Chapter 187: Tangers XVIII—And Insanity Ensues…
…it was getting really old by that point! I mean all year something was going wrong or weird in games, and it was becoming so old hat to me that it was sad to think about it. At that point, as a team, I know everyone was scared to say, “Now what” or “Nothing worse could happen.” Because you know what, it would!
I didn’t really see the play so I couldn’t tell if it were a bad goal or not. Not that I want to discount Patty’s credibility but sometimes he could overreact to something out of frustration. I suppose it’s understandable seeing how stressful it is to be a goalie. You just don’t want things to go wrong and it just weighs heavy on your shoulders.
Still, I understood every word of what Patty was saying to the referee in French, and I can tell you that isn’t the best way to get a guy to be sympathetic to your half of the story. I leaned over on the bench, trying to get a better view, but Patty helped that out as he followed the referee up the ice and they were closer to us.
“I was interfered with!” Patrick screamed. “That punk fell on me! How could I make the save?”
The crowd was getting louder and louder and I felt my cheeks reddening as Patty continued to pester the referee, smacking his hand onto the other almost like someone counting beat to music. Within moments the crowd began a unified chant of, “Paaaaatrick, Paaaatrick!”
I saw Keaner following and touching Patty’s elbow, and I could see he was trying to calm him down but it wasn’t working. Mon Dieu I knew this situation had to be defused!
“Come on!” A deep male voice screeched from within the stands, “He’s holding up the game!”
“Try this sissy!” Another man screamed.
And then the most horrible things of all happened, the one thing I would never have pegged to happen ever, but now that I think about it, it’s odd that it never happened more often. A slimy, reddish mass of goo came tumbling over the glass and splattered right onto Patty’s mask. There was a long hush in the building, even the fans went silent and I think at that point none of us believed it. Someone had launched one of those stinky octopi and it was right there, sliding slowly down Patty’s mask.
The laughter exploded from the audience and from the Red Wings bench, this was humiliating! Out of all the terrible things that could happen to a player, and all of the things we had been through thus far, this is not what we were expecting!
I heard Patrick scream an indelicate word and he bobbed his head and the octopus splattered onto the ice. Two guys I could see were in the stands, and they were pressing their faces to the glass and laughing and Patty picked up the creature onto his stick and splatted it against the glass. As it was sliding down he then speared it with the butt of his stick and if that wasn’t enough to get his point across he cracked his stick against it. That sent a crack spidering up the pane of glass but it didn’t shatter. There was an appreciative roar from the audience.
“You’re gone!” The referee yelled, “Get outta my sight!”
` Patty threw his stick down and skated off the ice with no further words.
“It’s just a game!” I heard the Wings player, Devereaux yell and I saw Patty stop and glare at him before he went back into the locker room.
I could only shake my head at this insanity and I looked at the rest of the guys.
“God dammit!” Footie yelled at a ref skating by, “Why do you allow them to throw that shit anyway!”
I looked at Abby who was slipping on his gloves and helmet. “You gonna be OK?” I asked him. “It feels like another one of those games you know.”
I saw Abby smile through the gridwork of his helmet. “Of course, Darling,” he purred, “Patty just needs a little rest anyway.”
“Boys don’t get out of hand,” the coach yelled to us as Abby skated into the crease. “Concentrate on getting some goals, we can still get some goals.”
Peter and Joey were put on a line with
Peter got so mad about that he cross checked a Wing to the ice and got thrown in the box. I heard the coach curse. I leaned forward on the bench, watching anxiously at the PK unit and felt somewhat encouraged to see them kill it off. This was a game slipping away from us.
I was on the ice with Dru and Reino and that’s when I saw some retaliation for Peter’s blow to the Red Wings player. Chris Chelios chopped Dru down, slamming his stick into the back of Dru’s knees. I saw the look of pain and fear on Dru’s face and I was filled with anger! I mean I knew how Dru was always scared about hurting his knees after the first knee injury he ever had, I know that he can’t take that sort of pain!
“You shit!” I yelled and I skated after Chelios pushing him. I think he was caught off guard cause he fell onto the ice next to Dru who was holding onto his knee. I felt a pain in my ear as someone punched the side of my head and I tell you I was steaming as I punched out with my fist and hit someone. There was a whole group of screaming and yelling, and bodies collected together. I don’t remember who was who except that the refs had us all separated and I had some time to cool down in the penalty box.
It was frustrating watching as Dru was taken off the ice, he was putting no weight on his knee and he had his arms around Pat Karns and Reino as they took him to the locker room. I could feel my mouth hurting from all the frowning I was doing, and it didn’t help that the score was 5-0 and the Wings were the ones on another power play.
It was strange during the second intermission because I thought we would go into the locker room and find Patty stewing and yelling or damaging some sort of property. He wasn’t doing any of that, however. He was stretched out on one of the benches in his street clothes and he was sleeping! I could see all sorts of lines on his face, and it killed me to see him looking so… well… old.
We got a speech from the coach and one from Joey about how we needed to stay in this game and not lose our heads. We weren’t gonna embarrass ourselves with anymore cheapness. Also we heard that Dru had been sent back to the hotel, his knee was swollen and they would check it out in the morning.
“Christ!” Parker snapped, “I’m gonna kill someone for that!”
“Can it,” Joey said. “We don’t need that Scottie.”
I don’t think Scotty got that message though. Coach put him on my line in the third period cause he was afraid of Wings retaliating against me for pushing Chelios. I was a bit miffed. I mean jeez I didn’t hurt Chelios, he hurt Dru! Poor Dru was sitting back in the hotel now, wondering if he was seriously injured and he wouldn’t know until tomorrow morning… can you imagine the hell he was going through?
Anyway, Parker tried mixing it up with Chelios earlier in the period but Chelios would have none of that. So I think Parker was stewing somewhat on our next shift. I saw the puck go against the wall and Sergei Fedorov went after it. At that instant, I saw the most horrible situation unfolding. I saw Parker skating at Fedorov from behind at a high speed and I knew that he was looking to drill Sergei head first into the boards, and I wanted no part of something so cheap. I had to do it.
“Sergei!” I yelled loudly. “Behind you! Heads UP! HEADS UP!”
The Russian made brief eye contact with me and threw himself forward and that’s when Parker drilled himself into the boards full force and BAM knocked himself silly! There were gasps and laughter from the crowd and Parker sat up, muttering and shaking his head. I don’t think he was too aware of his actual surroundings. I swallowed what would Scotty do to me now that I just betrayed him like that?
The whistle blew and the trainers came to Parker trying to get him to remember what day of the week it was. I shuffled on my skates, feeling too guilty to actually go to Parker to see how he was. That’s when I noticed that Fedorov was looking at me, I smiled nervously, and he skated to me.
“Alex, right?” he said in his soft Russian accent.
I nodded, feeling a bit nervous.
Sergei looked away briefly, and then looked back at me. “Why did you do that?” he asked. “He would have had me down. I would have been out of the way.”
I gulped. “I… I couldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t live with myself if something bad happened to someone else that I could have stopped.”
Fedorov made a grunt and nodded, grimacing. “Well,” he said. “I am appreciative of this gesture. I will not forget it, you will have my gratitude.”
Sergei skated away at that moment and I could feel a cold, prickling chill all over my skin. There was a double meaning in Sergei’s words, I could sense that much. Had I just stumbled myself into another situation I would rather not be in? I really hoped not. Weird things like this always made my tummy hurt!
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