Page 53 of Love of the Game
“Jon? Jonny? Hey no, don’t move.”
Fuck. Oh god. My arm. There was something very wrong with my arm. A sickly feeling grew in my body, and I knew tears were pricking at my eyes. Above me, Cal, our athletic trainer, appeared. “Jonny, you okay?”
“No.” My voice felt far away. “Arm.”
“Do you need a stretcher?”
Fuck, no. This was bad enough. “I think I can get up.”
It hurt like hell, even not using my right arm, but I got myself onto my knees and was able to skate off. (Of course it was my dominant arm. Goddamn it.)
After that—well—stuff got blurry. Mostly because everything fucking hurt. The team doctor and the arena EMTs met me and hauled me into the medical room. We managed to get my gear off, and they gave me a battery of commands. My fingers still worked, so that was good, but I didn’t want to move my arm at all, and the pain was creeping up my neck. “There’s something really wrong,” I kept saying, and they made noises about sending me to the hospital and some other chatter. They did end up getting a catheter into my good arm. “Hey, we’re going to get you some fluids and something for thepain, okay?”
That sounded great. Because I kind of wanted to chop my bad arm off.
Somewhere along the line, Mac appeared. “We’ve contacted your father?—”
“Oh God, no?—”
“Shut up, Jonny. He’s your contact, so we contacted him.”
Fuck. “Don’t tell Drake. He’ll worry and?—”
“Yeah, because him learning from the press during his after-game media scrum is the best way for him to find out.”
Okay, no, that was worse. I twisted my face.
“They’ll let him know. You’re on your way to Pittsburgh, anyway.”
What? “Why?”
“Because,” our doctor chimed in, “your shoulder is broken. You’ll likely need surgery, and the facilities there are some of the best in the world.”
Right. Right. The pain wasn’t receding like I thought, but I kind of didn’t care anymore. “Great. Can you turn my brain off?”
He gave a half-chuckle, did something with the tube running to my arm, my vision went wonky, and then I was gone.
CHAPTER 13
DRAKE
Third period. We were down by one coming out of the intermission and the only thing on our minds was winning this game against New Jersey. They weren’t even that strong of a team, but for some reason the Lions couldn’t beat them at home, going back several seasons. Call it a curse or bad luck or whatever. In my mind, it was more of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since we got antsy and gripped our sticks too tight—all the cliches about bad play. So of course Brodie blocked a shot with his foot and left the game at the end of last period. Wasn’t broken, but he’d bruised it bad enough that he wasn’t coming back out for the third. No sense in those kind of heroics before the playoffs—we’d need them during.
But that left me centering the top line. No pressure, right? Coach said he’d seen film of me with the Otters, and he had no doubts. Bearsy had no doubts.
I had doubts, sure, but also aspirations. I wanted to be the one who lifted the “curse” on the team by changing attitudes and getting us believing. It was what Jon would’ve done in the same situation.
“Look,” I said, “we can do this. Their goalie isn’t some sort of acrobatic wall. He’s bobbled pucks. Left the net wide open. Puck bounces the other direction, and we’d be up five to two.”
“So what do we do?” Gavin asked.
“Don’t miss the net,” Brodie, said from where he was sitting with a cold pack on his foot, “unlike me.”
I laughed at that. “Yeah, I mean, that one’s obvious, but honestly, just keep peppering him with shots. Stop reacting, start acting. Their D isn’tthatgood. We have to be more aggressive on the forecheck, like when you guys played Seattle.”
“You watched that?” Gavin said.
“Yup.” I paused, then added, “Watched a bunch of NAPH games once I got over myself.” I missed watching games with Jon. He was like an extra coach, pointing out both the good and bad of plays. It’d helped me to see plays from a different point of view and to understand that even the best fucked up.
