He came off the ice looking like a car wreck that had somehow won.
I'd watched the whole game from the fourth row – my spot now, the one I didn't share with anyone, the one where I sat with my hands clenched in my lap every time someone checked him into the boards. Tonight was worse than usual. The opposing team had targeted him from the first period – two hooks, a s***h across the wrists, and a cross-check to the ribs that sent him into the glass so hard I heard the impact from where I sat.
He fought their enforcer in the second period. Dropped gloves, took a hit to the jaw, gave back three. Five minutes in the penalty box. Blood on his knuckles when he came out. He scored twice in the third to seal the win, because that was who Rhys was – the kind of player who bled on the ice and made
