Dangerous

[der meister 2,968]

               I leaned against a wall a short distance away from Toronto Legion defender Ryuji Sakamoto following their loss in the final game of the season, watching the body language of the players in the room as members of the media swarmed like ants at a picnic. Most of the team moved like defeated men, sluggish and melancholy. Sakamoto, it must be said, was not a member of that group. From the time he stomped into the room, hurling his helmet into his stall with enough force that a chunk of wood chipped off the veneer, to the moment where the gathered reporters finally grew enough courage to approach the 5'7" youth, Sakamoto's frustration only grew. I knew what would happen next.

 

               "How am I feeling?" Sakamoto repeated, and I cringed. Maybe the worst introductory question of the season. "How am I feeling? How the hell do you think I’m feeling? We went from playoffs to the worst goddamn team in the league!" I mentally correct him, as the Legion were the worst team in the North American Conference, but still finished ahead of the Helsinki Titans and Riga Reign, the latter of whom finished dead last. I didn't dare jump into the conversation, though. "We had the worst offense in the league," – again, I mentally amend that Helsinki scored 8 fewer goals this season – "the worst defense in the league," – Conference – "and I played like absolute dog shit! So how am I feeling? You tell me how the hell I'm feeling!"

              

               The outburst could have been much, much worse, but even so, the reporters backed away, leaving Sakamoto to break his stick over his knee and bellow perhaps the loudest expletive I've ever heard in my life. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of his Legion teammates, who shall remain nameless for his own safety and security, comically twist a finger into his own ear afterward.

              

               Two days have passed since that final game and the subsequent locker cleanout. I've seen him like this before, when his teams in Istanbul and Mexico City were eliminated from the playoffs, but this is a heightened, furious Ryuji Sakamoto. A dangerous Ryuji Sakamoto. I won't talk to him, not until he comes to me first – it's the way this journalist :: subject relationship works. I don’t know how long it will be until I hear from him, if he’s going to want to make another trip to Japan, to refresh his mind and body in an onsen, perhaps, or if his focus on this extended offseason will be purely in the weight room and on the ice. Either way, I expect the Ryuji Sakamoto who sets foot on Legion ice next season to be a different young man than the one I have watched for the past 300 games. Only time will tell if that difference is going to be a positive one for himself, his team, and the city of Toronto. But the word that keeps coming to mind when I see that fierce determination bubble through is dangerous.

 

...and you will know us by the trail of dead.