This story is 100% fiction and in no way, shape or form reflects the realities of any person involved or mentioned. My apologies for any misrepresentation of character or conduct. It's all in ridiculous, delirious, hockey loving fun.
By some miracle or by deep, soaking exhaustion, Tuukka managed to fall asleep in Vlado’s raging night club of a car. He had stayed up ‘til 3 a.m. the night before confirming the details of his last minute trip home to Finland. His parents and his brother, Joonas, flew out to see him in the playoffs and even slept in his wood floor Boston apartment, but seeing them did nothing to kill the nauseating homesickness that had been bleeding inside him. When he had to hug them goodbye, when he ruffled his brother’s hair, his whole body was screaming. For years, he had been treating homesickness like he treated any other emotional itch: wrap it in apathy and wash it away with words on repeat. Hockey is your home. This is what you want. Don’t give up right now. Think of the sweat, blood and tears. Hockey is your home.
He knew moving back to Finland would be worse than staying in Boston. Those regrets would sink him. The family and pride he found with the team was who he was and who he wanted to be. That was two thirds of his heart, but who he had been, well, that part pumped hard in his ears. His muscles were Boston but his bones were Finland. He longed to be in his blue bed in Savonlinna, eat the food that tasted real, smell the burning wood stove and watch his grandmother squint at the small TV. And then, there was Nikola, the girl he kissed over the railing of airport security and who still e-mailed him every weekend. She’d write, “Don’t wait for me. I love you.” He wasn’t waiting but he loved her, too. He had loved her since the moment he saw her and loving her was the first time he felt like a man. She didn’t know about Janie and Janie didn’t know about her.
Not that Janie would have minded. They had a strange relationship, if you could call it that. They met in motion when they jogged past each other on the banks of the Charles River. It was in November and the trees looked like thin, colored coral lining the snow dusted water. With music hammering in her ears, she didn’t even hear herself gasp,
“Tuukka Rask!” as he zipped by her. They both slowed down and twisted their heads to stare. She was sweaty but he liked her hair and her pink fleece jacket made him want to hug her. He motioned for her to run with him and prayed she wasn’t crazy. But then, he could always outrun her, or that’s what he was banking on. She jogged up slowly and he took off again, running. She matched his pace and they sprinted side by side, not looking at each other but at the asphalt that danced in a thin line in front of them.
“You do realize I’m only going to make it two blocks at this pace,” she said, her blood already getting hot.
“Yes,” he said calmly, “and I’m going very slow.”
“Oh! Well don’t slow down for me.” She was trying to be calm and sweet but she was star struck in every nerve of her body.
“I wanted to see what you had to say to me.”
“What I always say to complete strangers: How are you?”
“I’m good. It’s nice out. How are you?”
“I’m great. This is great. I’m a big fan, you know, of your game.”
“Of hockey or of me?”
“You. Well, your hockey.”
“See, I’m not a stranger. You know most of me.”
“O.K. Well, I’m a writer. Now you know most of me.” Tuukka’s heart choked for a second and he said,
“You’re not going to write about me are you?”
“You should hope I’ll write about you. I’m good.”
“But…are you a journalist? Or a gossip girl?”
“No, no. I write novels.” He relaxed and tried to see her out of the fuzzy side vision.
“Novels. About what?”
“Anything I want.”
“How old are you?”
“22.”
“You’re young. Are they real books?”
“You’re young. I like to think so. You can get two of them in Borders.”
“I’ll read them if you let me take you out to dinner.” She laughed loudly and he cringed. This girl made him say stupid shit. The only other girl who could do that was Nikola.
“O.K., deal, but I’m not trying to sleep with you.”
“What if it happens by accident?”
“Everything I do is on purpose.” She stopped running and put her hands on her hips. “That was two blocks.” He jogged in place about ten yards away from her.
“I changed my mind. I’ll take you out to dinner if I like your books.”
“Ah, so either way you’ll read them and I win.” She was smiling big. He felt skinny and stupid in his tuque.
“Or I could hate them and you’ll never hear from me again.”
“That’s true,” she said simply but kept beaming. “I guess we’ll find out.” She started walking backwards.
“Wait—what’s your name?”
“Janie Winters. My email’s in the back of the book.”
“O.K.” He nodded, took off running and didn’t dare look back.
The rest of his run he spent smirking. That night, he ran his fingers across the book spines in the fiction section of Borders until he saw her name. He bought the two books. He judged them by their covers. One was a collage of half human faces, the other was an empty ice pond and of course, her name in big blue letters. He was hooked, and then he read them. He was sold, and he took her to dinner. At a corner table in a small, dark Italian restaurant in the North End, he said,
“I like you.” And she said,
“I like you, too.”
“And I want to see you again. But I will always love hockey more and you need to know that up front.” And he meant to say hockey, but he really meant Nikola. Janie looked down at the table where he had stacked her books. She reached to touch them and flipped the pages a little bit.
“I think that’s why I like you, though. You have your big love so you understand mine. I’ll always love writing more.”
“I don’t want a girlfriend and I don’t want to fall in love.”
“Then let’s be friends who get each other.” And they were. And then they weren’t. They never labeled anything but they kept hanging out whenever Tuukka had down time. When he was on the road she sent him snippets of her new stories. He’d read them and feel things, a lot of things, right after replying beautiful words to Nikola. Right after telling Nikola he still loved her. He felt lucky and wretched for dreaming about two girls. He felt lucky and wretched for loving two homes.
Now, he woke up to the silence of an empty car. He was sick with exhaustion and heat so he opened the door, stood up and looked around. His neck and his back hurt from bending like a fold up chair to fit in the backseat. The rest of the gang was nowhere to be seen and the car was parked on gravel.
“Guys?” he yelled at the forest in front of him, “Hello? Berg? Jane?” He opened the unlocked trunk and saw that his bag was the only one left in there, along with a cooler. He strapped the bag to his back and opened the cooler. It was full of beer. He shut it and lifted it out of the trunk. Behind him, he heard someone kicking up gravel, and as he turned his whole body was hit with Vladimir Sobotka. The two of them tumbled to the ground and felt the tiny rocks scrapping their skin.
“You’re awake!” Vlad yelled and kissed his cheek.
“You’re insane!” Tuukka laughed back and pushed him away.
“Yo, Boats, don’t hurt your shoulder,” Patrice’s voice bellowed loudly from a few feet away.
“Or our goalie,” Lucic was beside him and the two of them helped up their teammates.
“How long was I out for?” Tuukka said, wiping the dirt off his elbows.
“We’ve only been here for fifteen,” Vlad said. “We had to register at this little shack up the trail over there in case we get lost or die.”
“We didn’t want to put our real names so we made them up,” Milan said.
“And they didn’t notice? I know we’re in New Hampshire but…”
“Oh, they noticed,” Patrice grinned, “Or, they noticed Looch, anyway. They asked him for an autograph but let him write his name in as Matthew Shithead.”
“It’s pronounced Shithayd,” Milan said sternly. “And may I introduce Czech Meout and Seck C. Calves.”
“And my name?”
“Milk Crate.” They all said in unison.
“That’s not a name!”
“It is now,” Vlad said.
“You guys are dumb.”
“We’re aware. But you’re holding us up. Let’s go, Sleeping Beauty,” Vlad locked the car and put his keys back in his bag. They trudged up the hill to where the girls were waiting and started up the 8 mile path.
“So the goal is to make it to the top for the sunrise,” Caroline said.
“Right, but we’ll have to stop for food and stuff and set up camp a little below the top. It gets frigid,” Kathryn said and shivered thinking about it.
“Ohh, come on now, we’ll keep you girls warm, eh?” Milan followed Michelle up the rocky steps.
“Berg, you do have sexy calves,” Tuukka said, “I can really tell in this vertical environment.”
“Why thank you, my Finnish beauty,” he said, “but speaking of sex and keeping people warm…if I have to hear any of you fuckers having sex tonight, heads will roll. That would haunt me eternally.”
“A healthy state of mind is not worthy of a cock block,” Vlad said.
“Heads will roll, Vlado.”
“Then just keep him rolling, huh Kathryn?”
“Shut up, Sobotka,” she said.
“Yeah, shut up Sobotka,” Caroline grinned.
“Yeah, shut up Sobotka,” the rest of them chimed in.
“Ah, you American prudes,” he said under his breath and stopped to pick up a curvy walking stick.
Though the guys were still in tremendous shape from the season, they were exhausted emotionally and physically. The girls, too, were able to hold their own as they hiked up the dirty, prickly road, but the bags were heavy and it was still early in the day so they sweated and their muscles burned. They made it up about two miles before stopping to rest on some boulders.
Patrice raised his arms towards the sky, summoned his best opera voice and started to sing: “There’s always gonna be another mountain. I’m always gonna wanna make it move. There’s always gonna be an uphill battle. Some days I’m gonna have to lose!”
“Booo,” Milan said and threw pinecones at him. “This hike is a Cyrus free zone.”
“I think that’s a little hypocritical coming from a Britney Spears fanatic.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Milan put his hand up. “Miley’s no Britney. Let’s not string those two names together in a sentence.”
“But Britney doesn’t have a mountain climbing song.”
“Ummm, hello? Stronger? Gimme More? I’m a Slave 4 U?”
“Your argument is invalid.”
“YOUR argument is invalid because your argument is Miley Cyrus.”
“Let’s just all sing Sweet Caroline and call it a day,” Kathryn said and Caroline high fived her.
Michelle unzipped one of the coolers and started tossing water bottles to everyone.
“Think fast,” she said and whipped it at Vladimir. He swung his walking stick like a baseball bat and the bottle went rocketing through cracking, splitting tree branches and landed out of sight.
“Oops, that went farther than I thought it would. Can I have another one?” he said sheepishly.
Michelle walked over and handed it to him gently.
“You’re just lucky Ference isn’t here, bro, or he’d make you go get that,” Milan said and got out turkey sandwiches. He threw those, too, and the other six started eating and talking and breathing in the evergreen.
Tuukka ate his sandwich without a word then stood up. He brushed his hands, walked away from the group and into the trees, careful to stay on a straight, obvious path. They’ll think I’m peeing, he thought, but really he just wanted to be alone. The trees, the bugs, the rotting leaves, they were all free and quiet and without a language or nationality. They needed no one to watch them or hold them or even crush them. They were trees just like Finnish trees; the dirt was just Earth dirt. As a kid, he’d take his brother twenty feet into their wilderness and they’d pretend to be chipmunks, lost travelers, or famous hockey players on an adventure. And here he was, fifteen years later, a famous hockey player on an adventure pretending to be a little kid back in Finland. He lay down on a small plateau of pine needles and smiled. It was so big and so nice to be part of a hockey team, but it was electric to remember that in the back woods he could be anything. He could be part of a big team of wet mud and sky and squirrels, or he could just be a boy. Just Tuukka, just Tuukka, the only thinking, caring, talking thing for miles around.
Except for, of course, his friends. After a few minutes, he heard a familiar voice calling his name.
“You O.K.?” Janie said as she got closer to his body heaped on the earth.
“I’m great,” he said without opening his eyes, “I’m just taking a break.”
“From me?”
“From everyone.” There was a long minute of nothing before she sat down cross legged beside him.
“I can’t help but feel like you don’t want me here. You’ve barely said a thing to me all day and you won’t look me in the eyes. And before you deny it, just know it’s O.K. I’m not mad. I just want to understand.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Don’t be mean.”
“Well, fine. I’m just looking forward to going home and you’re not part of that.” But Nikola is.
“O.K. So you’re already mentally there basically and you want to leave me here.”
“Yes.”
“That’s fine. But, just know I won’t try to follow you or anything. I’m fine with you leaving.”
“And maybe that’s part of the problem, isn’t it, Jane? What does that say if you don’t care if I leave?”
“You’re only going for a week and anyway you’re going to want what you want, Tuukka. I can’t make you want me. I can’t make you forget about Finland and I’m not going to win over hockey.”
“You could at least try.”
“I’ll try when you try,” she sighed and started walking back towards the boulders. “Don’t fall asleep, O.K.? They want to keep hiking.”
“Hey,” he said, sitting up, “Jane.”
“Yes?” He knew what he should say, but he couldn’t. He should tell her about her, but he couldn’t swallow the look he knew she’d give him. She’d be more hurt for Nikola, a stranger, than she’d be for herself. That’s what he liked about her and he didn’t need that. He wanted to hate her so it could all be easy.
“Just…tell them I’ll be there in a minute.” He lay back down and shut his eyes. The sun was splashing orange onto his eyelids and he knew that the nature wasn’t his anymore. He could place his body in the earth but his heart would always be running out of his chest. He could wander off the flattened path but there would always be people calling his name.
Milan Lucic pressed on the blades and dragged them carefully down his cheek. A thin strip of skin appeared through his foam beard and he ran a finger down it sadly. Next to him, Michelle was perched on the granite sink counter watching him shave off his playoff beard and combing through her tangled, dark hair.
“You realize you’ll have a 5 o’clock shadow by noon, right?” She said gently. He lifted his big shoulders into a shrug and continued to wipe away his scruff.
“I know. It’s the principle of it. You can’t have a playoff beard if you’re not playing. That’s heretical.”
“What about guys who always have beards?”
“Well, I’m not one of those guys, now am I, Michelle?” he said slowly, eyebrows furrowed. She rolled her eyes and grabbed his soapy chin.
“You need to quit moping, Milan. If you don’t quit moping I’m not going hiking.”
“You just don’t want to go hiking, and I’m not moping.”
“You’re moping! Don’t think I didn’t hear you singing “Yesterday,” in the shower this morning.”
“But all my troubles seemed so far away! Come on, can’t I just mope for like, 20 more minutes?”
“No. Smile. Now.” He forced his teeth into a snarl. Michelle laughed, let go of his face and wiped her hand on a towel. “You’re hopeless.”
“But attractive.” He stuck his chest out and winked.
“True,” she sighed, and he put a dime of shaving cream on her nose. She left it there and let him finish killing the playoff beard. She had already packed both of their black Bruins duffel bags so tight she had to pinch and hold and yank the zippers just so they didn’t break. Michelle was two years younger than Milan, but far more organized and always more prepared. Plus, she knew all the ways his brain ticked, and all the ways it, well, didn’t. They grew up together, though hundreds of miles apart. Their fathers were friends and worked for the same company. The two families got together for holidays (spent awkwardly unwrapping generic sport gifts), summer vacations (with too much sunscreen) and puppy love on inflatable sleds (at one point they may have been “married.”)
For a while, they lost touch while Milan’s hockey was getting so serious. He was big and bad and he was Boston. Girls kissed him, lights splashed him, drinks found his hands and men saw his fists and got nervous. He swam in his fame for about a year until he started choking on it. And just right then Michelle moved from D.C. to Boston for school to study politics. Just right then he needed a part of home more than he cared to admit.
She had followed his career through her television and she knew he must have changed, but she saved a little hope and a pog he once gave her in her jeans pocket lining. Huge life waves slammed him but maybe she still knew her way around the sand-castle that he once was. It took her a month to find the guts to call him, and when she did he answered the phone with a half-heart voice. Still, he promised to show her his favorite parts of the city for old time’s sake.
At the Common and an Irish pub and the Garden, they got stares, whispers and cell phone cameras pointed sharply at them even though he was dancing away from crowds as best he could. They were jumping and sprinting through the shadows of the buildings and the man-made trees, but every now and then he’d slip up and he’d have to take pictures or sign napkins. His final mistake was to walk Michelle down Newbury Street, where a flock of young girls squawked at him, a family of burly, fat brothers encircled him and a non-descript Boston journalist with bad haircut and a football sized camera knocked hot apple cider out of his hand and onto his suede jacket. Michelle yelled at them all to back away, took his hand and ran with him down the street, laughing. The cider on his jacket had bled deep into his t-shirt underneath. At first it burned his skin but as they roared down the cluttered streets dodging bodies like street cones it froze against his chest and stomach. It woke his skin up and all of him breathed.
They spent the rest of the night facing each other on his couch, sitting cross legged in the dark and talking about what it was like to be young , what it was like in American politics, what it was like to love hockey so much, and what it was like to be a face on a billboard. They were hiding in the apartment but it didn’t feel like it. They drank hot cider and didn’t spill a drop.
“What’s with Berg’s necklace?” she said now, looking at the giant muted television screen that was miming the miseries of the game on the wall of the living room. Milan stopped sticking bits of toilet paper on the bloody places where he nicked his skin to turn and look.
“I don’t know, looks like a four leaf clover. How Irish of him. Never seen it before. You want me to stop moping and yet you won’t turn off these interviews.”
“I turned them off, your highness. You turned them back on.”
“Well, turn them off again and I’ll stop moping.”
“Fair enough.” She hopped off the sink and crossed the wood floor. “The other three girls that are coming,” she said as she pushed almost every button on the NASA-like remote, “are they gonna be obnoxious? Like, are they going to cry if they see a spider or bring a pink tent or have acrylic nails and therefore not be able to help with anything?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. Though I can’t say the same for Vlado…”
“Oh, good, he’s coming? I like Caroline. They’re like conjoined twins. I don’t think I ever see them not touching unless he’s on the ice. Did someone weld them together?”
“Yeah, they’re inseparable. Also, Tuukka and Janie and Patrice and Kathryn.”
“Ah. Trouble and Paradise,” she said with a smirk. Milan slid across the wood with his socks and dove flat onto the couch.
“They should be here any second now. What do you mean by trouble and paradise?”
“Tuukka scares me a little. So does that relationship. It’s his eyes and that whole milk crate fiasco and they’re always just so quiet together. It’s like constant espionage. They either have ninja ESP or there’s not much going on up in there. And the other two, let’s just say he should probably put a ring on it. They’ve been together for what, five years?”
“Something like that. They’re still young though. And wait, Tuukka scares you but I don’t?”
“Correct. I still think he’s hot, though.”
“I feel somehow violated.” He buried his face in the couch. A loud buzzer split the air and he pushed himself up to silence it. He pressed the white button in and said, “What’s up?”
“It’s me!” Vladimir Sobotka’s Czech accent screamed into the speaker. “Get down here! We’re ready to go!”
“Is everyone here? Berg and Tuukks?”
“I’m here with Kathryn,” Bergeron answered, “We’re just waiting on Tuukka. Come down.” Michelle handed Milan his bag and they locked the heavy apartment door behind them.At the bottom of the stairs, they found Patrice’s SUV and Vlad’s silver BMW parked at the curb. Patrice had his yellow “driving crocs” on and was looking at Milan concerned and wide eyed. Behind him, Kathryn sat on the car giggling at Vlad, who was shirtless and waving a cassette tape in the air.
“Looch! These two don’t want to listen to my mix-tape!” he said with his face twisted in pained disbelief. Caroline took her sunglasses off and waved at them.
“It’s actually a really good tape. I’ll give him that,” she said, but she was giggling too. He smiled at her and kissed her cheek.
“I put country songs on it for you,” he said.
“I know! That’s why I love it!”
“But the rest of the tape is techno,” Bergeron said flatly. “Look, Vlado, I never said I don’t want to listen to it. I like techno and Taylor Swift as much as the next guy but I just promised Milan I’d talk with him about politics on the way up.” He winked slightly and Milan grinned.
“Yeah…politics…we did agree to that. Sorry Boats. I bet Tuukka will want to listen to it though. Wait- why and how the hell do you still make mix tapes? Does your car even have a cassette drive?” Vladimir shook the gray plastic like a magic 8 ball and held it up to the sky.
“I make mix-tapes all my life! It’s good. It’s good. It’s whatever songs are on the radio. You get new songs and exciting songs. And I also when I bought my car, I ask for a tape player.”
“He has some sick Czech stuff,” Caroline said, “you should give it a chance.”
“Yes…he’s deejayed the locker room many a time,” Bergeron shared a glance with Kathryn and tried to keep from laughing. “I love you, Vlad.”
“I love you too, Berg, even if you won’t come in my car.”
“I told you. Politics. Canadian politics are very important right now. Look, here’s Tuukka. I’m sure he’d love to go in your car.” Tuukka’s white electric car pulled into the garage across the street. Minutes later he emerged with his black and gold Bruins duffel bags hanging like weights off both of his shoulders. Janie was a few steps behind him carrying a long tent box and a red drink cooler.
“Tuukka! You want to come with me in my car?” Vlad yelled across the street.
“O.K.,” he said. “Hi guys.” He put his bags down by the bimmer and wiped sweat from his forehead. He took the tent from Janie’shand and moved it towards the trunk. “You guys know Jane, right?”
“Yeah, hey,” they chorused. She smiled simply and waved her hand.
“I hope you like country music,” Caroline said.
“It’s the techno you need to worry about,” Kathryn whispered, then said , “You guys all realize we all brought the same exact bags right?” The eight of them stared at the pile of black luggage.
“We’re pretty dumb,” Bergeron admitted.
“And not very creative,” Lucic added.
“It’s O.K.,” Tuukka said, “My bags are the ones that smell good. I put those dryer sheets in there. They’re fantastic.” Vlad got into the driver’s seat of his car and pushed the tape into the slot. Scratchy, wailing bass and drums bounced the car up and down. He rolled open his sun roof and stood up on the seat so he could lean out of it.
“Let’s go!” he said, pumping his fists in what was meant to be a dance but looked like a seizure. “The wilderness waits for nobody!” Caroline got into the passenger’s seat and Tuukka put his arm around Janie as they walked towards the throbbing car.
“So much for sleeping on the way up,” he laughed.
“You’ll be O.K. We’ll just get you a Red Bull.” She patted him on the back then got into the backseat of the car.
“Welcome to the Party Boats!” Caroline yelled over the music. Vlad smiled widely and put the car in drive.
“New Hampshire, here we come,” Tuukka said quietly and tried in vain to lay his long body down over Jane and across the back seat.
Kathryn helped Patrice load the rest of the bags into the trunk of the SUV.
“I’m happy you came,” he said and wrapped his arms around her, kissed her hair.
“I’m happy to be here. And I’m happy school is over.”
“I’m happy your school is over, too. And next year you’ll be here. Fuck UNH, I’m so glad you’ll be in Boston.”
“I know,” she said into his chest. “Fuck UNH is right. I’m so, so happy to be leaving there, Patrice.”
“I know. And I know you’re not doing it for me but it’s going to be so nice that you’re closer.”
“Things are going to be better. Next year we’re going to forget all this. These playoffs and that school year and all the things that have pushed us down.” She felt his spine with her fingertips, looked up and him and exhaled. “But for now. For now we’re going to forget it all anyway and have fun up in the woods with a bunch of ridiculous thugs.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” They got into the front end of the car, and Milan and Michelle got into the back. As they pulled out onto the early streets of Boston, the final rays of the sunrise were wetting the base of the sky and reflecting off metal coated buildings.
“I know you were joking about the politics thing,” Milan said, “but if this whole hockey thing doesn’t work out, Michelle and I have a plan to revolutionize America’s political system.”
“Oh yeah?” Patrice said. “And how would you do that?”
“Well we have this system we’d propose. It’s a political hybrid of American ideals and Canadian realities. It’s a structured socialism—but I would never use the word socialism— that incorporates nationalism with individual vision.Before I’m done with this place, it’ll be Democrats, Republicans and Lucicists. Now the liberals won’t have to move to Canada, they can vote Canada into office. Sounds good, eh?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Only half.” Patrice chuckled and looked at his friend in the rearview mirror.
“You know, Looch, people don’t give you enough credit. Mentally, I mean.”
“I know! I’m a smart guy,” he said, exasperated. “People just don’t want me to be a scholar and a goon. They can’t handle the amount of awesome I’m packing.”
“It’s true,” Michelle said, “you are a scholar. And a goon. But I can handle the awesome.”
“Hallelujah,” he said.
And with that, the two cars hit 93 North and flew under the spider web of the Zakim Bridge. One car screamed with the static raving lunacy of European techno while the other floated thoughtfully, sleepily after it. The sun was full and hot in the sky and the mountains were mirages, dreams waiting. There were yesterdays to forget and cities to abandon. There were people to touch and to laugh at and to love, and dirt mazes to get lost in. They were all tired of flying too close to the fire. It was time to get away before their wings melted, and the humming of the tires against the pavement reminded them that they were finally doing just that.
The season ended like a foggy, smoky dream. It wasn’t a glinting, heroic fantasy or a gunning, car-chase nightmare. It was a cold blanket of shame that choked the harsh lights of the locker room and settled deep and crippling in the muscles. The Bruins sat with their wet bodies and broken guts pressed against their lockers and tried to avoid eye contact with one another. There were trainers dragging clinking ice packs and water jugs across the room, the fan was spinning loudly in the corner, and guys were coughing up whatever was left in their bodies but otherwise there was a sick silence. Coach Julien hadn’t found any words to describe the loss that made sense to him, so he crouched in the corner, wiping the sweat from his bald head. He could have straightened up and told them that he was proud of them, he could have shook his fists and told them that they had next year. Yeah, he could have told them any string of words in the world but nothing would have made it feel any cleaner. They had the Eastern Conference finals right beyond their fingertips and they gave them away or the Flyers ripped them away. But…how? Why? When?
After a few more moments of fragmented half-thoughts, he stretched his lips into a straight line then said simply: “We’ll clean out our stuff on Monday. I’m sorry it had to end this way. The press is outside hounding us already. Say what you have to say, then we move on. Leave this all here tonight.” With that, and with a downward glance, he bounced out of the locker room to get his own interviews over and done.
Patrice Bergeron was stunned. He knew it wasn’t a dream but it didn’t feel real yet. He wanted to wake up the next morning and drink orange juice, eat toast and get ready for a pre-game skate. He wanted to see those orange jerseys dizzying him again, to stick the puck in the low right corner of the net next time, to do it all over and not be frozen in the moment and in the cold sweat he was sitting in right now. It couldn’t hurt too much if he didn’t let it be real, but all he had to do was look up, to look at the faces around him and know that when he woke up the next day they would all be gone. He suddenly didn’t know how to speak or inhale or blink or move. He just shivered, ached, reeled.
Minutes went by and the players slowly ripped their bags from the benches and disappeared up through the underbelly of the Garden. There was hair ruffling and handshakes, but no hugs and no smiles. Finally, only four players were left breathing quietly in the locker room. Bergeron looked at his brothers, Vladimir Sobotka, Tuukka Rask and Milan Lucic, and read the pain in the lines of their faces.
“People are going to hate us,” Sobotka said with venom in his voice, breaking the rhythm of the whirring fan and gripping his stick so hard his knuckles whitened.
Lucic shrugged and started working on his ball of tape, wrapping the strips he peeled off his stick around the melon-sized sphere he kept in his bag. “Fuck everyone, you know, who’s angry. Fuck them for thinking it was theirs to lose. I love the fans but if they knew what we felt right now, they couldn’t hate us. It was never theirs to lose. It was mine. It was ours. I wanted it so badly,” his voice cracked.
“You played amazing tonight, Looch,” Rask said, “Your goals were perfect.”
“Thank you. I just wanted it, you know? I wanted it wicked bad.”
“Was it…me? I mean, in the end, was it me? It’s those extra goals that killed us…” Rask said softly, eyes glued to the floor.
“Jesus. No. Tuukka. You were unbelievable,” Bergeron said.
“You were prodigious,” Lucic added.
“Then what happened?” Rask’s voice was flat, his eyes were glazed and squinted.
“God, I just don’t know. I don’t even want to talk right now. I don’t want to be here.” Bergeron finished throwing his gloves in his bag and filled his throat with water. His words were cutting but his voice was heavy and sad. He felt tired, then, and old. He was suddenly lit by the urge to get out of that locker room, to get out of the Garden, to get out of Boston all together. He started towards the door without a word of goodbye but stopped. He let his arm go limp with the weight of the bag and turned to look behind him.
“Hey guys. This’ll sound weird but…let’s get away for a little bit. Just the four of us, eh? Maybe bring the girls. Let’s do our press thing tomorrow and then let’s get away where no one will be able to find us.”
Sobotka sighed and put down the plastic ice bag that he’d been holding on his shoulder. “And where’s that, Berg? The whole world was watching us. The whole entire world.”
“The mountains? Yeah. We can go to the mountains. Let’s take the girls on a hiking trip, put this away for a while and get out of all this. Let’s just get away,” he pleaded.Four dejected hearts throbbed, then, with the hope that it would be possible to forget it all, even for a minute. They wanted to leave all the ugly air around them, pull away from all the ugly, muddy feelings the loss had cemented to them.
“O.K.” Sobotka said, “I’m in if Caroline can come.”
“Me too,” said Rask, “Count me in.”
“All right,” said Lucic. “I’ll go with you guys. We can meet at my place the day after tomorrow and we’ll get on the road.” Bergeron nodded gratefully, waved half-heartedly and walked out through the door, leaving his boys behind him. He didn’t want anyone else to know they were leaving, and he didn’t know which mountains he wanted to climb. But he wanted to go up and away. He wanted to go deep and far.
As he limped down the hallway, he saw a crowd of men staring at him and shaking their heads. “Should have left with a crowd,” he whispered to himself before ducking into the bathroom on the left side of the wall. He prayed that by the time he emerged they’d be gone. He threw his bag at the ground and fought the wave of nausea that was drumming against his stomach. He pulled the tap on too hard and shoved his wrists under the cold, pulsing water. It splashed up onto the counter and poured over the edges, wetting his shirt. As he grabbed a paper towel to sponge it up, a glint of gold caught the corner of his eye. He picked up a tiny metal charm and let his eyes take in the four leaf clover. It wasn’t attached to anything at all. It was just waiting there flat on the granite like a lucky, golden weed from God.
“That’s it,” he said out loud to only his reflection, laughed a little manically and grasped at the absurd gift the universe had given him. “My tomorrow starts here. Fuck you, world, here comes Patrick Cleary Bergeron.” Without stopping to solve the water situation, he slipped the charm in his pocket, picked up his duffel bag and punched through the door. He didn’t care who he had to talk to. He didn’t care what he had to say to them. A little piece of metal, a beautiful girl and the whole dirty earth was out there for waiting him. He’d be damned if he let the loss take that from him. He’d be damned if he wasn’t much, much bigger than that.
