11/05/2020

[Laine 1,361]

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

 

That is the sound of my alarm clock going off at 7AM. I was still sore and tired from our 3-1 loss to Vancouver the previous night, but I was optimistic that we could take the series to a seventh game and potentially win it. I went through my usually routine. I took a shower, got dressed, had breakfast and made my way to the rink for the morning skate. It was a nice 1 hour drive from my home in Tampere to the practice rink on the outskirts of Helsinki, part of my usual routine on home game days. 

 

Once I arrived at the rink, I took my usually route to the locker room and got my practice gear on. Getting out there on the ice with an empty arena felt a bit more ominous this time. I knew the Helsinki crowd was going to bring the noise tonight, especially with our backs against the wall. We went through our usual drills, which included skating, shooting, puck handling and a scrimmage game for good measure. Even though practice finished around 11AM, I stayed for about 30 minutes after practice work on my one-timer with Erik Summers, one of our top defensemen. We like to poke fun at him for his bad passes but man can he put a one-timer on an absolute tee for you. It was around 11:30AM when we finished practicing. We headed back to the locker room and took our gear off. Our practice gear was sent for cleaning and our game gear was put out. Summers stayed to help out with the equipment movement and to talk with Coach Jubo, while I headed out to go for lunch.

 

I went to a coffee shop down the street where I usually go for lunch on most days. The owners are very nice, and I frequently donate to help support their business and other small businesses around Helsinki. I was sitting down after finishing my lunch when a familiar face walked in. It was Kevin King, one of Vancouver's rookie forwards, and one of my old teammates back from our days in Miami. He came and sat down next to me and we spent the next 30 minutes talking about the game, life after Miami and a few other topics. It was actually a very good talk looking back on it. He wished me luck and we both parted. I went for a walk around Downtown Helsinki and showed back up at the rink around 2PM. The game wasn't supposed to start until 8:30PM, so I had about 6 and a half hours or so before the game, so I planned to drive home to Helsinki. As I was heading to the parking lot, a good friend of mine was walking out of the arena.

 

It was Venus Thightrap, another one of Vancouver's star rookies. It was the end of the Wolves practice, which was scheduled for that afternoon and wasn't supposed to end until 3PM. I walked up to her and we started to chat a bit. As it turned out, the hotel that Vancouver had stayed in the previous night was partially flooded, probably because of the massive snowfall that had happened last night. Also, their practice time was apparently cut short because there was a figure skating competition being held there. She also wanted to do some extra practicing and had nowhere to go. I told her I was heading back to my house out in Tampere if she wanted to come with me. She said yes, and we made the hour long car ride all the way out there. It wasn't a quiet car ride, we had a very long but good conversation on the way there. Once we got there, I took her to the rink behind my house and into a small locker room where I had about 20 hockey stalls. We both put our practice gear on and headed out onto the ice. We practiced a variety of things. Puck handling, shooting, skating and even did some 1 on 1s closer to the end of it. At the end of practice, we had a competition as to who could pull off the better move. We did Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who went first. I ended up losing and she went first. She pulled off the Datsyukian deke in perfect stride. I would be lying if I said I wasn't impressed. "Beat that." She told me as she skated by, flashing me a quick smile. "Alright, your on." I picked up the puck at the blue line and skated behind the net. Once I was behind the net, I pushed my stick down and picked the puck up on my stick and began to raise my blade. I ended the move by tucking the puck into the top corner of the net on the right hand side. All my practice of the Michigan move had worked. She laughed it off, "Is that the best you got? Pretty lame, let me show you how it's done." She began, the exact same way I did during the Michigan, circling the net. However, instead of just putting the puck in the top corner with the Michigan move, she put it between the legs first. So, like, the Michigan between the legs. "I concede." I said, laughing, "I'm not sure how I can top that one." She smirked at me and said "See, I told you that you can't beat me."

 

We went back to the locker room and took our gear off. It was 5PM, still 3 and a half hours until the game started. We made something to eat and had a short 90 minute snooze before the game started. We woke up around 6:30 PM and took the one hour drive back into Helsinki for the game. We both made our way into the arena. Eventually, we hit the crossroad between the visitor and the Helsinki dressing room. It's a nice little hallway that breaks into two with exercise and fitness rooms on either side. Venus turned to me and said "Good luck tonight, alright?" I turned back and said "Yeah, you too." She looked and me and laughed "I gotta make sure I don't whip you too badly." I laughed back and say "It'll take everything you have to outplay me tonight. Trust me on that." She gave me a high five and we both went our separate ways. After about 2 to 3 more minutes of walking,  I made my way into the Helsinki Titans dressing room.

 

Walking into that locker room, you could feel the pressure of the game in the room. We had our backs against the wall and had to take this one to even have a chance at the cup. I had one of the three stalls by the far end of the locker room, the closest side to the rink. I had Erik Draven on my left and Valtteri Vaakanainen on my right. Valtteri shot me a quick smile, "So, you ready for the game tonight?" I shot a quick little glance back "I'm as ready as I'll ever be I guess." He splashed me quickly with a Gatorade bottle "Well, you better be ready. We're gonna need you tonight." The whole team went into the zamboni bay, as we usually do before a game to play some pregame soccer. It helps warm the legs up and gets the boys (and girls) in the mood to play a violent game of ice hockey. We played keep it up last like we usually do. It ended up coming down to me and Zamboni Driver. He usually wins, you know how goalies are. Super agile like a cat so they excel in things like this. Anyways, we got into this super intense rally with like 30 keep ups each. It was very intense, at least until I messed up. Driver won, I think it was his 10th win during the postseason for pre-game soccer, so he's really good at that as you can tell.

 

We all headed back to the dressing room and began to get our equipment on for warm-ups. I could feel goosebumps standing up on my shoulders because when we walked out of the tunnel, the arena was already full and loud. It was JUST the warm-up and it was loud in there. I hit the ice and went through my usually routine. Did a hot lap, stretching and moved into shooting on Driver. I also like to do things for the fans, so I gave away some pucks and signed some autographs. The warm-ups helped me feel really good. I got all that nervousness out even though it was super loud in the arena. After warm-ups were done, we went back to the locker room and took a breather. Coach Jubo came into speak. "Listen up. We're down 3-2 in the series, but the hope is still very much there. We almost stole that game away from them. Don't let them take this one from you. You got the crowd behind you. Hit them early, pucks into the zone, shots on net and finish your checks. LET'S GO!". We went back out there with a renewed sense of confidence compared to the previous game.

 

During the first shift, I needed to find a way to set the tone. I went straight to the high slot and ripped a nice one-timed shot from there, goalie saw it all the way though. We won the faceoff back and got a few more screened shots from Bob, Spaz and Okada but couldn't get anything through to the net. After our line came off, Vikingstad scored an absolute beauty after Okada stripped the puck from Rune. We went up 1-0 early but it wouldn't last too long. Venus went right back the other way and ripped a mesmerizing wrist shot past Driver on the glove hand side. After that goal, Jubo turned to me and he said. "You see that goal? Took the energy right out of the crowd. Go get it back." Our line came out and right off the faceoff, Vancouver won possession. Not the greatest start. However, I found my chance. There was a puck battle in front of the Vancouver bench between Venus, Okada and Glade. I seen Glade about to pull the puck out of there and I lined him up. I put him right into the Vancouver bench. That hit certainly brought the energy back and it got quite loud in there. He came back after me and wanted to fight me because he thought the hit was dirty, but I wasn't gonna drop the mitts with him. Especially because the hit was clean. The rest of the period was pretty uneventful and Stallion scored a goal to give Vancouver the lead before the end of the period.

 

In the second period, we came out a lot more physical and got a lot more shots on net and man did we have some good shots. I had a few clean wrist shots and some one-timer opportunities, but Vancouver was getting in the shooting lanes like pros. We also had a hell of a lot of posts when the shots did get through. Like I literally could have written an entire piece of music using each post hit a single time. We were pretty good in the faceoff circle too. Okada's push back technique was really paying off in spades for us as we would routinely gain possession in the offensive zone. Although that is a positive, being good in the faceoff circle doesn't necessarily translate to goals and Vancouver beat us there. Norberg got one with 1:20 left in the second to extend Vancouver's lead to 3-1.

 

The third period we knew was a do or die period and we went right in after it. On the first shift of the period, I had a perfect opportunity to pull off the Michigan. I got the lift, got the balance, pulled the puck up and...*CLINK*....I put the puck right off the post. I headed back to the bench and I was so mad at myself. That would have not only brought the energy back inside the building but would have cut the Vancouver lead to one, making it a very close game. We kept pushing though, but Vancouver was just playing such good defense. As the clock started to wind down, Vancouver got some offense. Scoring 2 goals in the first 10 minutes of the period and essentially put the game out of reach. That bench got progressively quieter as the game went on. Eventually, the clock hit zero.

 

I felt an overwhelming rush of emotion. I can confirm, having your dreams shattered hurts. I just put my head down on the bench. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew the run was over. We had worked so hard to move into the Continental Cup Finals with our back against the wall and barely making the playoffs. All of that seemed like it didn't matter. We went through the handshake lines shortly after. I had nothing to say about Vancouver that was bad. They earned that series and were respectful throughout it all. The rest of the team went to the locker room, but I stayed hidden by the tunnel and watched the presentation of the Continental Cup. It was actually a very cool presentation with the fireworks and everything that was happening. I watched as each of the wolves lifted the cup up. King looked like he was going to fall over when he grabbed it. The thing is pretty heavy, 35 pounds over the head isn't exactly easy after you've played an entire game of hockey. Anyways, just seeing the emotion on the players faces brought joy to me, even though my spirits we're down. Venus was the last one to take the cup for a skate. She looked happy, but not as happy as everyone else was. When the Wolves began to pose for the team picture, I made my escape back to the locker room.

 

I arrived at the locker room about 30 seconds after that and man, that was a difficult locker room to sit in. It was quiet in there, like deathly quiet. We all just began cleaning out our lockers and whatnot. We knew Draven would be retiring, so slowly, each one of us went up to him to say goodbye. The locker cleaning took a while, especially because you didn't have to clean the locker but also all of your gear, but I managed to get my stuff done by midnight. I helped organize the locker room before I left. I knew some of the newcomers would be coming up next year so I helped put their name tags in the stalls and made sure the stalls were clean. You know, the usual stuff. After that, I packed my gear up, said goodbye to the team and left.

 

I was walking through the parking lot when I seen someone standing near my car. I wasn't sure who it was, it isn't exactly to see the identity of someone when it is pitch black outside. Although, as I got closer, I knew exactly who it was. It was Venus, which caught me by surprise. I was almost certain she would be partying in the visitors locker room with the rest of the wolves roster. I walked up and said "What are you doing out here?" She turned around and said "Oh nothing, was just waiting for you out here. I've only been here 5 minutes." I started to put my things into the trunk, but continued talking. "Why aren't you in there partying with the rest of the Wolves roster? I was almost certain you'd be in there with them." "I mean I was for a bit of time, but I'm tired anyways so I got out of there a bit early. Our hotel is still flooded but I went and got my things out of there." She looked a bit sad, so I asked her "Why do you look so gloomy? You just won the Continental Cup! I would expect you to be over the moon with excitement." "Well I originally was" she continued "but seeing you and the rest of the Titans so emotionless and sad kinda got to me." I smiled a little bit "Well, you don't need to worry about me. We'll be back sometime soon." I closed the trunk to the car, I had put all my stuff into there and seen no use of keeping it open. "Well, I still don't like seeing you sad" She said as she embraced me in a hug. "Well, this isn't exactly the V that I'm used to" I said. She laughed "Oh please, in two days time, I'll be back to kicking your ass." I chuckled back, "And I'll be ready for it."

 

I seen some of the Wolves exiting the arena with the cup heading towards a local bar. "So, do you know where King went?" She shrugged "Not really, he was getting drunk out of his face in the locker room so I will assume they'll have to carry him to the bar." I laughed "Well, no surprise there. He did the same sh*t in Miami." "Really?" she said, with a surprised look on her face. "Yeah, after we won the Eastern Conference that year, he got drunk after the game. He was still wobbly in practice the next morning. He had a hard time getting his skates on. Speaking of King, here he comes." King was walking towards us with the Cup. He was saying some things but I couldn't really tell what he was saying because he was slurring his words a bit. We were there for about 10 minutes before King began to head to the bar across the street. I turned to Venus "So, where are you going now?" She shrugged "I thought I would spend one more night at our hotel here. They finally cleaned up the flooding. The tournament is out here anyways which makes the travel process easier."  "Yeah, the first games are in two days anyways." I said. Suddenly, my phone started going off. I looked down to see who I was getting a call from. 

 

It was Jiggs, one of my old Houston teammates who both got drafted by the Stars. We used to prank the sh*t out of each other in Houston. We still do from time to time when we visit each other during the VHL season, but not the shear amount of pranks that we did in Houston. Anyways, I picked up the phone

 

"Hello?"

 

"Laine, you b*tch why didn't you score"

 

"Well I did almost pull off the Michigan in the 3rd. At least we actually get to see some playoff action unlike you guys over in Hollywood."

 

"Yeah, but your flashiness is the exact reason why your team lost!"

 

"Well some of us don't like keeping our plays simple and boring. Anyways, do you know when you are heading out to Tampere?"

 

"I'll be coming to Tampere in a couple of days. Just finishing the filming for one of my movies."

 

I completely forgot Jiggs had signed a contract to be an actor. He was making pretty solid money on top of being a professional hockey player. I had seen some of the short films and TV shows he was in. He actually wasn't too bad of an actor and he's been getting better as he gets hired for more roles. Anyways, we continued talking.

 

"Oh yeah, I forgot you were a movie star. Which film are you onto now?"

 

"Still working on the first one, they had to take time since I was playing most of the year but it should be done by the start of the tourney."

 

"Yeah. Well whenever you come out here we'll be waiting."

 

"Alright man, have a good one"

 

"You too"  

 

I hung up the phone. It was getting pretty late. I said goodbye to Venus, and drove one hour to get back home in Tampere. It was a long, but peaceful drive. During the drive, I actually seen animals in my headlights. A few racoons, a deer and a bear I think were the animals I ran into. I was also thinking about the offseason. Helsinki had a pretty good lineup and guys like Draven were retiring and we were unsure if Vikingstad would stay. I had already done my part in signing a 3 year extension a few days earlier, so I was nervous about the future. I was certain everything would be alright though. Anyways, as soon as I walked in, I went straight to sleep. I don't even remember what happened before that. But either way, the offseason was underway.

 

(3437 words, 17681 characters)

 

Spoiler

@JigglyGumballs @BladeMaiden @Jubo07 @IamMOOSE  @Erik Summers 

 

[Banackock 8,160]

[Viper 535]

AustonMatthews, thats a lot of words man.

[Blazzer 759]

Venus being this nice is kinda rare... She usually kicks people in the ass 

[Guest]

[fromtheinside 1,290]

you're a machine!!!

[Laine 1,361]

24 minutes ago, fromtheinside said:

you're a machine!!!

 

[Seabass 593]

Damn how do you do it. Good work man

[Laine 1,361]

2 hours ago, Seabass said:

Damn how do you do it. Good work man

I honestly don't know man, I just like writing and storytelling

[JigglyGumballs 1,056]

Review:

 

This article is honestly great. There aren't a lot of people who go around and put the effort on making an article about a specific day. My only issue is the rather long paragraphs, but otherwise I really enjoy the perspective you give as well as a good narrative. Also you should totally use this as a short story for like English lol.

 

9/10