Page 2 of Dirty As Puck
I fire off another quick text:Not hyperventilating. Yet.
Sure, babe. Remember to breathe between the research spiral you’re about to fall into.
She really does know me too well.
Kai Morrison. I know the name, obviously. Anyone who follows hockey knows Kai “Storm” Morrison. He’s a six-foot-four defenseman with a temper to match his nickname and a penaltyrecord that reads like a rap sheet. He’s the kind of player who makes highlight reels for all the wrong reasons: boarding calls, fighting majors, game misconducts. The NHL’s poster boy for everything that’s supposedly wrong with modern hockey.
I crack my laptop open and dive into research mode, because that’s what I do. I research until my eyes burn and my coffee goes cold. Google serves up the usual collection of sports websites, tabloid stories, and grainy cell phone videos of Morrison throwing punches in various arenas across North America.
The bar fight photos are new since the last time I looked him up. TMZ has a field day with them. Morrison in a torn dress shirt, blood on his knuckles, being separated from some guy half his size. The headlines write themselves: “Storm Morrison Strikes Again,” “Hockey’s Bad Boy Can’t Stay Out of Trouble,” “When Athletes Attack.”
But something about the photos nags at me. The guy Morrison supposedly attacked looks more confused than injured, and Morrison’s posture is protective instead of aggressive. My journalism instincts start tingling, which is either a good sign or a sign that I’ve been surviving on caffeine and optimism for too long.
I screenshot the images and send them to Gemma with a quick message:What do you see in these photos?
She responds within minutes. Oh, the perks of having a best friend who works as a paralegal and analyses evidence for a living.
Guy in the background looks like he’s running TOWARD them, not away. And Morrison’s stance is all wrong if he’s the aggressor. Defensive posture. Weird.
This is why I keep Gemma around. Well, that and she makes killer margaritas.
I scroll through more photos, game highlights, interview clips. Morrison has the standard athlete look with his sharp jaw, dark hair, and the kind of build that suggests he pushes guys over for a living. I mean… he’s really wide, I give him that. Objectively attractive, if you’re into the whole “dangerous guy who could probably snap you in half” aesthetic.
Which I’m not. Definitely not.
But there is something about that scowl of his that’s annoyingly compelling. The way he carries himself in interviews like he’s barely containing something volatile just beneath the surface. It’s the kind of dangerous edge that would make any rational woman run in the opposite direction.
My rational brain files this under “professional hazard” and moves on.
My phone buzzes again.
Gemma:Please tell me you’re not developing a crush on Hockey McPunchface before you’ve even met him.
I text back:Professional interest only. I don’t date sources.
Good. Because your track record with emotionally unavailable men is already concerning enough.
Ouch. True, but ouch.
I click on a video interview from last season, some post-game scrum where Morrison looks like he’d rather be getting a root canal. The reporter asks about his penalty minutes, and Morrison’s response is pure steel wrapped in sarcasm.
“Maybe if the refs called the game instead of trying to manage it, we wouldn’t have this conversation.”
His voice is lower than I expected, with just a hint of something––not quite an accent, but an edge that suggests he didn’t grow up in the classic hockey clubs. The camera loves his sharp angles and storm-gray eyes that look like they’re calculating exactly how much trouble you’re worth.
Trouble. Right. That’s what Marcus wants me to dig into.
I spend the next hour falling down the rabbit hole of Kai Morrison’s public persona. There are the obvious stories––the fights, the suspensions, the fines. But there are gaps too, spaces in his biography that don’t quite add up. No mention of family, no hometown hero stories, no childhood photos with youth hockey teams. For a professional athlete, his background is surprisingly thin.
That’s when my journalism training kicks into high gear. Gaps in a public figure’s background usually mean one of two things: either there’s nothing interesting to hide, or there’s something very interesting to hide. Given Morrison’s reputation and Marcus’s confidence in buried stories, I’m betting on the latter.
I start a new document and begin making notes.
Family background - unknown.
Childhood - no public records.
Draft history - picked up in the third round, which is unusual for someone with his current skill level.
