The Hockey Girl

Chapter 6

“Well if you can’t beat ‘em, beat ‘em. That seems to be the message the Seaford Highlanders are sending to the Condor Wolves. This is nasty. Oh and Alara Kinkaid just took a vicious check into the boards. She’s down and she’s not getting up.”

I moaned as I lay face down on the ice, that hit bloody hurt. I glared at the kid I had previously named Asshat One. We were currently in the third period and my team was dominating the score board seven to two which naturally hadn’t pleased Asshat One, nor his team.

I stood slowly just as Vasic skated over to me. “You okay, Kinkaid? Those guys have been laying into you all game.” His voice seeped concern and I couldn’t help but resent it a little.

I shrugged it off. My dad had always played by the rule, ‘you take the hit, you get up and you keep digging’ and I was no different.

“I’ll live, I just want to knock them all on their asses.” The Seaford team was made mostly of enforcers and they hit like a ton of bricks.

Vasic grinned, “That’s my girl.” He praised, hitting his stick to my helmet and skating off to centre ice.

“And the Highlanders lose the puck at centre ice. The Wolves with it. Here’s the Wolves captain, Tai Russo with it. He’s across the blue line with a great move. Walks right down the front. He shoots, he scores!”

The crowd cheered in celebration for Tai’s unassisted goal and I skated to him to congratulate him.

“Nice going captain,’ I commended as he knocked his helmeted head to my own just as a time out was called by the opposing coach.

Vasic, Tai, Xavier, Elias, Alexei, our current goalie, Kaleb and I skated over to the bench. Riaz and Riordan grinned up at me from their seats. They knew I was frustrated with the pair who had received two minutes in the penalty box for interference not too long ago. They’d purposely and without even the bare effort of concealment gone after a guy who had body slammed me into the glass, hard.

“Alright kids, I know you’re tired and I know you’re hurting. We’ve won this thing, no doubt but I want one more out of you. We have two minutes left on the clock. More than enough time.” Coach Riviere scoped out his options, assessing before deciding and nodding, “Alright, I want Riaz, Riordan, Vasic, Drew, Lucas as goalie and Alara skating. Alara, kid, we have two minutes left on the clock and I want you to really go for it. You’re a team player all the way and right now, I want you to stick it to these arses yourself. That shot of yours, think you can pull it off?”

I nodded, no doubt. With Riaz, Riordan and Vasic as enforcers, my ass was as good as safe. Lucas had a quick glove in case of a mistake made on my part and Drew rarely missed a shot in the instance of an assist.

“Alright, show it to me, Alara.”

“Nearing the end of the game, the Highlanders with it out at centre ice. Oh and the puck is intercepted by Alara Kinkaid. Kinkaid across the blue line and she’s stick-handling in the Highlander zone. Kinkaid still with it, moves around a pile caused by Wolves enforcer Riaz Night and gives it over to Drew Bennett.”

“Bennett on a breakaway in the end zone, with a minute left on the clock.”

I watched in horror as Drew saw he was about to be crushed by an opposing player. He quickly iced the puck before he took a heavy check into the ice.

I skated hard over to the puck which lay motionless in the corner of the rink, focussing solely on acquiring possession of that puck. I wanted that last goal.

“Kinkaid is desperately trying to retrieve the puck from the corner. Here comes number 57 of the Highlanders, captain Dave Volumes, he’s skating hard over to Kinkaid, on a direct war path and she is yet to notice! This could end badly folks.”