Chapter 11 & 12: Sociopaths
Shouldn’t Play Hockey
Duct-taped
socks aside, the author of Offside
does seem to know her hockey, which is good since this chapter is mostly the
hockey game.
Billie’s
line takes the first shift and she wins the first face-off against
Seth-the-Asshat. Logan gets the puck to one of Billie’s wingers who gets it to
her. She gets it around the backwards-skating defenseman, shoots, and scores,
all within 7 seconds of puck drop. Unlike, say, the “breakaway” in the novella
I interrupted with on Monday, the description and terminology all makes sense.
The
crowd, which seems to be almost entirely made of people there to cheer on Billie,
goes pretty wild, as if this were a Stanley Cup game instead of a Beer League
Hockey game. Billie’s goal and the reaction seem to piss off the other team
even more than the fact of her penis-less hockey-playing existence, and they
start to target her on the ice.
Logan glanced at her, his expression
serious. “These guys are out to get you… you know that right? Especially if you
chip away at their pride for the entire game.”
“They can try,” she said carefully,
not sure where this was going. “But I’m not worried. It’s no contact.”
“You think guys don’t get hurt?
There’s a lot of shoving out there especially when the game gets intense.” He
motioned toward the other bench. “It’s gonna get intense.”
“I think that I have more of a chance
of getting hurt walking down the street than I do playing in this league.”
“What about your concussion?”
“What about it?” she replied
belligerently. The word alone was enough to sting and it sure as hell wasn’t
something she wanted to discuss with him. “I’m fine. My doctors say I’m fine.”
I
should be in Sweden (185).
I
don’t normally quote huge swaths of text, but this is some interesting
information, particularly in light of a comment conversation I had last week.
First,
Logan is correct that injuries happen even in non-contact hockey, because
hockey is a fast-paced game and if you lose control for even a little bit, bad
things can happen. On the other hand, there is a referee (he’s mentioned in
this chapter, although he seems to hate Billie. Shocking, that.) Shoving should
not, in fact, be happening in a non-contact game. There could be some, I guess,
if you’re trying to dig a puck out of the corner, but that’s about it, and even
that, if it gets the least bit obvious, should be broken up by the ref. If he
hates Billie and thus lets it go for a bit, he should get in significant
trouble (for letting anything go) with USAHockey or whichever governing body
this New Wateford ice rink uses. (And since this rink has 2 sheets of ice and
has youth hockey playing there, they’d be out of business seriously quick as
soon as someone got hurt if they weren’t covered by USAHockey or something
similar.) So while you can probably see where this chapter is going, it
shouldn’t be.
Second,
indeed what about that concussion?
Billie has no symptoms. She should indeed be playing in Sweden if she’s allowed
to play at all, frankly. I’m not saying that getting a head injury is ever
good, and in fact getting a second one is generally exponentially worse, but
professional players continue to play hockey all the damn time. (Look at
Crosby.) If she has no symptoms, there is no reason why she can’t keep playing
in Sweden. If she has symptoms, she shouldn’t be playing even Beer League. (I
had previously decided she was playing non-contact and not allowed to play in
Sweden because her doctors feared what would happen if she got hurt again, but…
no. That doesn’t actually make sense, particularly in light of the fact that
the novel specifies that the Swedish game is high skill and less contact than
NHL.
Harrumph.
At
any rate, Logan tells Billie to “play smart” and says that he has her back. She
refused to change anything for the sake of the other team and goes forth to
play as best as she can.
Was it sportsmanlike to make fools of
the other team? To stick handle the puck around grown men and make them look
like hacks? Hell no, but in the heat of the moment, with so many of them
hurtling insults at her—ones that would make a sailor squirm – she didn’t give
a rat’s ass (186).
I
don’t actually see a problem with her making them look like fools. It’s not fun
to have a ringer on the opposing team, granted. I once played a just-for-fun
D-League level game where the coach played on the opposing side. He skated
circles around us, ran up the score, and generally made us all look like
pylons. But in this case, the guys on the opposing team here deserve it. And
also, this is supposed to be the very highest level of Beer League hockey—which
means that Billie should be allowed to play her best. It’s not like she’s
playing drop-in hockey with the Development League, after all.
The
opposing team gets her boxed-in in a corner, trying to get at the puck, and
instead of poking for the puck, they start poking at her. They get her in the
calves several times and then get a stick up under her jersey and “a ragged
piece of blade caught the soft skin under her arm” (188).
I’m
trying to figure out how that would work. First, the guy with the “ragged piece
of blade” would have had to have known his stick is “ragged” because you check
that sort of thing before playing (that’s what the tape (NOT DUCT TAPE) is
for.) Second, according to this book, everyone is wearing long underwear
(harrumph) so Billie should have been protected. (Even if not wearing long underwear, I’m sure
that Billie, unlike Chris Higgins, wears at least a shirt under her shoulder
pads, so there’d be something.) But more important than either of those points,
to get the blade up under her jersey, the other player would have had to have
the stick essentially upside down in his hands or be standing pretty far from
her. If the latter, I don’t see how (amongst pushing and trying to get the
puck) he could have intentionally have gotten the blade where he wanted it. If
the former, the ref, no matter how bad, should have whistled ages ago.
During
this scuffle, which is apparently completely intentional, Seth hisses in
Billie’s ear that she’s a bitch who doesn’t belong in the men’s league.
Seth
has issues, dude.
Once
the whistle finally does blow, Billie turns around and wants to go after Seth.
He glances away from her and Billie realizes that the entire rink has gone
silent because she’s bleeding.
She was standing in a circle of blood
(189).
Holy
carp. Did the goon on the other team use the hockey duct tape to lash a
freakin’ switchblade to his stick? How does the (rounded!) toe of a hockey
stick draw this much blood?
The
narrative, moving into chapter twelve, tries to answer this by saying that Seth
plays with a wooden stick (no one still plays with a wooden stick. Seriously.)
[Logan] was betting [Seth] was more
than aware his stick needed tape, and that the edge was ruined (190,
comma error original).
So…
Seth goes to the rink, gets ready to play, and realizes his stick needs tape.
In fact, if your blade is ruined enough to draw
blood, you need a new stick, but sure, whatever. So knowing this, Seth
spends the whole game trying to get Billie in a corner, trapped by himself and
two other players. Which means that his wingers need to be in on this. Then
once he succeeds, he basically just forgets the game and wields his stick as a
weapon?
Fuck
this guy. He’s not just an asshat misogynist, he’s a sociopath.
