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I want it more than anything.
A humid night in early June. Our hometown Chicago arena, packed to the gills with our rowdy fans, has its air conditioning set on full blast. But in the dog days of summer, the air conditioning can only do so much in the battle against Mother Nature.
The air is hot, heavy, and almost dripping with moisture. Under my jersey, my pads are soaked with sweat. Beads of moisture trickle down my muscle-hardened chest and back, a ticklish respite to the heat. After the game, it will be a struggle to peel the damp clothes off my tired body.
The game has already run the full 60 minutes of regulation time. After regulation ran out, we played an overtime period. When no one scored in OT? We went to double-OT. Since we're in the playoffs, we'll play endless overtime periods – until a puck hits the twine at last.
And then it's over. No chance for redemption: this is sudden-death overtime hockey. First goal in OT wins it all.
Until then? Our pads will get wetter, heavier. Our muscles, filled with lactic acid, will get more swollen and sore. The air will get muggier. The ice will turn slushier.
When a sheet of ice turns into a slog, the game slows down. You can't skate the same – you can't make those quick cuts or stops and you can't skate nearly as fast.
The puck doesn't glide like it should, either. Instead, it becomes a stubborn little disc with a mind of its own, refusing to go along with your plans. It bobbles and jumps errantly – and water from the melting ice drags the rubber to a crawl long before your pass reaches its intended target.
So you've got to be careful. You've probably heard it said before – that hockey is a game of mistakes. If hockey is a game of mistakes? This game – with tired athletes, with a puck that won't stay flat on the ice – is ripe for one big-ass mistake.
Oh yeah – this double-overtime game is a Game 7, by the way. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Next goal truly wins it all.
And as I watch the play from the bench, waiting for my next shift, the only thing that goes through my mind is: I'm ready. This is the moment I've been dreaming of my whole life. And I can feel it – the end is near.
I watch, impatiently, as our third line fights to get the puck out of our defensive zone. At last they succeed – and the tired third line hurries back to our bench for a line change. Forty-five seconds into their shift, they're beyond gassed and ready to come off the ice.
Line change.
It's time for my line to go to work. It's time to end this already and raise the Cup.
I hop over the boards with the rest of my linemates. We set up in the neutral zone, clogging up the Kings' passing lanes. I find my assignment – their all-star defenseman, TJ Brown, and he's got the puck. I close in on him, funneling him towards the boards.
Fast and skilled, and with hands smooth as silk, Brown is one of the best in the league at moving the puck. But I'm one of the league's best forecheckers. My skill is taking away an attacker's time and space – and stealing pucks away from skilled guys like Brown.
As I near, Brown tenses up. The pass he wants to make isn't there. He's tired – I can see it in his eyes. And I also see that look of desperation a trapped man gets before he does something stupid. It's a glossy look – like his eyes glaze over just before he does something selfish. Something 'heroic.'
Brown's teammates on the bench see it all unfold. They jump up onto their skates, screaming a warning at him from the bench.
“No Brownie, no!”
“Man on you! Man on you!”
But it's already too late. I've saved one last burst of energy in my tired muscles, hoping and praying there would be a time to use it.
And now that I've closed in on Brown, it's time to let loose.
I explode into my stride and lift Brown's stick blade, stealing the now-unprotected puck so smoothly, it almost seemed like an after-thought. By the time Brown manages to get his momentum heading in the right direction – I'm gone.
My winger, Michel Dufresne – or Fresno as we call him – sees the play develop. He yells at me from across the ice as he takes choppy strides to join me on the rush.
“You got me, Vance! You got me!”
There's nobody standing between us and the goalie. A two-man breakaway. As good as any chance you can possibly get.
This is it, I thought. The crowd knows it, too – the growing roar is already as loud as a train as they leap out of their seats, all eyes on us.
I slide the puck across the ice to Dufresne. The goalie comes out of his net, to the top of his crease, challenging Fresno's shot – and I know that the puck is coming back to me.
Time slows to a crawl as Fresno sends a quick return pass right across the slot. I wind up, ready to blast the puck off my stick the moment it lands in my wheel-house.
With my stick cocked high in the air, I realize I'm putting everything I have into this shot – not just my body weight, my strength and resolve – but so much more. My boyhood hopes and dreams. The hopes and dreams of an arena, of an entire city who are all glued to their television screens and watching me. All knowing in their hearts that I can do it, that this is how this story must end.
And all I can think is one thing: this is the moment you've been waiting for.
And it's taken so goddamned long to get here.
I've dreamt about this moment as a kid – too many damn times to count. I've spent countless hours in the rink, in the garage, in the basement, on a frozen pond – imagining this very moment. Stanley Cup Playoffs, Game 7, Overtime. With the game on my stick.
In my fantasies, I was always the hero. I'd shoot it top corner. The puck would ring off the iron and go in. The crowd would go nuts, my teammates would mob me from behind, and I'd fall to the ice, screaming and laughing and crying tears of joy.
Now it's time to make it happen for real.
The puck slides on the ice a foot in front of me, right where I want it. Dufresne couldn't have placed it any better. But I don't have time to admire his pass. I lunge at it, pounding my stick into the ice and smashing at the puck.
And an image flashes through my mind. A weird apparition – something I've planned, but it's not how I pictured it. Not at all.
I've already got a bad feeling about this. But the puck's left my stick. All I can do is hope that ominous feeling in my gut is dead-fucking-wrong.
The goalie stretches across the crease. I'm surprised by how quickly he manages to get across. He throws his glove out, sprawling, and for a second I'm afraid he might actually snag the puck outta mid-air.
But he misses. The puck flies just over his glove. My shot sails past, beating the goalie clean.
And then it happens.
Ping.
The sound of frozen, vulcanized rubber clanging off iron.
In my fantasies, this is always what happened, too. I'd hit the crossbar. But the puck always managed to bounce down and in to the net after.
In real life? Well. Time returns to normal. Actually, it speeds up, as I watch my shot deflect off the crossbar and come flying out of the Kings' zone. The puck bobbles back to TJ Brown. He skids to a harsh stop on the crappy ice, spraying a mist of ice and water and almost falling over in the process – man, how differently it might've gone – but he manages to catch his footing and stay up instead.
And then a sense of dread swallows me. I never give up on a play, and I certainly don't give up on this one. I put my head down and skate hard, hoping I can make it back in time.
But I've spent the last of my energy. And I also know how momentum swings work in hockey. Just managing to survive a close call can inspire a team to victory. The 'Hockey Gods,' as us professionals like to call them, can be so cruel. They giveth, and believe me, they taketh.
Harder and faster I skate, with Dufresne behind me, both of us rushing to get back – but that sense of dread turns even uglier when I see what Brown has in front of him. An open lane, right up the middle, to his star center – a young gun named Kevin Westbrook.
A perfect pass from Brown splits our defense. Westbrook receives it cleanly and skates in, all alone, on our goalie.
Oh no, I think, my feet working harder, even as my stomach sinks to lower depths.
I see Westbrook move to his backhand. Our goalie bites, but then Westbrook pulls it forehand. I don't see the puck after he shoots it. But I do see Westbrook's arms fly into the air. His gloves shoot off his hands like rockets. And his teammates throw up their arms, and their gloves all launch into the sky, too. And then it all comes back down again. Sticks and gloves, helmets and elbow pads – it all comes raining down on the ice. Westbrook's teammates jump on him, knock him to the ice, one player after another throwing himself on top of the heap of bodies.
My legs buckle. I drop to my knees, too weak to hold myself up, and watch the Kings celebrate.
Oh God.
My whole life has led up to this point. I'd pictured it going one way ... and I'd come so close. Only to fall short. And all I could think was ...
The hell happened? What's wrong with me?