Hockey Dreams by David Adams Richards

Author:David Adams Richards
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Canada, Hockey Canada, Sports & Recreation, General, Hockey, Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780385658560
Publisher: Anchor Canada
Published: 1996-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

NINE

THE TEAM MICHAEL SHOULD have been on was doing well. They beat Bathurst 3–2, which was never supposed to happen. The little peewee they had brought up, Tony LeBlanc, who had scored against Boston, was scoring for them. He had scored on a breakaway against Bathurst with a minute and ten seconds left. He was no bigger than Stafford. Yet he could move about you as if you were standing cold; he slipped through checks all year long, and he came out of nowhere from behind the net, could always tuck the puck behind the goal tender, and then raise his stick with one hand as he glided into an embrace, his big Bantam A shirt down to his knees.

A dozen times in a game you thought he would be creamed, only to watch him slip through, and head towards the net. And the older boys seemed to be like big brothers to him.

I mentioned that they had brought Darren up from the Peewees as well and had put him on the wing. The team had jelled since its loss to Boston, and was waiting to go back to Boston in the spring to exact a terrible revenge. Even Phillip Luff knew enough to pass the puck so others could score.

The rink was becoming filled again for the Bantam As. Suddenly there was the idea that the town had a team again — kids who were giving everything they had, wearing ancient hockey sweaters and mismatched socks.

In the house league that Stafford and I still played in, we too had spectators — small children who had figure skating before us, the few rink rats who were obligated to be there, the woman who ran the concession stand, and a few mothers and fathers. Also the coach, who was the coach of the Bantam All-Stars also, and who Stafford was a terrible suck-up to. I suppose he knew I knew, and only wanted me to realize that he couldn’t help it.

Now and then, playing his heart out he would be castigated by the mother of one of the other players for allowing the team to fall behind. “Are you blind?” Sharon would yell at him. Stafford would wipe his eyes, would look over, smile and keep on going.

“Ah get off the ice and go sit down — who are you — the coach’s pet — hang around the coach — don’t worry now boys you can just waa — Ik in and score — walllk in and sc-OORE. Idiot arse is on the ice again. Ole Idiot Arse Piss the Bed is on the ice.”

And so it spread, and Stafford was known, secretly as Piss the Bed and Idiot Arse. If you went over and told people he was a sleepwalking, fall-down diabetic with a maniacal desire to participate in events normal children around the country did, it might have made a difference. But he did not do this. Nor would he want anyone else to.

Of all the people who ever yelled and screamed at the coach or children, or bullied, I found mothers to be by far the worst.

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