Black Ice Gospel

The question hung in the frozen air, sharp as a skate blade against his throat. "You gonna just stare..."

"You gonna just stare at it or you gonna play?"

The words cut through the low-grade tinnitus that had become the soundtrack of Joey’s life. They weren’t sharp, just worn down and tired, like an old skate lace about to snap. Shawn’s voice. Of course it was Shawn. He didn’t look at him, couldn’t. Instead, Joey focused on the puck, a black disc of vulcanized rubber sitting inert on the scarred ice. It wasn’t a perfect sheet of glass like the rinks he used to play on, the ones with the Zambonis and the logos frozen under the surface. This was outdoor ice, North End ice. It was a living thing, full of cracks like fine grey veins and frozen pockets of air that could send a pass skittering off into a snowbank. It was honest, at least. It didn’t pretend to be anything other than what it was: a frozen patch of nowhere under the sickly orange glow of malfunctioning city lights.

He felt the weight of the stick in his hands, a composite ghost of a thousand others. The tape on the blade was frayed, peeling back in little white strips. He’d done it on autopilot in his cramped apartment, the familiar ritual a comfort and an accusation all at once. The smell of the wax, the pull and tear of the cloth tape, muscle memory from a life that felt like it belonged to someone else now. Someone younger. Someone who still thought the sound of a puck hitting the back of the net meant something more than just noise.

"Joey. C'mon, man. We need another body. Marco's crew is playing dirty tonight."

Another body. That’s what he was. Not a playmaker, not a sniper, not a prospect. Just a body to throw into the meat grinder of a meaningless game of shinny. He finally lifted his head, the cold air hitting his teeth with a familiar ache. The rink was a frantic swirl of motion. Ten, maybe twelve guys, all chasing the same piece of rubber. No uniforms, just a chaotic mix of faded junior team hoodies, work jackets, and mismatched socks pulled over shin pads. The only way to tell teams was a vague sense of who passed to whom. The game was a language of grunts, curses, and the percussive rhythm of sticks clashing and skates carving violent arcs into the ice.

He saw Marco across the ice. Bigger than Joey, with a thick beard that was already collecting frost. He played with a kind of brute-force efficiency, all shoulders and straight lines. He was the kind of player who didn’t go around you; he went through you. The kind of player scouts used to love, before they told Joey he thought the game too much. Before they told him the one thing he couldn’t fix.

*'You lack the fire, son.'*

The voice was crisp, clean, from a climate-controlled office that smelled of stale coffee and disappointment. A man named Peterson, with a soft gut and a firm handshake that felt like a judgment. He said it so calmly, like he was reading an eye chart. *'You see the ice, maybe better than anyone. You anticipate the play. But when it’s time to go into the corner, to pay the price… you hesitate. You lack the fire.'*

Joey blinked, the memory dissolving back into the orange gloom. He pushed off the boards, the sound of his blades a sharp tearing of the night’s fabric. He didn’t answer Shawn, just glided into the chaos. The game didn’t stop for a new player. There was no whistle, no face-off. It just absorbed him. He felt a stick lift his, a quick, unwelcome intimacy. A body bumped his hip. The overlapping shouts were a meaningless chorus.

"Wheel, wheel, wheel!"

"Chip it out!"

"Watch the point, you idiot!"

The puck came squirting out of a scrum near the snow-caked boards. It came right to him. A gift. For a microsecond, the old instincts flared. He saw the whole play laid out before him, a geometric problem he knew the answer to. He saw the lane opening up, saw Shawn drifting into the slot, saw Marco’s defenseman cheating toward the middle. He knew, with absolute certainty, that a quick pass to the boards would bounce perfectly to Shawn for a one-timer.

He held it. Just a fraction of a second too long. The hesitation. Peterson’s voice in his head again. The lane closed. A stick slammed against his, and the puck was gone, sent spinning into the corner. The collision came a moment later. Not a clean check, but a clumsy, sprawling impact as a body crashed into his. It wasn’t Marco, just some kid, all elbows and frantic energy. They went down together, a tangle of limbs and sticks. The cold of the ice seeped through his jeans instantly, a deep, wet chill that went straight to the bone. The game just swirled away from them, unconcerned.

The kid scrambled up first, spitting a curse. Joey stayed there for a second, looking up at the black, starless sky. The orange lights had halos of ice crystals around them. Each breath he took was a cloud of white vapor, proof that he was still alive, still here in this frozen scrap of the city. He didn’t feel angry. He didn’t feel anything. That was the problem, wasn't it? The fire wasn't just missing; the embers were cold.

"Get up, Joey!" Shawn yelled, skating past. He didn’t offer a hand. You didn’t, out here. You got up on your own or you froze.

Joey pushed himself up, his knee protesting with a dull throb. He picked up his stick and started skating again, not chasing the puck, just moving. A phantom in faded colours. He watched the others. He saw the desperation in them, the same desperation he tried to pretend he didn't feel. There was a guy with a cracked helmet held together with silver duct tape, his face etched with the permanent fatigue of a man who worked with his hands all day and came here to feel something else. There was a kid, no older than seventeen, with brand new skates and a clean jersey, his movements still full of that hopeful, unscarred energy. He was probably the best player out here, but he played with a kind of panic, like he knew his time was already running out. Joey saw himself in all of them. The has-beens, the never-weres, the soon-to-bes. All of them caught in this violent, pointless ballet on a slab of forgotten ice.

The puck caromed off the boards, a high, wild bounce. Joey intercepted it by pure chance. He didn’t have to think. He just moved. He deked left, pulling the puck back with the toe of his blade as a defenseman lunged. The move was so fluid, so ingrained, it felt like it was happening to someone else. He was suddenly in the clear, the goalie a dark shape against the piled-up snow that served as a net. It was just him and the goalie, a faceless figure in a cheap mask.

He could shoot. He saw the top corner, glove side. He knew he could hit it. He’d made that shot ten thousand times in his life. But then he saw Marco, a freight train in the periphery, closing in from the side. The price. Peterson’s voice again, a calm poison. *'You have to be willing to pay the price.'*

He saw Marco’s stick sweeping toward the puck. He saw the bracing of his shoulder. The collision was inevitable. And in that sliver of a second, Joey made a choice. He didn’t shoot. He didn’t brace for the hit. He passed. A soft, almost apologetic little saucer pass over Marco's stick towards a teammate who wasn't ready for it. The puck hit the other player’s skate and died in the corner. Marco’s momentum carried him past, a gust of cold air and a muttered curse.

The moment was gone. The goalie relaxed. The play reset itself in the corner, a chaotic mess of hacking sticks and grunted breaths. No one would remember the pass. No one would remember that for a single second, he’d had a clean break. It was just another fumbled chance, another forgotten moment in a game that nobody was keeping score of anyway. But Joey would remember. It was a fresh entry in the long ledger of his own cowardice.

"Jesus, Joey, shoot the damn thing!" a voice grumbled. He didn't know who.

"Had him beat!"

The chirps were just part of the noise. He skated away from the play, circling back toward his own end. His lungs were starting to burn. It wasn’t the clean burn of good conditioning. It was a raw, ragged fire, the burn of a man running on fumes and regret. The cold was a physical presence, a weight on his shoulders. It crept into the gaps in his equipment, the space between his glove and his sleeve, the exposed skin on his neck. It was a constant reminder of where he was. Winnipeg in February. The heart of a frozen continent. A good place to bury a dream.

He watched the game from a distance, gliding in lazy circles. He saw the raw, unpolished beauty in it, the thing he used to love. The way a player could pivot on a dime, sending a spray of ice into the light like a shower of diamonds. The crisp *thwack* of a hard pass hitting the tape of a stick. The camaraderie of exhaustion, the shared language of the game that transcended words. But it was all soured for him now. He couldn't see the beauty without seeing the desperation behind it. He couldn’t see the skill without seeing the dead end it led to.

These were men chasing a rubber disc on a frozen patch of nowhere. And for what? A moment of grace? A fleeting sense of victory? A way to forget the looming dread of Monday morning, of the bills piled on the counter, of the quiet, gnawing suspicion that this was it. That this frantic, freezing dance was the best it was ever going to get.

Shawn coasted up beside him, his breath coming in ragged plumes. "You alright, man? You're playing weird tonight."

"I'm fine," Joey lied. The words tasted like ash in his mouth.

"Look, just… play. Don’t think so much. It’s shinny. It doesn’t matter." Shawn clapped him on the shoulder pad, a hollow thump of plastic on plastic. But it did matter. That was the sick joke of it all. It didn’t matter to anyone else in the world, but to the dozen guys out here, it was the only thing that mattered. It mattered because it was all they had left of the dream.

The game intensified. The friendly, chaotic energy of the start had curdled into something uglier. The checks were harder, the stick-work was getting higher. A slash across the back of the legs went uncalled because there was no one to call it. An elbow to the face in a corner scrum was answered with a facewash, a rough glove scrubbing against stubble and skin. Marco was at the centre of most of it. He played with a simmering rage, as if every loose puck was a personal insult. He and Joey orbited each other, their paths crossing in brief, violent bursts. A hard shove behind the net. A stick-lift that was a little too aggressive. They hadn’t exchanged a word, but a conversation was happening nonetheless. A dialogue of leverage and force.

Joey felt a flicker of something then. Not fire. It was too cold for that. It was something else. A shard of ice in his gut. A mean, petty anger. It wasn’t the noble fire of a competitor. It was the resentful fury of a man who hated what he saw in the mirror, and hated seeing it reflected in the hard, determined face of his opponent.

He started to skate. Really skate. Not just gliding, but driving with his legs, his thighs screaming in protest. He chased down a loose puck, his focus narrowing to a single point: the black rubber against the white ice. He got to it just before it hit the boards, chipping it to himself. He felt a body on his back, leaning on him, trying to pin him. He lowered his shoulder, using his leverage to spin away, the other player sliding past. The rink opened up again. He saw Shawn breaking for the net. He saw the defenseman, the kid with the new skates, back-pedaling, his eyes wide.

This time, he didn't hesitate. He didn’t pass. He drove forward, his skates digging in. He wasn’t trying to deke the kid. He was aiming for him. He lowered his shoulder and skated straight at him. The kid tried to stand his ground, but he was too light, too hesitant. The impact was a solid, jarring crunch. The kid went down, and Joey was past him, the path to the net clear again.

But Marco was there. He’d read the play, anticipated it. He was a wall of black and red, his stick held out in front of him. This was it. The corner. The price.

*'You lack the fire, son.'*

The words echoed, but this time they weren’t a judgment. They were a challenge. A sneer. Joey gritted his teeth, the taste of blood filling his mouth where he’d bitten his cheek. He wasn’t going around Marco. He wasn't passing. He wasn't stopping. He put his head down and drove, straight for the space between Marco and the make-shift goal. He could feel the impact before it happened. He could feel the sting of the cold air on his face, the burning in his legs, the frantic thumping of his own heart. He was a missile, and the puck on his stick was just along for the ride.

He saw Marco’s eyes for a split second. There was no malice in them. Just the same grim determination he felt in himself. They were two sides of the same worthless coin. Then came the collision. It wasn’t the clean sound of a good body check. It was a wet, ugly crunch of bone and gear. Joey felt the shock of it travel up his arm, through his shoulder, rattling his teeth. He felt Marco’s weight, the solid, ungiving reality of him. But he had the momentum. He pushed through, his legs churning, driving forward even as they tangled together. He lost sight of the puck, lost sight of everything except the feeling of moving forward, of forcing his will on the world.

He heard a stick break, a sharp crack that was louder than anything else. He felt a release of pressure as he stumbled past Marco's falling body. He was through. He was falling himself, but he was through. He swung his stick wildly, a desperate, one-handed swipe in the direction of the net. He didn’t even know if he hit the puck. He just heard the sound. Not the clean *ping* of a metal post, but a dull thud. The sound of a puck hitting a snowbank. The sound of a goal.

He landed hard on his hip, sliding across the ice, coming to a stop just a few feet from the goal. The puck was there, nestled in the dirty snow. He had scored. A chorus of shouts went up from his side. Hollow whoops of victory. He looked back. The play was a still life of chaos. His broken stick lay in two pieces. And Marco was on the ice, curled on his side, not moving.

Silence fell over the rink, thick and heavy. The cheers died in the throats of the players. The only sound was the hiss of skates as everyone glided to a stop, their collective motion bleeding away into stillness. They formed a loose, uncertain circle around Marco’s prone form.

"Marco?" someone asked, their voice small in the vast, cold night.

Shawn was the first one to get to him, kneeling down. "Hey, man. You okay? Marco?"

There was no answer. Joey pushed himself up. His body ached. A deep, profound ache that had nothing to do with the fall. He skated over, his legs feeling like lead. He stood at the edge of the circle, looking down. Marco was on his side, his face turned away from Joey, his knees drawn up toward his chest. One of his gloves was off, his bare hand pale against the ice. Joey could see his own breath, a thick, steady plume in the frigid air. He couldn't see Marco's.

"Did you see what happened?" someone whispered.

"He went in hard. They both did."

"His leg… look at his leg."

Joey looked. Marco’s leg was bent at an angle it shouldn’t be. A sickening, unnatural V-shape just below the knee. The fabric of his jeans was tight against the break. Nausea rose in Joey’s throat, hot and acidic. He felt the shard of ice in his gut twist. This was the fire Peterson had talked about. This ugly, destructive, pointless thing. He’d found it. He had paid the price. And someone else was paying for it too.

Shawn looked up, his eyes finding Joey's through the gloom. There was no anger in his expression. Just a deep, bottomless exhaustion. A weary disappointment that was worse than any accusation.

"Someone call an ambulance," Shawn said, his voice flat and dead. He shrugged off his own jacket and gently laid it over Marco.

The game was over. The spell was broken. They were no longer players in a timeless ritual. They were just cold, tired men standing on a patch of ice in a bad part of the city, a long way from help. Someone fumbled for a phone with frozen fingers, the blue light of the screen an alien glow in the orange darkness. Others just started to drift away, skating slowly toward the edge of the rink, their shoulders slumped. There was nothing more to do. The hollow victory, the pointless struggle, had ended in the most pointless way possible.

Joey just stood there, gripping the jagged end of his broken stick. The cheers of his teammates echoed in his memory, thin and pathetic. He had won. He had driven the puck into the net through sheer force. He had shown them all the fire he had. And now a man was lying on the ice, maybe seriously hurt, and the victory felt like a mouthful of ashes.

He looked up at the sky again. It had started to snow. Not a heavy blizzard, just a soft, steady fall of fine, dry flakes. They swirled in the halos of the lights, a silent, indifferent confetti. They landed on his face, melting on his skin like cold tears. They settled on the ice, on the discarded gloves and the broken stick. He watched the flakes begin to collect on Marco’s still form, and the falling snow began to feel less like a blanket and more like a shroud.

He could hear the distant, approaching siren now, a mournful wail cutting through the Winnipeg night. It was a sound of consequence, a sound from the real world rushing in to reclaim them from their fantasy. The world of hospitals and broken bones and explanations. He looked at the puck, still sitting in the snowbank goal. A black hole in the white. A period at the end of a sentence he never wanted to write. The fire was real. He'd felt it. It had burned through him, and now he was just as cold and empty as before, only now there was this. This quiet, terrible stillness, this broken body on the ice. The siren grew louder, a screaming judgment that was all for him. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him more than the February air, that this game wasn't truly over. It was just beginning.