It was brand-new, built by the Sault tribe with money from the casino. There was a second rink on the other side, locker rooms in the middle, and a restaurant on the upper deck. The stands were mostly empty, just some women watching us. None of them looked like they were on our side. I pulled the mask away from my face, wiped away the sweat. The catcher’s gear I wore a million years ago-the chest protector and the shin pads-was nothing compared to these goalie pads. It felt like I had a mattress tied to each leg.

The game started to get a little “chippy,” as the hockey announcers like to say. The elbows were coming up in the corners, the sticks were hitting other sticks, maybe even a leg or two. There was only one referee, a little old guy skating around with a whistle in his hand, never daring to blow it. He was probably retired from a civil service job, never got in anybody’s way his whole life and wasn’t going to start now.

I finally stopped a couple shots. It wasn’t like catching a baseball at all, I realized. A pitch in the dirt, you become a human wall. The glove goes down between your legs. You don’t even try to catch it. You let it bounce off you, you throw the mask off, and then you pick it up. A hockey goalie can be more aggressive, move out of the net, cut off the angle.

“Att’sa way, Alex,” Vinnie said. He was breathing hard. He bounced his stick off my pads. “Now you’re getting it.”

Toward the end of the first period, there was a loose puck in front of the net. I dove on it. The blue center came at me hard, stopping right in front of me. He cut his skates into the ice, sending a full spray right into my face. The old shower trick. I had seen it on television a thousand times, now I got to experience it in person.

As I got up I stuck my stick into the hollow behind his knee. He turned around and cross-checked me. Two hands on his stick and wham, right across my shoulders.