Maryland Vikings

One for the money, two for the show

“This can’t be happening,” said Frank. “Can this be happening? Do we have to forfeit?” 

“Calm down,” said Alix, not looking up from her phone. 

“How the fuck am I supposed to calm down, Al? We have no goalie! Warm-ups are in ten minutes and our starter can’t move. He literally cannot move because apparently even goalies don’t bend that way. Our back-up is on three IVs. Three! I counted them! And he says he’s good to go. God, it better have been that poutine and not a stomach flu. We can’t replace an entire roster. The actual EBUG didn’t know he was an EBUG and is in Pearson right now, ready to go to Aruba for Christmas. Nikitin says he’ll play goalie. He wants to play goalie. Gordie is explaining to him right now that he’s a first-line centre on ten million a year and we need him at that end of the ice.”

“First of all, never slander poutine in my hearing again, and, second of all, I think I’ve found a back-up.” 

“How can you— you can’t just scroll instagram looking for goalies, Alix!”

“I could have gone onto Tinder instead. Would that have been better? ‘Oh, good, another heart-warming NHL back-up goalie story. Tell us how you found him?’ ‘Well, Mr NHL Reporter, I swiped right!’” Alix waved her phone at Frank and he blinked. 

“What the fuck are you showing me? Who— Oh.”

“Yup.”

“You think—?”

“Yup.” 

“That’s from today?”

“That’s from two minutes ago.” 

“Let’s go.” 

Frank grabbed Alix’s hand and they raced along the corridor, past the open door of the locker room where they could hear Nikitin’s distinctive voice crying out “Coach, put me in! I can do it!” followed by Gordie growling ,“Who the fuck is showing the Russians inspirational sports movies?”

The arena in Toronto is a warren but Frank has been around long enough to know some short cuts. They dash through the corridors, flashing their team credentials to get past some security guards. 

“Fuck, he’d better still be there!”

“You know the lines are ridiculous. He’ll still be there in thirty minutes. Come on, up the escalator. Excuse me, ma’am.” Alix wriggled past a lot of home fans wearing blue, and looking angry. 

“Sorry, excuse me, I’m with her,” said Frank, following slightly more sedately. He supposed they were lucky not to be in Philadelphia. 

“Good for you, pal,” grumbled one fan as Frank tried to limbo under the clasped hands of him and his girlfriend. Frank could think of better places to go on a date than a hockey game but who was he to judge? 

“Don’t let him mansplain hockey to you,” he said and slithered on up the escalator.

“Asshole!” came the cry behind him. 

Alix was waiting for him at the top of the escalator, looking impatient. “How many home fans have you just pissed off?” 

Frank looked behind him and waved vaguely. “That many, I guess.” 

“This is why I do my job and you do yours. Come on!”

They followed the signs for section 307, weaving between fans and staff.

“You’d think he could get better seats than this.”

“Do you know how expensive hockey tickets are in Toronto?” asked Alix. “I mean, seriously, he’s a college kid. He probably had to sell a kidney for a restricted viewing seat.”

“You don’t think his dad has, like, a box here?”

“I don’t know. Think the going rate for a box in Toronto is even more than a jersey hanging from the rafters.”

“How’s it going to work? It’s not going to be like a regular emergency back-up situation, right? Like, he already has a contract with the team even if he’s not playing with them.”

“Yeah, there’s a reason he’s not playing with the Admirals, too. And it’s not because he’s crap. He’s probably the best college goalie out there.” 

“Right, where the fuck is he?” Frank stopped outside the bar where their target had been tagged. 

“There, he’s just getting his food!”

Frank and Alix rushed over to where a very tall and extremely blonde young man was just about to put a forkful of poutine into his mouth.

“Oh no you don’t!” said Frank, and he batted the fork out of the man’s hand and then, for good measure, knocked the food container out of his other hand. 

“I was literally about to eat that,” said the young man, incredibly mildly. 

“I’m sorry,” said Frank. “It’s not a good day for poutine and goalies.” 

The young man blinked. “Okay,” he said. “Can I help you?”

“You’re Elias Laukkanen, right?” asked Frank, and he looked at Alix desperately for help. 

“Yes,” said Elias, looking incredibly wary. “And you are?” 

“So glad to mee you. Hi. Yes. Oh! Right. I’m Frank Cortez, and this is Alix Chan. We work for the Maryland Vikings.”

“Boo!” said someone standing in the queue. 

“Yeah, right. The road team. Your team.”

Elias looked skeptical. “I know who the Vikings are, Frank. Still don’t get why they wanted my poutine dead.”

“We’re short a goalie,” said Alix, helpfully. “Well, we’re short at least three goalies so, uh. How do you feel about an NHL debut at very very short notice?”

“What the fuck?” asked a guy, standing at Elias’ elbow. “Are you guys for real?”

“Unfortunately,” said Frank. “So. Uh. Don’t suppose you have your goalie gear with you?”

Elias opened and closed his mouth.

“Yeah,” said Elias’ friend. “It’s in the trunk of my car.”

“Please don’t tell me your car is in Etobicoke.”

“Nah,” he said. “We’re parked in York One.”

“Cool,” said Frank. “Cool. How fast can you run?”

“Oh, shit,” said Elias’ friend. 

“I’ll go with you,” said Alix. “You’ll need my credentials to get to the locker room. Frank, you take Elias down to the locker room. I’ll call Dan now to let him now.”

Frank looked at Elias, who had barely moved a muscle. God, Frank hoped that he was more mobile than this, between the posts. “Come on, buddy,” he said. “Gotta get you warmed up.”

Elias methodically put on his pads. The shorts were a little stiff, and bright crimson. Once he was sure his chest pad and shoulder pads were on, he looked down at the jersey, spread out on his lap.

“Balls of steel, that kid,” said Oscar Lexington, who was slight for a D-man but moved the puck superbly. 

“Titanium,” agreed Dom Grant, the captain and second-line centre. 

Elias could hear them and they had to know that but it didn’t seem to stop them.

“Can’t fucking wait to see what happens when Charles Clarence’s kid skates out in Toronto, wearing number 2.” 

“Kid,” said Dom. Oh, so they definitely knew he could hear, and was listening. “You’re about to become a fucking Vikings legend, just for pissing off the Toronto fans.” 

Elias didn’t smile but a curl of satisfaction licked through him. There was a siren, alerting the team that it was time to make their way to the ice for warmups. 

“They’re playing our song,” said Dom. Elias got to his feet and waited. Everyone else waited too. 

“Oh no,” said Elias.

“Oh, baby, yes,” said Dom, grinning. “You get to lead us out there, kid.”

Elias lifted his chin. He grabbed his mask and shoved it onto his head and picked up his stick. He figured Darren would have told Kloé by now, and Kloé would have told their mom. Their dad would know by now because the news would have reached his box before Elias had even met the Vikings’ coaching staff. Elias’ phone was somewhere in the bottom of his goalie bag and he had no intention of looking at it until sometime tomorrow afternoon. He knew his way to the ice from here, although, when he was a kid, he mostly spent his time in the home team’s locker room. He could hear the arena music getting louder. It was Christmas-y and cheesy and, honestly, he could do without it. It was long past time to concentrate on his game, even though he knew there was very little expected of him. 

The arena’s announcer was running through the teams when Elias stepped onto the ice and he may have been imagining the pause in the voiceover. It was always silent, the moment he set his skate on the ice. All he could hear and all he could focus on was the sound of his blades cutting into the ice. He was half-way through his lap when he realised he was on his own, and Dom Grant was laughing at the tunnel entrance until someone pushed him out onto the ice too.  

Elias could hear some scattered boos, as he settled down to stretch at the halfboard.

“Don’t listen to ‘em, kid,” said someone and, next thing he knew, Hector Beauvillier was next to him, and stretching too.

“Heck,” he said and, when he saw Elias’ confusion. “Call me Heck.”

“Oh,” said Elias. “Okay. I’m Elias.”

“I know who you are.” Heck grinned as he lowered himself into another stretch. He was one of the few players who didn’t wear a helmet during warmups, even though they were definitely supposed to. Elias figured that Heck was at the stage of his career where no one was going to make him change his mind and he looked at Heck sideways, as Heck’s brown shaggy hair hung down over his face as he concentrated on his stretch. 

Elias frowned a little. Usually when someone said that to him, it was either to point out that his father was Charles Clarence, one of the best NHL goalies of all time, or else to observe that he was openly gay and, as both of these were things Elias knew all too well, he usually stopped listening. 

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Uh,” said Elias, inelegantly. He racked his brains but all he knew about Beauvillier was that he was an AHL journeyman who cropped up on NHL fourth lines when team rosters were depleted through injury or illness. He had a good reputation as a locker room guy but Elias was pretty sure his ice time never hit double figures. 

“About fifteen years ago, when your dad was sent down to the Bears for conditioning, after that injury?” Heck nodded with satisfaction. “Yeah, I was on the team and if I can remember after god knows how many concussions, I reckon you can. You and your sister were so cute, following him around everywhere.” 

“Oh my god,” said Elias, and he grinned. “Wow, that means you’re pretty old.”

Heck scoffed, but he was still smiling. “Can’t believe this. I try to be nice to the new kid and I get insulted.” He got to his feet. “Go on, kid. Get in the goal so Double E can be a dick and fire one timers at your head.” 

Elias’ smile disappeared because now was the time to concentrate. He skated over to the goal, and skated a semi circle, from one post to the other. He tapped the posts with the flat of his stick and shrugged his shoulders a few times before planting himself in front of the goal. 

He wasn’t remotely concerned by how many pucks went past him, or how many he saved. He was working on getting into a rhythm. Block-catch-kick. Block-catch-kick. Block-catch-kick.

“You’re as cool as ice, kid!” shouted Heck, as he skated behind Elias’ goal. 

“Still think I should play goalie,” said Nikitin. “I’m very good.” 

“Don’t worry, kid,” said Hammond, after he sent a puck wide. “We’ll have your back.”

Elias skated back to the tunnel entrance as soon as the buzzer sounded. He needed to get some Gatorade and to try to centre himself a bit more.  It didn’t seem real, that he was about to make his NHL debut. He couldn’t say that it felt like any other game he’d played in his life because, most of the time, the arenas he played in were a lot smaller. 

“Your parents must be so proud,” said Ramon, the equipment manager, who’d given Elias his shorts and jersey. 

“Yes,” said Elias. He supposed they must be. He’d find out later. 

“Okay, you shits,” said Gordie, following the stragglers into the locker room. He didn’t look particularly well, and his tie was loose and his jacket was wrinkled and he looked as though he was one more stressful event away from a heart attack. “We’re fucked. No disrespect, kid.” He nodded at Elias. “You’ve all met Elias Laukkanen. He’s our goalie today because Sal is still vomiting and this is why you don’t buy street food on road trips, kids. I want you all to take a long look at this kid because you are going to protect him with your lives. I want every last fucking one of you out there blocking shots, closing lanes, stealing pucks. Sasha, Sasha. Look at me. Okay, now look at him. He’s your newborn son, okay. You’ll do anything to protect him, including taking a puck to the fucking balls, okay?”

Sasha looked confused and a little horrified. “Yes, boss.”

“Hammer. You’re a good D-man, don’t you think?”

Hammond sat up straighter. “Yes, boss.”

“Okay, well, if we lose tonight and you can still walk, you didn’t try hard enough and I’m gonna write to every asshole who nominated you for the Norris last year and I’m going to tell them exactly how fucking wrong they were.” Gordie swivels around and stalks towards Nikitin. “Nick, I know you wanted to play goalie and if I see a single stick penalty or sloppy turnover from you, you’re going to be playing goalie in a beer league for the rest of the season.”

Nikitin grinned, completely unfazed. “You can’t do that, boss. I’m fan favourite and you make Russian president very angry.” 

“Do I look like I give a flying fuck what your president thinks? We’re in America now—“

“Canada, boss,” said Dom.

“We’re not in Russia now, Nikitin, and you are going to score a fucking hat-trick or you are walking home.” Gordie was breathing heavily. “Right. Well. Whatever. We’re fucked but I really don’t want us to be bottom of the fucking league at New Year, okay? We’re not fucking St Louis, that shit only happens once in a fucking lifetime and it definitely doesn’t fucking happen to us.” 

Finally, Gordie turns towards Elias. “I don’t fucking know you and I fucking hated your dad so I’m really going to need you to stick it to Toronto tonight.”

“Sure, boss,” said Elias. 

“God,” said Gordie, standing back to let the team file past. “I’m going to be coaching fucking beer league by the end of the week.”