Patins et pilules

Chapitre 27

Liam

12 juin

It seems that every minute lasts 100 seconds today instead of 60, that the hours are also 100 minutes and that yesterday lasted 50 hours. Everything seems louder too, the car horns on the street, my teammates chatting in the locker room and the crowd...the crowd, they were so loud when we got on the ice for our warm-up 20 minutes ago, I never heard anything like this and I can't even imagine what it's going to be if we end up winning this game. There are also thousands of people on the street outside of the Bell Centre, they had to close the streets around and I had to be escorted by the police to enter the garage with Virginie and my parents in the car. The guys who live in the towers besides the Bell Center like Lindberg or Ouimet who normally walk to come to the rink must be accompanied by bodyguards now because there are too many fans in the streets.

I just want this fucking game to start, I've been dreaming of this day since I started to play hockey 25 years ago and I'm only minutes away from it but these few minutes can't seem to finish. The Cup is so close and so far away at the same time. And I can't wait for it to end. It feels like we climbed a very high mountain and that we're seeing the summit but we know that the last part is the steepest one. This whole process has been strenuous not only for me but for Virginie too. She's been so tired lately; she goes to bed at 9 when we don't have a game. It's been one game almost every 2 days for the last two months and she had to stay awake to watch the first games in LA, including hearing me whining after our losses in these 2 games while working full time during the day. I'm tired too, physically and mentally and I never played with so many injuries. Currently, my left wrist is injured, my right hip hurts and I might need a surgery during the summer for my left knee. At least, my shoulder is holding on. Taping me takes half an hour to our trainer these days. It's pretty much the same thing for most of the guys in our team. Even Jay is playing with a shoulder injury, this whole thing has to stop tonight. But this game has to start before it ends and I just want it to happen. I know that The Cup is here, I saw the guy who's keeping it in the hallway earlier, all I want is to hold it in my hands.

- Stop fidgeting man, you're making me nervous. Use my techniques...you know...breathing and all...

We're on the bench now for the national anthems. We're not starting tonight since Coach Champagne decided to send our 3rd line against the King's first line. Once again, I feel that the anthems are taking forever. I'm usually taking this time to focus but tonight, I just can't, all I want is to step on the ice. The crowd is as impatient as me and their noise is burying the end of the anthem. Jay is beside me. I can tell that he's nervous too but he's not showing it as much. Actually, he seems to get calmer as the playoffs are progressing. He kind of had a special motivation in this particular series against his former team and our line has been doing pretty good with a total of 8 goals in the last 5 games.

Unfortunately, the Kings don't want it to end tonight and we're trailing 2-0 after the second period. They're like a brick wall, we can't get through them. Colin decides to step up and speaks in the locker room. Colin is our captain but he doesn't speak often. He's more the kind of leader that you look at, not the loud kind one. When he speaks, though, we listen. He tells us that it's his last chance and that he'll retire after that. He says that his family is in the building tonight, that his parents are aging and that he wants them to witness that. He asks us to do it for him, for them. We're all pumped after his speech.

There's about ten minutes left in the period and we're stuck in our zone when I get the puck on my blade. I spot Jay who his escaping their defence and my pass reaches him. He's on a breakaway now and the crowd is encouraging him. He's still by himself when he comes at the goalie, he dekes, shoots and scores to make it 2-1 and puts us on the board. We don't celebrate that much because we know that we're not done and we don't have that much time left.