All-Star Pride (2 page)

The rest of us listened without moving. It had been a long flight on a cramped airplane. We were eleven time zones away from the western Canadian provinces and western United States. Our bodies said it was nighttime, but the clocks said we should get ready for a long day. Only a few of us mumbled greetings back.

“I am your tour assistant,” she said. “My name is Nadia. Here in Moscow I work for the world's greatest museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, where I interpret for English tourists. My job is to escort your team over the next ten days of your tour.”

Chandler Harris shuffled close beside me and nudged my ribs. “She won't be hard to look at, will she?”

I wondered why Chandler was trying to be friendly. I just grunted in reply because I sure didn't feel like being friendly to him. But in my mind, I had to agree. Nadia had hair as black as a raven that fanned out on the shoulders of her long raincoat. She had high cheekbones and a wide smile. She actually made me wish I had the kind of face that would give her an excuse to smile at me.

“There are some very simple rules,” she was saying with her nice wide smile. “As you probably know, our country has been going through many changes. While we do welcome visitors, our laws are stricter than those of your home country. You must
stay in your hotels after 9:00
PM
. Away from the hotel, you must at all times stay together with the other members of your team. And you must keep with the schedule we have set for you.”

She waited to see if we had any questions. We didn't. We were too tired.

“Good then,” she said. “In the event you need a translator, you may ask me for help.”

She pointed beyond us to the doors that led outside. “Please collect your luggage. You will follow me to the bus outside.”

This didn't sound like the summer vacation I had hoped it would be, and I must have been frowning.

“Don't sweat it,” Chandler Harris said to me. “Think of all the money you'll make.”

“If we win our series,” I replied. That was how this exhibition tour had been set up: winner take all, with the prize money to be split among the players.

“That's right. If we win the series.” Chandler winked at me as he picked up his duffel bag with his left hand and got ready to step into the line ahead of me. “But that's
not what I meant, Hog. There are other ways to make money here. Tons more money.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Chandler reached into his pocket with his right hand. Then he pulled his hand loose and extended it to me. “Shake hands, bud,” he told me.

Reluctantly, I put my hand out. I didn't trust this guy.

He put his hand into mine. Then he pulled his hand away, leaving several folded pieces of paper in the palm of my hand.

“It's five hundred dollars, my friend,” he said with another wink. “It's only a start. Trust me. It's only a start.”

He walked away before I could say another word.

We played our first game that night in a Moscow arena so old and dark that as we skated around our half of the ice during warm-up drills, I expected to see bats diving in and out of the rafters above us.

Old and dark arenas, I guessed, didn't bother Russians. The place was packed with fans, all cheering loudly for the Russian all-stars who circled the other half of the ice wearing maroon and black uniforms.

I skated along the boards, continued behind our net and slowed down as I came around the other side. I let myself slowly drift up the ice toward the centerline. I wanted a good close-up look at these Russian skaters.

They were slick, shifting and sliding as they passed the puck around. Their goalie looked sharp too as he bounced to his knees and popped back up again to make save after save on warm-up shots coming at him from all angles.

I reached the centerline and had to turn hard to keep from going into the Russian half. I skated slowly along the centerline toward the other side of the rink, trying to learn as much as I could about these Russian all-stars cruising around their end of the ice.

I was looking hardest for their big players. These were the guys I wanted to force into the boards first. Clean, legal body checks, of course. I didn't want a reputation as a goon. Besides, I didn't need to play dirty. I could do enough damage without getting penalties. If I could scare their biggest players
early with that little damage, it would make it a lot easier for our team to win the series. And easier for me to collect my share of the $100,000 prize money.

I saw three players I decided I would need to work on: numbers 9, 23 and 28. Until I got beside them, I wouldn't know for sure how big they were, but it seemed like each would be a couple of inches shorter than I was.

Would they be tough?

I wouldn't know until the referee dropped the puck to start the game. I half-hoped they would be. I looked at the clock on the scoreboard. Just a few minutes left of warm-up skating.

The crowd began to chant a song I didn't recognize. Not that I expected to recognize anything. This was Russia. They were Russians. They were the enemy—if you listened to my dad—Commies, short for Communists.

Back home, I knew my high school history teacher would be having a fit if he knew I was calling them Commies. He'd tell me that the Communist government had ended and
this was a new era, that Russians were now our friends.

Although I knew I should think of them as Russians, it wasn't easy. My dad had called them Commies ever since I could remember. We lived on a farm, and Dad hated it when the Russian government was allowed to buy wheat from us at low prices. His attitude had worsened since a farm accident put him in a wheelchair. It drove him nuts when he saw the Russian teams play hockey during the Olympics.

“Look at those Ruskies!” he would shout in our tiny living room as he pointed at the portable black-and-white television, which was all we could afford. “Look at those Commies! They take money out of our pockets by stealing our wheat! And now they're trying to take jobs from our boys by breaking into the
NHL
! Get me out of here! I can't stand to be in the same room with them!”

Of course, I knew if I even touched my dad's wheelchair to move him away from the television, he'd yell just as loudly at me. Dad loved to hate the Commies. So when the
Russians played hockey, instead of wheeling Dad away, I'd just pull up a chair and sit beside him. I'd listen to him yell the entire game, and I'd dream about the day I might play hockey on television too.

Now I was here, with less than five minutes remaining in warm-up. Television cameras had been placed high up in the stands of the arena, ready to catch the action of game one in this all-star series. I was here to play hockey. But thoughts of Chandler kept creeping into my mind. Why had he given me that money for no reason at all? I told myself to set aside my questions and concentrate on the game.

I was playing on the second line of this all-star team. I didn't get onto the ice until the referee stopped the play for a routine offside call against the Russians. The first line—led by Chandler Harris—skated off the ice into our players' box. We skated on. Jeff Gallagher from the Kamloops Blazers at center, Miles Hoffman from the Saskatoon Blades at right wing, and me from the Red Deer Rebels at left wing. Nathan Elrod from the Tri-City
Americans and Adam Payne from the Seattle Thunderbirds covered the defense positions.

I looked for my first target as we got into position for the face-off. I found him.

The Russian number 23 had the name Klomysyk across the back of his sweater. He played right wing. I played left wing, going the opposite direction. Which meant we lined up against each other during the face-off. My goal was to make Klomysyk feel like he'd lost a head-on collision with a locomotive— enough times so he'd learn to hate going into the boards to battle for the puck.

I glanced into his eyes as we waited for the referee to drop the puck. Beneath the half-shield visor across his face, sweat ran from his forehead into his eyebrows. His face was nearly as ugly as mine. We were the same height. His eyes were blank as we stared at each other.

I smiled my warrior smile.

The ref dropped the puck.

Their center managed to knock the puck back to his right defenseman. He in turn passed it across to the left defenseman. The
entire Russian team backpedaled as the two Russian defensemen continued to pass the puck back and forth.

Jeff charged ahead and pressed hard, almost knocking the puck from one defenseman, who again slid it across to the other defenseman. Miles cut quickly toward center, not quite intercepting the cross-ice pass between the Russians. I stayed back, giving Klomysyk room, but watching him closely.

Their other defenseman snagged the puck. I saw his head turn as he checked out his options. He saw Klomysyk open. Or he thought he saw Klomysyk open.

I practice judging how much room I can give without losing my guy completely. Maybe it's like playing cornerback in football. You want to tease the quarterback into thinking the receiver is open, only to find the juice to step up and intercept the ball.

It's risky. In football, the safer play is to cover the receiver so completely the quarterback looks for a better target. At the very least, you should try to just knock the ball down if the pass is made, because if you
miss the interception, it's good-bye and lights out. The receiver will be on his way to an easy touchdown while you're still looking at your hands and wondering what happened to the football.

In hockey, it's not quite as risky to make your man look open. If I missed, he wouldn't have a sure goal. But he'd be past me, probably with a couple of other guys, and in a good position to put real pressure on our defensemen. Not only that. To me it's a matter of pride that I never miss.

I didn't this time.

The Russian defensemen fed the puck up-ice to Klomysyk, who was cruising along the boards. I timed it so my legs were in full speed. Just before the puck reached Klomysyk, I was already moving like a buffalo with its tail on fire.

Klomysyk put his head down briefly to watch the puck come to his stick. That was the moment I hit him. Full shoulders. Full hips. Full body contact at warp speed.

He was one big Russian. He was so solid that for a moment I wondered if
I'd hit him or if I'd missed and hit the boards.

Then I heard the grunt of the air leaving his lungs as he collapsed like a popped balloon. He fell to his knees. I stood above him. The puck squirted to Adam Payne.

Jeff and Miles hadn't made it back yet, so they were still up the ice and wide open for a pass from Adam. Adam fired it to Jeff, who was busting toward the Russian net and cutting between the two defensemen. The puck landed perfectly on Jeff's stick, and in that flash of time we had our first breakaway.

I didn't move from where I stood over the fallen Klomysyk. I just watched and grinned as Jeff pulled the puck left, faked a backhand, pulled it back to the right and lifted the puck over the diving goalie.

One to nothing for us!

Klomysyk pushed himself to his feet, glared at me and said some loud, fast words in Russian.

I just smiled. It was nice to know when a person was appreciated for his good work.

A knock on our hotel room door woke us up for breakfast the next morning. My roommate for this tour, Nathan Elrod, bounced out of his bed and began dressing. Nathan had curly red hair. He was short and very wide, a fast skater with good hands who scored plenty of goals. This was his second year on the all-star tour to Russia. But at this moment—wearing boxer shorts decorated with Valentine hearts—he looked like anything but one of the leading goal scorers in the
WHL
.

I stayed in bed, turned my gaze to the ceiling and thought about the five hundred dollars I'd placed beneath my pillow before falling asleep. Since I had gotten the money from Chandler Harris at the airport, we'd been in a whirlwind. Bus to this hotel. A four-hour nap before last night's game. Bus back to the hotel right after the game. An entire night's sleep. I hadn't had a chance to talk to Chandler privately. As soon as I could, though, I would give him the money back.

“You played a great game last night,” Nathan said from the other side of the room. He was hopping, with only one leg in his pants. “Or did I already tell you that as we were falling asleep last night?”

“Only about a dozen times,” I said as I slid out of bed. “But you're welcome to say it another dozen times.”

I was glad to have Nathan as a roommate. Before we'd each been traded, we'd played together briefly on the Kamloops Blazers. More than a couple of times, we'd had late-night conversations on long bus trips. Serious discussions you never had in the locker room.
Meaning-of-life discussions and questions about God and things like that, which seem easier to talk about when it's dark and quiet and the highway is humming beneath the bus wheels.

“You were nailing Russians left and right,” he said, grinning. “They didn't have a chance.”

“It did feel good,” I said. “So did the 4–0 win. I hope we can keep it going and win tonight.”

Nathan pulled a T-shirt over his head.

“By the way,” he said as his head popped into sight again. “Make sure to take your food bag down to breakfast with you.”

“Why? Won't it be easier just to take what I need?”

Every guy on the team had arrived with three pieces of luggage. A suitcase with clothes for ten days of travel. A duffel bag filled with hockey equipment. And a food bag, almost as big as the duffel bag, filled with cereal, granola bars, jars of peanut butter, cans of mixed nuts, and other assorted foods that wouldn't go bad without
refrigeration. We'd each been told—actually ordered—to fill a bag because it was the best way to make sure you didn't starve or get sick.

“Why? So the hotel maids don't steal from it. We're in Russia. You take everything of value with you everywhere you go. Wallet, watch, Walkman, Game Boy.”