Breakaway

The ice was the only place Eric felt free.

When he was 5 it was where he escaped to. Skating circles on the backyard rink many Canadian households made during the winter. Taking shot after shot. Falling on his ass, covered in bruises.

Being scolded by his father for being a sissy and crying, “It’s for a girl, Eric.”

By the time he emerged from PeeWees and transitioned to Bantam, Eric was very aware of where to keep his eyes in the locker room. Like his father, the boys could smell it on him. He was different. He wasn’t sure he was like that, not one hundred percent.

Not until one day Johnny Powers sat next to him on the bus. He sat so close his whole body pressed up against Eric’s side, making his heart race and pump all of his blood into his groin. That’s how he knew.

Eric spent the rest of U14 trying to make sure he was seated next to Johnny on the bus to feel him press in even harder. To look up at Eric through his long bangs with a shy smile that sent his stomach plummeting.

So Eric kept his head down, trying to fly under the radar while secretly returning Johnny’s shy smiles. His mind was constantly scheming for a way to be close to him, and to get him alone. It was an incredible risk, but worth it for the ability to brush fingertips on those long bus rides. To fall asleep slumped against eachother. They were hiding in plain sight. No one seemed to pay them any attention.

Johnny was into comics and would always have a fresh stack for Eric. He spoke passionately and Eric could listen to him all day. When they weren’t at practice they talked on the phone. He read the comics he picked out trying to understand the deeper meanings Johnny seemed to be trying to convey. Eric couldn’t help but notice the tight fitting outfits and very close male friendships were a recurring theme. Eric started to think that perhaps some of the characters were like them. More than friends.

It gave Eric a shred of hope to hold on to.

Eventually, he got the courage and opportunity to bring him home to practice in the back yard rink. His family had an old barn, and he brought Johnny in to warm up. Eric was caught off guard when Johnny wasted no time pressing him up against a table kissing him sloppily. His dick was rock hard in an instant and he let his body take over. Teenage hormones coursing through him. They barely got their pants open and were rutting against eachother desperately. The whole act was over quickly and nearly interrupted by his father. They were pulling up their pants when his father barged in. The adrenaline immediately turned to fear and burning shame. That was the last Eric saw of Johnny. His dad had him kicked off the team. Eric scanned rosters for his name, but it seemed to be the end of his hockey career, and Johnny was never seen or heard from again. Eric’s burgeoning career was his consolation prize. His dad was just getting started. His him billeted in Kingston for Junior B and A and he was in prime position to take the next steps straight to the NHL.

1988 was the most tumultuous year of Eric’s life. The gay disease was now had a name, AIDS. Eric would scan newspapers for information and kept his hands to himself. It wasn’t worth losing his life over. He took girls on dates like he was expected to. He held their hands and gave them a chaste kiss on the lips to end the evening. He always walked them right to their door at the end of the night and never went inside with them. There was no point in wasting anyone’s time on a charade. Eric locked that part of himself somewhere deep inside. He was too busy focusing on his goals for the distraction of sex, no matter the sex of his preferred partner.

The year began in Moscow where brought World Junior championship title home to Canada. He was 19 and on top of the world. That summer, he was selected for the first round of the NHL Entry Draft and was selected 19th overall to the Edmonton Oilers, the reigning 1988 Stanley Cup champions.

His euphoria was short lived when the unthinkable happened. On August 9, 1988 his idol and future teammate, Wayne Gretzky, was traded to the LA Kings. Eric was devastated.

They happened to be playing the Washington Capitals on December 1, 1988, the inaugural World AIDS Day. Eric slipped away from the team during that trip to visit the AIDS quilt at the Washington mall. He was terrified that he would be caught, but he knew he had to pay his respects to those that were braver than him. To the men who risked everything in the name of living life on their own terms. The least he could do was bundle up in a plain black parka, hat and sunglasses and hope he would go unrecognized among the mourners.

The next season he was traded to his home team, the Toronto Maple Leafs where he remained for the rest of his career and only a handful of sexual partners along the way. By the mid-90s HIV testing, treatment, and prevention was common knowledge and Eric felt more comfortable with dipping his toes in the waters of the gay scene.

He mainly stuck to hooking up with other closeted players, figured they were safe since they were unlikely to be sleeping around and had as much to lose as Eric if word got out.He met a few nice guys in non-hockey cities where he would also get tested whenever he had the chance.

As the 90s drew to a close with celebrities like Ellen coming out, Eric figured it would be inevitable that one day everyone would know about him too. By 2000, he had his heart broken. He figured it was better to have loved than lost, even though he could have lost it all.

The ice was always his freedom, so why did he feel suffocated by the cold rink air? He felt like he was trapped in a prison of his own making with no way out.

By the start of the 2002-2003 season he had endured 14 grueling and lonely years in the NHL, he was coming up on his 13th season. His body could probably withstand another couple seasons of hits and fights, but it was his mental health that was hanging on by a thread. His panic attacks were getting harder to control. He was breaking under the weight of the constant pressure and hiding. He was getting tired of making himself smaller so he would be accepted by others.

He knew he could continue but at what cost? Until his body gave up? At the expense of his nonexistent personal life? At the expense of his identity? Eric felt like it was finally time get off the sidelines of his own life and step into the game.

He was finally considering hanging up his skates.

#

Something rotten hung in the dressing room’s air, and it wasn’t due to the broken air conditioner. They were barely into the preseason. It was practice before the Blue and White game, a scrimmage that divided the Toronto Maple Leafs into two teams. The game is usually played for a good cause, and this year, the Maple Leafs would be playing for middle school kids.

Eric was wishing he was anywhere else. He was feeling nervous about starting his 13th season in the NHL. It felt inauspicious. He feared he was cursed. He stared at the team slogan painted on top of the stalls in large blue box letters. It was taunting him.

It’s a privilege, not a right.

It never seemed more like a lie than it did on that day as the head coach, Bob Axelrod, stood on top of a chair, laying into the team about their “abysmal” practice. Eric was slumped in his stall, absently picking at the tape on his stick while trying to tune him out. He was at it once again on a rant full of head-scratching Saskatchewanisms, or whatever planet it was where Bob Axelrod learned to speak his peculiar brand of colloquial English.

Eric tried his best to avert his gaze from the spit that collected on the side of his mouth. His venomous words were pushed out with enough force to eject the occasional spittle. It churned up bile in Eric’s stomach.

The Toronto Maple Leafs were a storied franchise, one Eric used to feel proud of being a part of. One of the Original Six NHL organizations and Eric’s home team he grew up cheering for, it was a dream come true. Their history was filled with exciting moments and great success. However, Stanley Cup success wasn’t something anyone younger than 60 years old had ever witnessed. Still, it was an honor to play for this hockey club. Well, at least it used to be.

Lately, Eric was all too aware of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ history, which wasn’t often discussed. That would be the scandals. Things got so bad last season that fans threw their Leafs jersey onto the ice at a home game. Despite their recent playoff success, they still hadn’t made it to a cup final in decades.

When Axelrod was first brought on, Eric was pleased. Ax was known for his smart hockey mind, tough locker room presence, and recent Stanley Cup victory for the St. Louis Blues. However, during his two-year tenure, Axelrod’s only accomplishment had been making a rookie piss himself so badly the ice was actually stained yellow for a few days. It quickly became apparent that he lacked social awareness and was quite cruel and even sadistic. He had created a police state with zero privacy, conducting searches of the player’s luggage on roadies. He confiscated porn, booze, other illegal substances and sometimes cash.

When he wasn’t visibly intoxicated, it seemed that it was his mission to completely turn this beautiful sport that Eric loved so dearly into a source of pain and misery. In Eric’s opinion, Ax was the single worst thing to happen to the Leafs. The team was as strong as ever, with a core of elite forwards, greasy defensemen like Eric holding down the blue line, and a successful goalie tandem. The team had all the elements for success yet could never quite get there.

The closest they came was in their last season, Eric scored the game winner in overtime. He’s been more of a grinder in his career but effective in his role. He wasn’t an enforcer and didn’t have the size for that, but he was a physical player and never hesitated to get into scraps. His willingness to drop the gloves made him a fan favorite and a leader on the team. The year before Ax took over, the former coach promoted him to assistant captain, and Eric proudly wore the A on his jersey. He felt he earned it every day, standing up for his teammates. It was the one thing Ax hadn’t taken from him.

Even though he had just showered and changed into clean clothes, his hair and shirt were once again drenched with sweat. Was the heat on? He picked at the tape until it started to unravel, and Ax droned on and on. More empty promises about how this season they will turn it around. Same old bullshit year after year. He’d seen it all in his 12 seasons on the team.

Hockey was a superstitious affair. Eric had his own game-day rituals or compulsions. He wasn’t alone; plenty of guys had even crazier obsessive routines. His was pretty simple. He kept the same equipment for years and discontinued CCM pads that were taped together with a wing and a prayer. The equipment guys were great at sewing them up for him. He stuck with what he was comfortable with and what he was successful with.

But something about how miserable he was entering this 13th season felt wrong. He couldn’t shake a foreboding sense that something bad would happen. In the off-season, he had sent a message to his lawyer, and he was starting to think about exit options. He never heard back and put it in the back of his mind. What choice did he have but to put one skate in front of the other and show up at training camp like usual?

Once dismissed from the dreadful team meeting, Eric hurriedly made his way to the parking lot. He normally walked to the practice facility since he lived a few blocks away. But he had driven today because he had promised to come out and visit his sister.

“Eric! Hey, Eric, wait up.”

Eric turned around and was face to face with Noah Burke, one of the more insufferable rookies who was high on Ax’s shitlist. He stared down at Eric with his warm, amber eyes, scratching nervously at his thick red beard. Eric had become something of a mentor to him as they were often D-partners throughout his red beard. Eric had his rookie season. Noah was a second-round draft pick and didn’t deserve Ax’s abuse, unlike Mike Moore, a gifted winger with the maturity of a 12-year-old. Noah was intelligent, sensitive, and a great teammate—but he had one fatal flaw that Ax pressed incessantly. He was gay.

It was a topic that Eric had successfully dodged for the entire season, including a few uncomfortable roadies where they had to share a room. As lonely and horny as Eric was at times, he would never be interested in such a young guy. That, and he learned early on what a horrible idea it was to shit where you eat.

“Do you have a minute?” Noah asked, looking every bit like a little kid begging to stay up late.

Eric rolled his eyes. “Get in.”

Noah scurried to the passenger seat, and Eric pulled out of the parking lot as fast as he could. He didn’t like to be seen with Noah outside of the necessary situations as they both had the gay rumor clouds over them. He didn’t need any further speculation. And it didn’t help matters that Noah lived in Toronto’s gay village, a risk Eric wouldn’t dream about.

“Where are we going?”

Eric looked at him incredulously. “I’m taking you home.”

“Thought you never go down Church Street?”

Eric gripped the wheel tighter. “Noah—”

Noah put a hand on Eric’s thigh and trailed it into his groin. Eric swerved the car slightly before pulling over.

“Jesus Christ! Do you want to cause an accident?” Eric shouted into the steering wheel while trying to will his erection down. He was not interested in Noah. Not by a long shot. But he was human, and it had been a very long time since anyone had touched him that way. Noah unbuckled his seatbelt and was moving in for a kiss.

Eric’s hand shot up to block him. “Kid, take a hint.”

It always seemed that he got propositioned at the worst possible moments. And he couldn’t think of a worse time than right now. For all the time he and Noah spent together, he was baffled at why he made a move now. It’s not that Eric found him unattractive. There was no denying that he was a good-looking guy, but perhaps he wasn’t Eric’s type. Whatever that means. Eric wasn’t sure what his type was, but he was sure that it wasn’t guys over 10 years his junior who took insane risks like going to gay clubs right in Toronto! Eric knew better than to get his rocks off with a loose cannon. Especially one that he had to work so closely with. And besides, Eric wasn’t really looking for quick, no-strings-attached sex. Eric wasn’t looking for anyone, but he knew that if he ever did meet someone,e they would need to be more discreet and mature. Someone he could trust.

Noah ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He suddenly looked like he was going to cry, the only thing that could make this situation even worse than it already was. He covered his face with his hands and choked out a sob.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Noah said before descending into full-blown sobbing.

Eric sighed. “Don’t, don’t do that.” He extended a shaky arm onto Noah’s shoulder.

“Hey, look at me,” Eric said softly. Noah looked up, his face flushed crimson, several shades darker than his copper hair. Eric swallowed before continuing. “I’m gay.” The words felt strange on his lips, and Eric realized it was probably because it was the first time he had said them aloud.

Noah grabbed Eric’s hand, which he quickly withdrew. Noah looked confused and hurt. “Why not?”

“Where do I start? You’re too young. We’re linemates.”

“I don’t care about any of that. Don’t you like me?”

Eric sighed. “As a friend.”

“But, I thought—”

“What? You think because we’re both gay that it’s a given we’re going to fuck?” Eric asked, trying not to reveal how angry the implication made him. “Don’t you want to play hockey?”

“I do. But I want to fuck you more,” Noah said with a leer.

“Jesus.” Eric scrubbed his face with his hand, growing exasperated with the direction this was taking. “I’m your mentor and linemate. I am not throwing my career away on a few fucks. You need to grow up.”

“Fuck you, Eric,” Noah shouted.

“No.” Eric shook his head. “Fuck you,” he said remaining perfectly calm on the outside as he seethed internally. He knew that he needed to keep his cool and keep things as professional as possible. “I’m your captain and you need to stop. You think Ax doesn’t know about your trips to Church Street? Even the papers are starting to pick it up.”

That finally shut him up, and Noah appeared to be taken aback by that. Eric continued his lecture. “It’s not a fucking joke. I refuse to get mixed up in whatever you’ve got going on. Unlike you, I’ve never even wandered within 100 feet of a gay club. I’ve played it 100% straight but I still have the occasional Erica taunt. What do you think they’ll call you?”

“I don’t care what they call me.”

“Suit yourself. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“So that’s it? You shut down? I’m right here, all the sex you want unless you have someone. Didn’t figure you for the relationship type.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation about how I live my life. But, uh, a piece of advice: Don’t get caught. It’s not just your career on the line.”

The discussion was apparently over, and Eric was eminently grateful for that. He pulled away, and they drove silently the rest of the way. Once Noah was out of the car, Eric felt the beginnings of a panic attack, something that he had been dealing with as a teenager whenever anyone got close to learning about his sexuality. He released a shaky breath and managed to steady his heart rate by doing breathing exercises he got from a book.

#

“You’ll need to sign these.”

Eric wasn’t a big fan of his lawyer and looked down at the pile of papers he just unceremoniously dumped down onto the table. Brad Campbell was cold and serious and rarely gave Eric the time of day. In fact, it took months to even get this meeting, and Eric wasn’t quite sure what the papers were, and he didn’t want to ask. He skimmed them quickly, and they looked like endorsements.

“You got a pen?” Eric asked, trying to move things along. He was probably as enthusiastic about his lawyer as he was about Eric. Brad seemed to be an elitist. He was far too good for the likes of Eric, a working-class boy propelled to fame because he was good at punching people.

Brad pulled a heavy gold pen from his jacket pocket. The thing was probably worth more than Eric’s contract. He gripped the pen awkwardly and scribbled. He caught Brad’s look of disdain for his scrawl, but fuck him.

“That’s it?” Eric asked feeling underwhelmed by the meeting. He had waited months just to sign off on his endorsements with no mention of his other concerns.

“That’s everything for now,” Brad corrected. “I’ll be in touch about the other matter you disclosed. Regarding early retirement and the speculation about your sexual orientation. I’m surprised you lasted this long in the league.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re lucky to have representation in this town,” Brad preened.

“Takes one to know one, Campbell.” Brad pinged Eric’s barely existent gaydar. He was not Eric’s type, but Eric had to wonder if perhaps he might be Brad’s. The repressed attraction could be responsible for Brad’s disdain.

“Good day, Mr. McNally,” Brad said, dismissing him and collecting his things. He obviously didn’t like being called out on this hypocrisy.