off Joe’s hand and skated away, taking care to hop over the red and blue lines on the ice.
Joe looked at the empty net. It was a cold contraption of metal and lacing but something about it gave him an amused chill similar to the kind he would get as a child when he looked at a tree that could potentially eat his kite.
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