The air was chilly, but the large, long-sleeved Fury jersey that swallowed my thirteen-year-old body had done a great job keeping me warm.
I could feel my heartbeat in my toes. My eyes were chasing the number sixty-three around the ice like it's my job. Which to me it was.
Watching my dad glide across the ice makes everything else fade away. The crowd was silent, other players were in slow motion. It was just him. I watched as he swiveled down the rink with precision in every movement. There wasn’t one step out of place. Everything he does is for a reason.
Do you know when you get that sense, the feeling that something astonishing is going to happen? Your skin gets all tingly, your body temperature shoots sky-high? That's what I felt every single time I watched my dad skate. He was magic.
My father was my superhero, in skates.
I heard the clock ticking away, every second we were losing time. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. Thud, thud, thud.
My eyes darted to Bishop. My Bishop.
Even through the glass I could see the exhaustion in his body, he was running on fumes. His long hair peeked out of his helmet, the normal golden blond had turned dark brown because of the sweat.
It was no secret that our defensemen were too exhausted to go against Toronto's first line, and we wouldn't last in overtime. Just when that fate started to settle into the minds of the Fury fan.
The twenty minutes that once occupied the game clock at the start of the third period was at a lonesome five.
Everyone stood up, I followed suit, pressing my hands on my thighs.
I watched as Bishop flew past me, right in front of the glass, a resounding thud thundered through the arena as one of Toronto's men went down hard. The puck was loose when our centerman quickly gained possession, spotting my dad up ice.
With a smooth pass to my father, I watched as the black biscuit caught the blade of my dad’s stick perfectly. A breakaway.
The fans erupted in collective cheers and booing.
Chills rolled up my arms and to my neck. Defensemen were scrambling forward as my pops passed the blue line into our attacking zone. My eyes were shooting from the ice to the clock.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Five seconds: Pops sprints down middle ice, two Toronto players close on his heels.
Three seconds: His stick moves quickly, forehand, to backhand, forehand. The goalie opens up just enough, he pulls him just enough to the side that it leaves a spot open. Top shelf.
"Take the shot, Pops, take the shot!" I yelled loudly.
One second: He sends the puck forward with a quick wrist shot that sails across the goalie’s shoulder and into the white net behind him. The loud buzzer filling the arena around us.
"CHICAGO FURY HAS DONE IT AGAIN!!! THEY HAVE WON THE STANLEY CUP!" The arena erupted in chaos─pure, heavenly chaos.
The buzzing among the sea of red and black, the hum of satisfaction that for one moment connected every single one of us. It was a perfect harmony, a time where it didn't matter if you were gay or straight, black or white, democrat or republican. If you wore a Red and Black Fury jersey, you were in an ecstatic balance.
The players clustered together, in what I know was a sweaty, blood-stained hug. I was witnessing history. The men who I considered family came together, sticks, gloves and helmets scattered across the ice and air. Fans throwing hats, popcorn, whatever they could grab onto the ice with them. Praising them.
The friends and family of my father's teammates surround me, cheering, screaming. Hell, I think I saw Benzo's mom crying. My eyes watch in awe, in total satisfaction.
My father's body breaks away from the cluster of men, and his eyes scan the crowd. Quickly, as if he can feel me, his eyes find mine. A wide smile breaks across my face, as he hurriedly skates towards me. Tears coat my small face. A smile that radiates behind his scruffy playoff beard warms my heart. Soft, kind green eyes that we share are full of love, love for hockey, love for his team, love for me.
Once he is in front of me, he taps his chest twice, before laying his palm on the glass in front of me. I raise my own hand to lay it on top of his. The glass is the only thing keeping us apart. Win or lose, he did this. It was our thing.
"You did it, Pops!" I yell.
He smiles. "We did it, my Sully girl.”
Did you know that when a team wins the Stanley Cup, each player receives a personal day with the trophy? My dad and I ate chocolate ice cream out of the silver trophy the whole evening. We ate so much of it that my tongue was cold for hours afterwards. The following day I proceeded to puke my guts up. Then, when it was passed to the next player, I cried.
As I look around my room, I can hear the lively noises downstairs. All of my pop's old teammates: Howerd Yesbeck, who retired with my father, Taylor Lionel, Axel Jalak, Benzo, the list goes on and on. All of them standing downstairs ready to celebrate my thirteenth birthday.
Hockey was what brought us all together. I guess it's true when they say you don't always choose your family, sometimes they choose you.
"Are you trying to avoid human interaction, Vallie?"
Bishop Maverick.
Always him.
Always him. I hadn't even realized I was gone from the party that long, but of course he noticed. Bishop, I think, was the only one who understood how much I disliked my birthday. I'd never tell my father that. I know how much it means to him to see me happy, but I hated celebrating this day.
Bishop knew that, before I even told him about my mom, he knew why I wanted to be alone on this day. My mom left two days after my second birthday. Just picked up her shit and left. She didn't leave me a note, a picture, nothing. She left like I meant nothing to her, like she didn't carry me for nine months.
Years later and it still hurts─the sting of rejection. I'm not sure if it gets better or worse with each passing year.
I look at B seeing his freshly shaved face, entering my room. Six-feet-four, two-hundred and seventy-five pounds of pure man. His build looked like a hockey player─tall and lean. The kind of muscles you could see beneath his shirt when it clung to him, but not the kind that made you think he was on steroids. You just knew he had that v-line, and those muscles in his back that made women dizzy.
He'd just turned twenty-one in March, making us eight years apart, eight years and eight months to be exact. His birthday on the eighteenth of March and mine on the same day in July.
As much as he pisses me off, I could never deny just how gorgeous he is.
You know what I'm talking about, that classic kind of handsome. The mixture of the boy next door that the older women drool over when he mows their lawn, watching him slowly morph into a scruffy man. An angular jawline sharp enough to cut diamonds, high cheekbones, long nose, symmetrical features that make him look unearthly, heavenly, superior? Some word like that.
He's edgy, with a scar in his left eyebrow that hair won't grow over. If you didn't know him you might be afraid to talk to him because he looks like trouble, but when he smiles at you that smile that showcases his pearly white, straight teeth, he's approachable.
And he is staring at me with those eyes, my favorite thing of all.
My pops used to take me to Banff National Park. It's located in Alberta, Canada. We'd vacation there on the off season, or we'd visit when he played up there. There is a body of water named Moraine Lake. It's breathtaking.
Due to glacier runoff the water is a blue-green color that differs through the seasons. It's ethereal. If there was ever a fountain of youth, or a place where a liquid could make you young forever, it was Moraine Lake.