It’s a busy night for Agnes. She’s done a high school league game which began at six, is two periods through a SSWHL match between the Lions and Tigers, has the SLHL at midnight, and a stats test to study for at some point in between. The senior game has been particularly rough, as both teams are fighting for a playoff spot against league-leading Midgic Gravel and Cartage. She’s broken up three fights already.
Between periods Agnes says, “Mrs Estabrooks, I’ve been thinking about the way the players commit infractions behind your back. Wouldn’t it be better if the linesman could call the penalties the referee doesn’t catch?”
Mrs Estabrooks knits her brow. “Doesn’t catch? I’m not sure what you mean. Can you offer any specifics?”
“Numbers 3 and 18 have been going at each other all game.”
Mrs Estabrooks has a good laugh. She pats Agnes on the arm. “I’ve known those two since they were in strollers. They can’t get up to anything I don’t know about.”
“But all that hooking.”
“If there’d been a serious infraction I’d have called it. You have to let the players play. You just keep your eye on those offsides.”
“I just can’t stand the cheating.”
“Rules are like sticks, Agnes. There’s a certain amount of give before they break.”
“Then why didn’t you bend on the Finnish players?”
“That’s entirely different.” There’s a note of annoyance in her voice now. “That was a matter of policy. Really, Agnes, you have to learn the difference between large and small issues before I can make you a referee. Now you’ve made me upset, and we have another twenty minutes to get through. I’m not used to being second-guessed. To think I passed up supper for this. My stomach is growling! Make yourself useful, Agnes, and go and get me a hot dog. Lots of sauerkraut. Here’s a five. Be sure and count the change.”
Agnes puts down her textbook, takes the money and goes. She counts the change. She loads on the sauerkraut, then looks among the condiments to see if there’s a bottle of poison. When she gets back someone has stolen her stats book.
Game Seven, midnight. The Isobels are doing stretches when Emily leans toward Josey and asks, “So, are you going to be playing with us tonight, or just yourself?”
Josey, in her best locker room sang froid, replies, “But, Emily, I wasn’t by myself at all last night. How were things in your lonely cot?”
Kirsten and Courtney exchange merry looks.
Emily, who was alone, and has been for some months, says, “Fuck.”
Agnes observes this exchange from centre ice, then skates over to the timekeeper’s table. She’s in a bad mood about Mrs Estabrooks, the textbook, and, a bit to her chagrin, Dwayne. The sight of Jacinthe with her cheek on her hand and her mind a million miles from the score sheet doesn’t help.
“Do you have the roster changes?”
“There are none.”
“Do you know somebody stole my stats textbook today?”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Your Isobels are out there sniping at each other. Putting those hip hoppers together with the Harriers was like mixing oil and water. You ought to have recruited enough players for three teams. What stopped you?”
Jacinthe is scandalised. “Time, Agnes!”
Agnes intentionally misconstrues this as the signal to start the game, and skates to centre ice. She whistles, drops the puck, and backs up and waits for the two teams to notice that the game is on. The Finns clue in first, get their extra players off the ice, scoop up the puck, and streak through the disorganized Isobels. Hanne shoots and scores on Jodi, who isn’t even sure where the net is behind her.
Josey and Emily both fly into Agnes’s face and start yelling. Agnes patiently examines the puck in her hand. Eventually she asks, “Which one of you is captain?”
Josey: “You know it’s me.”
“Then why is this one talking to me?” Meaning Emily.
Josey: “Go to the bench, Emily.”
“The fuck?”
“Go.”
She goes ten feet, turns, gets a harsh look from Josey, leans to one side, spits, skates to the bench and sits on her arse.
Agnes: “What kind of a team are you running?”
“There’s nothing the matter with my team. I’d look at the officiating.”
“Who’s your assistant captain?”
“We haven’t chosen one.”
“Chose one now.”
“Courtney. Why?”
Agnes blows her whistle.
“She’ll have to act in your stead. You’re in the box for ten minutes for abusing the official.”
Josey elaborately shoulders her stick and goes to the box. She calls to the bench, “Courtney’s in charge.”
Emily stands, outraged.
Courtney: “Okay, Isobels! Get that goal back!”
Laura: “Wooooo!”
Irene and Louise pull Emily back down. She puts her head down and says, “So I bring in five players but I can’t be president, captain or assistant captain.”
Josey to Jacinthe: “Your friend Agnes is a crazy bitch. Emily too.”
“They’re both just trying too hard.”
“They’d both better chill out. They’re starting to piss me off.”
The game rapidly turns Louhi’s way. Courtney is a novice bench boss and gets dinged twice for too many women. Though, to be fair, the Finns prove to be experts at turning over the puck during an Isobel line change, involving both lines in the play. Hanne takes full advantage and pretty much wraps up the scoring title, potting three.
The mood on the Isobel bench does not improve much when Karin Ek dashes out of her crease, flips the puck into the air and bats it cricket-style into the night sky above the rink. Everyone stops and searches the heavens for the spinning black object. Suddenly it hits the ice twenty feet in front of the Isobel goal. Jodi goes right, it goes left, and the Finnish goalie gets her first ever goal.
After that the play gets chippy, especially once Josey gets back on. Each face-off becomes a headbutting match, and the snowbanks lose a lot of their Tuula-tended perfection. The stickwork increases. A penalty to Courtney puts Josey and Emily on the ice at the same time.
Face-off. Agnes jumps back as both teams plough together into a rugby-like scrum. They battle, shoving one another on the shoulder and digging with their sticks. The puck ricochets away and the players go after, except Josey and Emily whose skates entangle, throwing them both to the ice in a spin. As Emily recovers her feet Josey throws a slash at her, dropping her to one knee. Then as Josey clambers past her Emily rolls onto her back and chops her across the facemask. Josey lands on Emily and they start throwing punches.
Their teammates drag them apart.
Agnes skates up to Jacinthe holding Emily by one sleeve and Josey by the other. “Murphy and Wood, two minutes each for roughing, five minutes for fighting, and a game misconduct!”
Jacinthe: “But they’re on the same team!”
“I don’t give a damn! They’re bringing the game into disrepute!”
Josey: “I’m going up to the house.”
Agnes: “You’ll do no such thing! You’re supposed to be the captain! You’ll sit in that chair till I tell you to get up!”
Josey makes an angry head motion but holds her tongue.
Emily: “What about me?”
“You sit and be quiet! I never met such foolishness! Yes, you heard me! Foolishness!” To Jacinthe: “Are you going to do something about this?” She whistles with her fingers and skates over to the face-off dot.
Both Emily and Josey glare at Jacinthe.
"Well, are ya?”
“Yeah, are ya?”
Jacinthe tucks her chin in and watches the rest of the game from deep inside her hood. Louhi wins 7 to 1.
The next night the teams line up for the anthems, but before anyone can sing, Jacinthe slides out to centre ice and announces, “Teams Isobel and Louhi declare a trade! Emily, Irene and Kirsten to Louhi; Marita, Katja and Marja-Helena to Team Isobel!”
Emily breaks her stick on the ice and barrels over to Jacinthe. “You could’ve traded her.”
“It’s her team.”
“Fuck!” She skates in a small circle and comes back. “I’m not buying new pants!”
The traded players swap jerseys and positions in line. Emily puts her heart and soul into the Finnish anthem, then scores a hat trick. The Daughters of Louhi take it 4 to 3.
That night Nell, Henrietta and Louise get drunk, Nell really drunk. They weave up York Street hollering and swearing. A town police cruiser keeps pace with them a while until Louise convinces them they’re going straight home. Which they don’t. They turn into Hunton and pound on doors till they find some of their teammates and berate them about the shit deal 5F has got. This does little to endear them to the rest of the team, or the team to the rest of Hunton. They end up sleeping it off in the common room. Josey and Jacinthe, asleep in one another’s arms, don’t hear about it till the morning, from the house don.
Josey calls a practice. When she phones, Marja-Helena the Finn lets out a pent-up breath and says how terrible she feels about everything, as if it were her fault. When the Isobels arrive at the rink that evening the three phone workers are there with thermoses of cocoa and insulated lunch bags full of fresh baked cookies. Marita, Katja and Marja-Helena are the three oldest women playing in the tournament, all thirty plus, and they respond to the crisis in full maternal mode. After explaining to the rest what a pleasure it is to become part of such a fine team of chaste young women they skate over to F3 and talk to them personally. A still somewhat grey Nell comes in for particular attention, Marja-Helena telling her that youth can be tough but that she for one can tell that Nell has what it takes to come through it with treasure. Nell practically crumbles and holds up the practice for about ten minutes while she unloads her heart to her. Marja-Helena quietly guides her off to one side, figuring the others don’t need to hear all about Nell’s father or her first boyfriend. After some Kleenexes the practice gets going and turns out really well, especially after the Moms (as they come to be called) break down the Louhi playbook.
Armed with this information Team Isobel go into Game Nine and confound Louhi to the tune of 5 to 1 employing a rapid series of forward passes down the middle lane.
“What is that, Jacinthe?”
“It’s the torpedo system, Kaitlyn!”
“How do you know about that?”
“From a book!”
“Wow!”
After the game a sweating Josey cruises up to the Jacinthe and kisses her full on the mouth, holding on to her by the nape of the neck. The kiss goes on and on until many of the Isobels start whooping and banging the ice with their sticks. When she finally lets go Jacinthe sways and knocks over her chair.
The next day Jodi and Rhiannon sit down opposite each other at lunch. Normally hockey players and wiccans wouldn’t have much to talk about, but now their heads are bent together.
“So what do you think about Xena and Gabrielle?”
“I think Xena is in it deep. And Gabrielle doesn’t have a sweet clue.”
“Do you think it’ll end well?”
They look each other in the eye and shake their heads.
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