The Goalie Bet novel · Chapter 26 of 32

Chapter 26: Overtime

Four minutes of regulation and he didn't face a shot.

The horn went and the building came apart and both teams went to their benches.

Overtime. Sudden death.

I stood in the training room with my hands on the back of the stool and watched the cart TV.

Logan skated to his net and scraped the snow out of his crease.

He looked fine. He always looked fine.

Ninety seconds in, a shot from the point and he dropped into a butterfly and the puck hit his pad and stayed out.

He got up on his stick.

Second shift, a scramble in front, and he smothered it with his glove and held the whistle.

Third shift he went post to post and got there and the crowd made a long noise.

Fourth shift he came out behind the net to play a puck off the boards.

He got there first and moved it up the wall.

Then he turned to get back and his right leg didn't answer.

He went down onto one knee and got up and stayed in the play.

Nine minutes in, a two-on-one.

The pass came across and he moved and stopped it with his toe.

The rebound came out front and the defenseman cleared it and the puck went off the glass and out.

Nobody scored.

Eleven minutes.

Then the puck went the other way and their goalie played it behind his own net and the forechecker got a stick on it and it went in.

The building went up.

I couldn't hear the horn. I felt it in the floor.

The cart TV showed the bench emptying and the pile at center ice.

Logan was in the middle of it with his helmet off and both arms over his head.

Then the pile broke and he skated toward the gate.

He got there and stopped.

He stood holding the boards with both hands and didn't step off.

The trainer went to him. Then the team doctor.

They brought him off the ice and down the tunnel with a hand under each arm and his stick under the other one.

I was already at the door.

The tunnel was concrete and short and loud.

They took him past the locker room and into the training room and put him on the table.

The doctor cut the laces on his right skate and worked it off.

Logan put his forearm across his face.

"Grade one or grade two," the doctor said. "I'm not guessing in here. We scan tomorrow."

"Okay."

"Can you move it."

He flexed his foot.

"Good. No weight on it."

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