The Hero || e.v

Chapter 9: Light Up A Life

I kept scrolling through my news feed until players from both teams skated onto the ice for the warm up at around 6:30PM. I quickly identified #25 Jacob De La Rose skating with his teammates. Of course, I followed with my eyes little #11 who skated very low near the ice, compared to the other players. He gave off so much energy.
I looked around and smiled at the teenagers and kids who were holding their posters saying ̎Go Habs Go ̎ or ̎Gallagher's biggest fan ̎ or other sentences of that sort with any other player's name writing in big letters.
Brendan Gallagher stopped to catch his breath and turned around to read on of the posters which probably stated he was the best or something like that since a big smile grew on his face. He looked down, probably a little shy because of all the compliments. I saw the young girl holding the poster start jumping up and down and looking at her friend who seemed to be filming the whole thing. Brendan left with as much dynamism then before while the other player continued stretching in the middle of the rink. I saw Price makes some saves facing his teammates who congratulated him with a little hit on his pads. Brendan waved to the little girl who was still jumping from excitement after he had seen her poster. I even thought she had started crying tears of joy, but I was not sure because the girl had her back facing me. I smiled, happy for her because I could just imagine the feeling she had after being waved at by her idol. It had to be the greatest day of her life.
Already, a few players started heading back to the locker room to finalise their pre-game preparation. Everyone had left except Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher, also known as The Gallys. They stayed on the ice and were trying to deke each other trying new stuff while laughing. I loved those two boys. Finally, after a few friendly hits with their sticks, the American (Russian according to Brendan) left leaving his colleague alone. He finished collecting all the pucks that were left and brought them back to the player's bench. It looked like he hesitated to leave for the locker room. He finally turned around, took a couple of pucks and went back on to the ice. He went around the rink choosing young kids that had come closer for the warm up and tossed them some pucks. To finish, he gave one to the girl from earlier holding the poster. And, just when I thought he was leaving, he took his stick and passed it over the window for the girl to take. He made sure the gift got in the right hands. The girl screamed « Thank you so much Gally! », with sobs in her voice, while he was skating back to the path leading him back to his locker room.... The smiled he had never left his face for a second. How did he smile so much? It was certain that at that moment it was hard not to smile thinking about how you made the life of a teenager a million times better....