Revenge Stories When People Get Way Too Personal

‘If you want to play with the Big boys you better be ready for the hits A,’ the coach told him.

The coach was the father of one of our goalies, and both of them readily hated A.

‘If you are mad then hit back, legally,’ he told A, meaning for A to take the Gordie Howe approach and get your revenge without breaking the rules.

The coach also had known me for five years as I had been on his son’s team. Goaltenders tend to like the big Defenders who shove people away from the crease and punish people who crashed the net on them. By this point, I was well into the coach’s good graces, and he knew of my usual trick with dealing with smaller faster players.

We set up for the drill again, this time I was on the outside and the coach fired the puck so A would be the trailer. I could hear A coming up from behind me, and I guessed that he would crosscheck from behind, the kind of dirty move referees almost never call smaller players on when they hit bigger players.

Not wanting to take a wooden shaft to my back, I waited until I was nearing the goal line, and then hard stopped, letting my stick in my left hand (I used a lefty stick) to touch the puck while plating my feet and dropping my shoulder.

A crashed face-first into my right shoulder, I had timed it nearly perfectly, he had just enough time to slow marginally, and learned away backward, but he could not prevent the hit. In addition to the hit to the face, he prompt fell backward slamming the back of his (helmeted) head into the ice.

I had lost control of the puck and turned grabbed the puck and slowly went back to the line.