Hockey Fights and Restless Nights

The History of Caleb Callahan

I dont really consider myself a hateful person but boy do I fucking hate Caleb Callahan. Here I was, minding my own business trying to focus on my AP statistics test, when Caleb came from behind me pushing my test down on the floor. As I went to pick them up Caleb stepped on my testing packet and shouted "Miller, My eyes are up here buddy," sending my class into a roaring fit of laughter until the teacher came over to restore the quietest of her testing room, collecting Caleb's finished test, which he boastfully handed over.

Caleb Callahan and I have been in all of the same classes since 1st grade. Our similar passions for hockey and school forced our paths to cross early on which kicked off our friendship. We would practice our hockey skills everyday together in the winter and practice our math and english skills in the off seasons, we were practically brothers, often living at each other's houses for long periods of time. When higher expectations for us were set in 8th grade, both academically and athletically things began to get more competitive between the two of us. Our friendship seemed to be on a high as we were entering high school.

But this all came crashing down when Richie "Dick" Johnson, a hockey player on our 8th grade club team, told our whole grade that we were "gay for each other" and "would do freaky stuff in the locker room together." Callahan, desiring to be more popular, joked this off to the team saying that I was "the one watching him shower in the locker room." Anger and hatred struck within me and I started taking harder classes and joined the high school's hockey team to fill the void (which obviously Caleb had to copy me on). Our 8 years of playing and practicing on the ice together helped us build fundamental skills for the sport, the problem was we were working on the same skills. We both wanted to be attackers, scoring on the goal, hearing the crowd go wild for us. Our skills were unmatched and so they put us in the same line, me as left wing and Callahan as right. Game after game we would fight for the center's attention trying to get him to send us the puck, each of us is dying to receive the puck. When it was sent to Callahan and not myself, I would not cheer or celebrate, instead I would get ready for our next attack on the net and the same went for Callahan for when I would score.

Now we are in our senior year, "the year that matters the most for our futures" Coach Charles said to the team during Thursday's practice. Today was our pre-match practice, which consisted of more game talk than actually skating. Tomorrow night we would be going against our biggest rival, the catholic school in our town. "Not only will there be hundreds of people from the town, but I have also been notified by multiple university coaches that there will be recruiters from Michigan State University, Boston University, and other big hockey schools." Coach said. This soon clicked in my head, making me jerk my eyes to Caleb and his to mine. There was clearly tension in the air as this could make or break one of us, or worse, both of us. The teams 2 captains being put to the ultimate, final test.