Page 94 of Pucking One Night Stand
First touch—body a Blades winger off the puck and send it up the wall.
We’re alive again.
Reset. Center ice.
Jett leans in. His mouth’s moving. Probably saying something about the guy’s mother. Or sister. Or both.
Ref drops the puck.
Jett times it perfectly, punching it back with a snap, and Bishy’s right there, scooping it up like he knew the play before it started.
Bishy flicks it toward me, and I catch it clean. No hesitation.
I accelerate. The ice tries to drag me down, but I cut through, carving around the Blades’ forward like he’s standing still.
I snap the puck cross-ice. Peters grabs it and doesn’t think twice, he launches it toward the net.
It hits something, pad, shin, doesn’t matter. Rebounds loose.
Jett’s already there.
He spins. Unloads.
“BRRRROOONNNK!”
Crowd lifts off like a damn jet engine.
1–1.
They hit back. Second third.
We barely reset before they blitz again.
McAvoy gets bowled over in the crease, no call, while the puck squirts loose and one of their wingers punches it in under him.
“BRRRROOONNNK!”
1–2.
Thirty seconds later, their captain catches our D mid-switch and screams down the boards and smacks the puck like lightning.
Top shelf.
“BRRRROOONNNK!”
1–3.
“FUCK IT.” I nearly snap my stick, slicing it on the ice.
The arena sours. Chants turn to growls. Boos spill from the stands like a wave, fast and mean.
The ref skates off like he didn’t just gift-wrap that goal.
Whistle. End of the second.
We drag ourselves to the bench. Breathless. Sweaty. Furious.
McCullum doesn’t even wait for the tunnel. He storms down to us, yanks his clipboard out, and jabs a finger into the dry-erase board like it insulted his mother.
