Powerplay: Hit 58

He hit his face on the ice again, lost a couple teeth. At least the other guy was sent to the penalty box. As the doctor took out the white rag to clean the bloody face of Jimmy Armon, Jimmy wondered how much longer he could evade notice. No one on the hockey team suspects anything, he thought. Jimmy’s teammate Alex Petrovich hoped nobody would suspect anything too.

Both of them were tallying a number for different reasons. 57, for Jimmy the amount of checking penalties he endured this season and for Alex the amount of attempts made to get Jimmy off the team. These two were the faces of the Albany Groundhogs, the team with the best record going into the playoffs. And while in media appearances, they played the role of the dynamic duo, they had nothing in common. Jimmy was the 22-year-old American hotshot who basked in the limelight.

Jimmy was infected with the sports god complex and used bravado at upper class lounges to pick up as many women as he could. Averaging a couple goals a game didn’t seem as important to him as sleeping with a couple of girls a week. In contrast Alex was a 41-year-old family man from Russia who was married for 20 years and was known to shun public appearances. One local newspaper said, “Petrovich plays hockey, farms in Russia, and yeah that’s his entire life.”

Armon and Petrovich were the top two scorers and each were more alike than they realized. Both of them walked into practice with dread that what they had been doing would be discovered.

Fans started to wonder how Jimmy had such grit to endure so many hits this season and why he seemed to suffer the most brutal fate that the hockey gods could bestow. It was just a supplement to try and he won't create a problem with it, he convinced himself. Jimmy was taking steroids. He figured the easy way out would make him as good a hockey player in 6 months that it takes players years to reach. Doctors normally test for that stuff but he knew people that would give him their urine so he could pass a drug test. It was shady and it was immoral but he never thought of it like that; besides, he had done this when he smoked weed at 16 and needed to pass a drug test for a job. To Jimmy, this is what he had to do to live the life he wanted to live. No one else on the team knew, especially not Alex.

Alex couldn’t figure out why Jimmy could still play hockey. 57 people he had paid off to purposefully hit Jimmy. Alex’s goal was to get Jimmy injured so that Alex could be the leader of the team heading into the playoffs. Alex was sick of Jimmy getting all the attention. While he normally preferred privacy, nothing can take away an athlete’s pride. Alex felt it was a mockery for him to be playing hockey in the league for 22 years and to be upstaged by some cocky new guy.

While teammates would dub him “the orthodox saint” because of his seemingly perfect Russian manners, Alex always knew he was no saint. His conscience tried to forget but couldn’t of the time he stole his family’s inheritance and flew to America to chase his hockey dreams. He found out later that his brother and sister died due to starvation while being homeless. A part of him felt so selfish for putting his dreams as a priority instead of sticking together in the midst of Soviet oppression. Was he being selfish again by trying to end this young kid’s career just to satisfy his ego? He didn’t have time to worry about it. He learned to stop trying to be conscientious. That would only slow him down, he thought.

The first game of the playoffs meant the Albany Groundhogs had to face the Cincinnati Panthers. Jaegu Kozakhi was today’s susceptible bribery victim. For 1,000 bucks he would try to break Jimmy’s legs. Easy money and a way to satisfy his lust for violence. Jimmy knew it would be a rough game to endure out there, it seemed the whole season everyone was out to get him. He doubled his dosage of steroids just to prepare.

By the end of the second period Albany was down 4-0. Proper hockey etiquette would have been for Cincinnati to cool down the pressure. Yet Kozhaki just remembered he hadn’t executed yet in his deal with Petrovich. So as Jimmy rushed to a goal for a fast break, he slipped and fell flat on his face. It all happened so fast it took him a second to realize that Kozakhi purposefully tripped him with his stick. The ice felt cold, the ego felt so deflated as Jimmy lay there on the ice. The team doctor rushed out and players and fans from both sides looked upon the fallen body with concern. Kozakhi gladly took his time in the penalty box, the cheap bastard was just grateful to have pocketed 1,000 bucks.

Meanwhile, Alex was beaming inside even though he had to remind himself to appear concerned. He had finally done it, he thought. Hit number 58 had done the trick. Every dime he spent to bribe other players was worth it. Now Alex would be the star of the team.

Fractured jaw out for 4-6 weeks. Just enough time to keep him out the rest of the season, Alex thought. It was worse than it seemed. The bone pierced the skin, and doctors were saying Jimmy had an infection. Meanwhile, Alex felt he was cementing his legacy. He was now the top goal scorer and received the most media attention. The Groundhogs won the championship and Alex was crowned MVP. What a perfect way to end a hockey career Alex thought.

Yet karma had a way to show itself. Nobody cared about the championship anymore; everyone was talking about the news the next morning that Jimmy had died in a hospital bed.

Alex was upset because the attention was taken away and he struggled with the idea that he was a murderer now. Nobody would ever know about Jimmy’s steroids. Nobody would ever know about Alex’s bribes. Yet Alex would live with his conscience, as every day it became harder to ignore.