The Game Read Online Free Page A

Breweries of Canada Ltd. I walk upstairs to the second floor, and follow a wide corridor more than a third of the way around the building until I see a large unmarked blue door. I press the buzzer beside it. From inside, another buzzer is pressed, the door unlocks, and I walk in.
    At the reception desk, I ask to see Mr. Courtois. I tell the receptionist that he is expecting me. E. Jacques Courtois, a courtly, aristocratic Montreal lawyer, about fifty-five, is president of the Canadiens. The receptionist returns in a few moments, and shows me into his office. With Courtois is Irving Grundman. I shake hands with both of them and sit down. Before we are quite comfortable, Grundman asks me about last night’s game. I tell them that we played well, intending to leave it at that, but I keep talking, more and more involved in what I am saying, as they seem to be in listening. When finally I finish, there is a pause. I take a deep breath and begin. I tell them that I have thought over what we discussed in our previous meeting, but that my feelings have not changed. I tell them I will retire at the end of this season. There is another pause, longer this time.
    Finally Courtois smiles. “Naturally I’m disappointed,” he says, “but I am not surprised.”
    I always knew that the time would come; I just never thought it would come this way. When I was young, I always assumed that hockey would just end. That some September, some coach would tell me I was no longer good enough, and it would all be over. Each year, in a new age group, it might have happened. But it never did. Eight years ago, I joined the Canadiens; I had run out of age groups. For the first time since I had started playing, it seemed that I might have many more years to play. For the first time, it seemed possible that the decision to stop might be my own.
    Before my first season had ended, I was already being asked when I would retire. I was only twenty-three, but I was also in my second year of law school, and others knew that soon I would need to make a choice—a year of articling (like internship for a medical student, a law school graduate in Canada must work in a law office for up to a year before he can practice law), and six months of bar examinations, both done outside Quebec, or hockey.
    And without exception, those who for years had written or dreamed the dream of sports assumed that I would retire and practice law. I told anyone who asked that I had no plans to retire, that I would continue to play as long as I enjoyed playing and enjoyed it more than anything else I might do. I couldn’t be sure how long that would be, of course, but in my mind I thought it would be until I was thirty.
    Two years ago, when I was twenty-nine years old, I decided to play one more season. Before I was entirely committed to my own plan, Sam Pollock, then general manager of the Canadiens, offered me a generous extension to my contract, which had one year left to run.
    The offer came after what had been for me a beleaguered season.
    While (in many ways, it was because ) the team had lost only ten games (eight regular-season, two playoff games), I had felt under constant, almost angry pressure in Montreal to justify myself as the team’s number one goalie. Outside Montreal, it was no easier. With Vachon playing well in Los Angeles, and Glenn Resch the same in New York, I kept hearing the same questions with the same harassing inferences.
    I took Pollock’s offer as tangible encouragement and agreed to the new contract. It was for four years, but at any time during the contract I could give Pollock one year’s notice of my decision to retire. I told him I thought I would play two more years. Last June, having played one more season, I told him I would retire at the end of this year.
    I have not enjoyed this year very much. For nearly the first time in my career, for the first time in my life, I am feeling old. I am thirty-one years old. I feel good. I feel the same: no more