Page 1 of Omega’s Forward

1. Brody

Warmup is my favorite part of a game day. Nothing has gone wrong yet. No score, no penalties, nobody’s night ruined. We haven’t won but we haven’t lost either. Tonight might be the best of my career. I just don’t know it yet. I love the sense of pure potential.

The building is half full this early, and it sounds bigger for it. Everything echoes. I can smell the cooking popcorn drifting down from the concourse.

Up in the two-hundreds a kid is yelling JP’s name, and JP turns and grins, waving. The kid goes crazy. He’s holding a hand-painted 35 sign.

I’m stretching at the blue line when I hear a knock on the glass behind me. I turn around even though I already know who it is.

Gordie Rourke is seventy-one years old, owner of this team for thirty of them. His thick white hair is combed back and there’s a team pin crooked on his lapel. He’s wearing a perfectly knotted tie in our colors of silver and green.

He’s the only man in this building who dresses up to watch hockey.

I skate over and press my glove flat to the glass over his knuckles.

“Big one tonight, Callahan.” His voice is muted through the glass and the sound of the crowds flowing in. It doesn’t matter that I don’t catch every word. He says the same thing to me every game and I respond the same way I always do.

“They’re all big ones, Gordie.”

He grins and jabs a thumb toward the box upstairs. “I’ll be watching. You gonna keep the gloves on tonight?”

“No promises.”

He laughs and raps the glass twice, and then he’s off up the stairs, shaking hands with two ushers and stopping to sign a program for a kid in a Callahan jersey. Gordie is a local legend, almost as big a star as any player.

He drafted me when I was eighteen and a big slow kid, all shoulders and bad haircut.

He shook my hand on the draft floor and said, “Welcome home, son.” Fifteen years later I’m still here. Captain, now. He tells people I’m the best decision he ever made. Out loud. In front of cameras. It’s embarrassing, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything on this earth. The man is the closest thing to a father I ever had.

JP glides past on his way to tap both posts, which he does before every game. Yeah, JP is a big hairy French-Canadian alpha but that doesn’t mean he’s not superstitious. I’ve never met a player who wasn’t.

“Was that Gordie? He didn’t come say hi to me.”

“He likes me better.”

“He likes your pretty face better. It’s the tragedy of an old man’s taste.” He whacks my shin with his stick and skates away to commune with his goalposts.

Down at the far end, Linus Berg is putting on a show, snapping pucks into the top corner one after another.

Linus is the latest addition to the team. He’s nineteen years old and a first-round pick out of Sweden, all wrists and knees, and one of the fastest skaters I’ve ever come across.

He came over in September barely speaking English and grinning at everything, and the room adopted him inside a week. He’s the future of this franchise. Everybody knows it, including the man watching him from across the red line. Between drills he taps the crossbar twice with one glove, some private superstition he thinks nobody has clocked. Yeah, like I said. Superstitious.

Back in the room, Coach Sacco gives us the last word. Marty Sacco has been coaching since before visors. Sacco doesn’t do speeches. Tonight he holds up a printout instead.

The room before a game is all ritual. Tape, menthol, somebody’s terrible playlist argued over and endured. JP sits in full gear with his eyes shut, lips moving.

Linus re-tapes a perfectly good stick blade. I check my shoulder pads twice. Nobody talks about why.

“League memo,” he says. “Reminding you princesses to all be on your best behavior. It’s our regular reminder to keep it clean. I’m guessing it’s the usual case of one of the lily-livered sponsors getting nervous and threatening to leave for a sport with a cleaner image. League will be looking for someone to make an example of so they can look tough. It will not be one of mine.” He looks around the room, stall by stall. “Best behavior. Whistle to whistle, gentlemen.” He pins the memo to the whiteboard with the heel of his hand.

The first period is fast and mean.

We come out flying. Linus splits their defense seconds in and rings one off the post so hard it sings.

I win my first three draws, block a point shot with the meat of my calf, and take an elbow that the referee pretends not to see.

Fast and mean, like I said.