Break Noses, Not Hearts • andrei svechnikov

IX

Andrei

I tapped the blade of my stick onto the ice as Brady Skjei held the puck on the ice, stick-handling the puck close as he looked for an open teammate to pass it to.

I glanced at the upper-left corner of the net where it was wide open for a good shot to go through.

Brady passed the puck to me across the ice, then focusing on where I wanted to drive the puck to, I swung my stick up and went for the slap-shot.

As the blade to the stick slapped the ice, the puck ricocheted towards the Devils' goaltender and sank into that desired corner. The blaring goal horn sounded as I threw my hands up and skated towards the nearest corner of the ice, and my linemates and defensive pair came into a huddle to celebrate.

Hats flew everywhere from all around the arena. It was always a wondrous and exciting sight to see. I really didn't expect the puck to go into the net, especially with my weakest type of shot being a slap-shot. But hey, if you score, it works.

"Svech!!" exclaimed Seth Jarvis as he jumped onto me in our huddle as the fans along the glass behind us slammed their hands onto the boards in excitement.

I chuckled as he got down and I felt pats on my head from our other linemates.

We all skated over to the Carolina bench and high-fived the others on the bench and the clean-up crew went out with their garbage cans to pick up the dropped and continuously dropping hats from the ice.

While we were waiting for all of the hats to be picked up so the game could resume, I caught a glance at Kennedy, who looked just plain ecstatic and overjoyed behind that smile she gave me.

I blushed, then rolled up my left sleeve to look at the bracelet she had made me on my wrist that was protected by the glove on my hand. I smiled again, then slid my sleeve back down and looked back at her.

There was only two minutes left in regulation, and the Hurricanes were up 5-1 against the New Jersey Devils. I guess I was a little fired up from the five minute major for boarding that I was called for from demolishing the shit out of Jack Hughes. He might have deserved it after the stunt he pulled while we were in Jersey in the middle of January, nearly decapitating our captain with an unnecessary cross-check that wasn't called. So, I took matters into my own hands and I ended up being penalized for a major boarding call and a ten-minute misconduct for unsportsmanlike conduct. How one-sided, but hey, I'm not complaining since I just secured another hat trick.

Once the hats got cleaned up, the game resumed and coach Rod decided to keep our line out to take the face-off at neutral ice. Sebastian Aho took the face-off and won, providing Carolina with another opportunity to get something boiling very late to extend our lead.

Once the goal (and win) horn blared to officially mark the end of the game, we all gathered at our bench and celebrated again, then headed out to center ice and formed a circle to do our "Storm Surge" chant we do after every win on home ice. Then comes some more celebrations, because who doesn't love celebrating a huge win over one of your division rivals?

After the announcements of the three stars of the game, Brady Skjei being third, Pyotr being second, and myself being the first, we all went into the locker room to continue the chaos.

-

I took off my suit and tossed it into the hamper next to the door, leaving me bare except for my underwear.

I weaved my fingers through my hair and pulled it back, letting out a huge sigh as it all fell down in front of my face.

The door opened, and so I turned around to see who was at the door. Kennedy was peeking her head through the door with a smile on her face, and immediately her face reddened as soon as we made direct eye contact.