The Game Read Online Free

to shoot.
    Lapointe dives full out, his stick extended, and hooks the puck away.
    Lambert follows through onto bare ice.
    It doesn’t happen as often as it once did. Age, injuries, and vaguely disguised “personal problems” have complicated the game for Lapointe, robbing him of some of his zest for playing. But on those days when he isn’t distracted by illness or injury, by the current state of his relationship with Bowman or Ruel, with the press or the fans, when the slate is clean and it is just him and the game, Pointu plays with the unrestrained joy of a boy on a river, uncomplicating the game for all of us.
    After fifty minutes, Ruel blows his whistle and practice ends. A few stay on, more from habit than from commitment; I walk to the room, pick up some cans of soda, and sit down. Robinson walks by to the other end, stands on a bench, and turns on the TV. It comes on to The Gong Show and Gene Gene, the Dancing Machine is vibrating around on the floor. We let out a roar. The camera cuts to a laughing Chuck Barris wearing a Philadelphia Flyers sweater. Feeling slightly important, we let out another roar. Quickly undressed, Shutt and Larouche are in the shower. As soon as they leave the room, Tremblay drinks the Cokes they had carefully poured over ice to chill while they were showering. Then, with a wink for us, a laugh and a devil-may-care leap, he skips to the bathroom to shave. In the shower, Lambert is singing. Lapointe grabs a bucket and tiptoes to the bathroom sink like a cartoon spy. He fills the bucket with cold water, and peers around the corner of the shower. Lambert is still singing. Lapointe winds up; we hear a scream. Lapointe dashes back into the room and quickly out again, dropping his bucket. Lambert, still lathered up, races after him, screaming threats. Losing his trail, Lambert stops to pick up the bucket, fills it, and resumes his search. Finally, he finds Lapointe hiding in a toilet stall; he backs him into the room. Naked, sobbing, pleading pathetically, Lapointe falls to his knees, his hands clutched in front of him. Lambert winds up to throw the water, then stops: in Lapointe’s hands are Lambert’s clothes.
    Some days, I arrive late to practice and leave as early as I can.
    Other days, like today, I like to linger here. I read my mail, I read newspapers and look at the plaques on the walls, but mostly I just linger. I am comfortable here. It is not only a place to dress and undress, to wind up for and wind down from games. It is a place to relax and get away. It is our refuge. When restaurants, sidewalks, and theaters are taken away, when planes and buses, even our charters, are cluttered with press and ubiquitous “friends of the team,” when autograph seekers, phone calls from a friend of a friend of a friend, petty crooks armed with out-of-town schedules intrude on our homes, the dressing room remains something that is ours. For a half-hour before practice, an hour and a half before games, for a few minutes after each, there are no coaches, no press, no friends, no fans, no families. It is just us—sitting around, getting along, making something.
    Houle and Lambert make plans for lunch at a pub across the street. They ask the rest of us to go, and today many join them. Often overlooked as players, Houle and Lambert are important to our team.
    Generous and friendly, they thrive on a team’s easy, warm spirit, carrying it with them wherever they go. So when we get tired of going our separate ways and are looking for a team feeling, we look for them and find it. Today, I would like to go too, but I can’t.
    Their large group moves out noisily en masse as the trainers pick up the remaining vestiges of our practice. I stay behind. Some minutes later, I look at the clock behind me, and leave.
    Along the east wall of the Forum, overlooking Rue Closse, are the corporate offices of Le Club de Hockey Canadien Inc., a small-to-medium-sized Quebec company owned since last summer by Molson