There were only three minutes left in the third. Teddy was playing every other shift and she could see him gasping on the bench, red helmet bobbing with each shot of oxygen. He spit heartily to one side. Coach paced, clipboard a shield across his innards. She willed the white digits on the board to stop decreasing. They had to score. They had to show the freakin’ Goliaths, their roster a book of insurmountable odds. She saw Marcia across the aisle, waving her ridiculous sign with her son’s face smirking in cardboard. The coach dipped his head and Teddy’s line slid out, jumping over boards like the wood was made of string. The forward paired with Teddy bounced him with an elbow and a knee; Teddy jabbed his slingshot when the ref turned his stripey back. She wanted to weep as she watched the puck drop. The center tapped it to Teddy; he caught it and danced around one defenseman, then two. A Goliath stormed across the ice but it was too late; Teddy’s legs pumped and his blades glinted neon. Tick, tock, tick…ahhhhhh! A silky wrist, a mighty flip, an arc, a moment suspended as the puck descended…top cheese. Her knees crumpled and she dissolved as the buzzer wailed.
***
Colleen McManus Hein lives and writes in northern Illinois. She has published poems and short stories in Cram, Highland Park Poetry, and East on Central.
