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I Lived in the Woods with a 115 Pound Wolf my First Year of Pro Hockey by @BobbyRobinsPro. An excerpt from the savage memoir SEX DRUGS PUCKS AND SOULS: Secret Life of a Hockey Fighter I’m jerked awake by the jolting thump of airplane tires smashing onto the runway. I make a mental note that I’m really at NHL training camp, on the flight back from an exhibition game against the Montreal Canadiens. My second game in as many nights. I don’t do anything in this game either, invisible out there. The head coach walks up and down the aisle, pointing at various players and saying, “Come to the rink at 11:15 tomorrow morning.” I watch him fumble down the aisle through the turbulence. Based on the guys he’s pointing at, you know what it means. Tomorrow is cut day. First round of cuts. The big round where most of the herd is cleared. There are about fifty players at training camp, and this cut gets rid of just about half. Most of us will play on the farm team in the AHL, way across the border in Binghamton, or worse, back to Juniors for the young guys or down to the AA East Coast Hockey League, the ECHL, or as it’s known in some circles, Easy Come Hard to Leave. “Please don’t point at me. Please don’t point at me.” I squint my eyes and try my hardest to send mental vibrations right into the heart of the head coach. “11:15, tomorrow at the rink,” he says and points at me. My fate is sealed. I didn’t stand a chance of making the team out of camp. Not this primitive version of me. No way. The group of failures who are being sent to Binghamton pack up our rooms and decide to caravan from Ottawa to Upstate New York together. We stop at a breakfast place and get disgusting with chocolate chip pancakes and endless strips of bacon and sausage links. It’s depression-eating at its finest. With bellies full and bursting, we talk about living arrangements once we get to Binghamton. Everyone’s already matched up with a roommate, and I start to feel panicked and insecure. “You have a roommate yet?” a growling voice asks from across the table. It’s Fitzy, a brute of a man who plays like I do out there, and as we look into each other’s eyes and wipe bacon grease from our faces, we both know that we’re meant to be roomies. “Just one problem,” Fitzy explains. “I’ve got this pet wolf, and I need to be out of the city. I really need to be in the country. He needs some space.” “Like a wolf-wolf?” I ask. “Yeah, a wolf-wolf,” he says. “His name’s Beo.” “Sounds good to me, man,” I say, and we shake hands. All I can think about is how I can’t wait to cross that border and stuff the biggest wad of Grizzly Wintergreen the world has ever seen into my lower lip. Let the sweet nicotine pulse through the tiny cuts in the mucus membrane of my gums, lips, and tongue. I’ve been chewing these mini-cans in Canada all training camp and I’m ready to reunite with my one true love. We make it to Bingo and get situated with a cabin out in the sticks. Welcome to pro hockey Year One, living out in the woods with a wolf, back in the American Hockey League, one step away. But I’ve had a taste now, of The Show, and I’m not far off. I can play up there in the NHL. I know I can. Soon it becomes clear that I’m the lowest male on the pecking order in this cabin. Fitzy is the alpha, and Beo is the beta, and that puts me somewhere between the omega and the eggman. I come home from practice exhausted and want nothing more than to sit on the couch and watch Entourage and melt into the cushions. Then Beo, the giant wolf, sits there and places my head in his mouth and keeps his teeth on my skull and looks around. I push him away but this gets him more excited, and he playfully nips at my ears with his fangs. Finally, I have to do something about this and I bring the issue up with Fitzy. “Seriously man, this is starting to get old,” I say desperately. “What should I do? This isn’t going to fly.” “Well, as far as Beo’s concerned, he’s the alpha male and you’re his little bitch,” Fitzy enlightens me. The truth hurts. I’m already a little scared inherently of Beo—one, because he’s a wolf, and two, because of the times when Fitzy gives him a steak and dares me to see how close I can get my hand to the meat. I slowly creep up on Beo, and I’m sure he senses that it’s just a game, I hope. I inch closer and closer, and Beo tenses up and the hair on his back stands on end and his black lips begin to curl and twitch. And he exposes his fangs and a growl wells up from somewhere inside of his chest cavity. I never make it closer than three or four feet. I figure he’s just being playful, but I don’t trust him a hundred percent. “Bottom line, you’re gonna have to show him that you’re the alpha male,” Fitzy says calmly as he eats potato chips. “He’s just dominating you because he can.” The crunching of the chips is loud, and I realize that my senses are heightened already from the reality at hand. The fight-or-flight response is firing in my body. “Ok, tell me what to do.” “You gotta pin him down.” Fitzy says nonchalantly. “You gotta choke him a bit.” “Seriously!?” I think about this for the next few minutes as the wolf leans his weight on me and nips at my ears and breathes and drools all over me. “So, I just pin him?” I ask. “Yeah, maybe choke him a bit,” Fitzy instructs. “Grab him by the snout and growl in his face too.” I chicken out and watch the rest of The Phantom Menace with my head in the mouth of a wolf. I show up on the couch the next day in the same predicament. With legs quaking in misery and lactic acid from the bag-skate we just had at practice, all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch Mallrats in peace. Like clockwork, Beo sits there next to me and places my head in his mouth. I swear he’s smiling the whole time we perform this little circus trick. Finally, I snap. I act only on instinct, where there is no fear, and I grab the beast by the back of the neck and slam him to the ground. I get on top of him and grab him by the snout and put my face right up against his cold sandpaper nose and let out a low-pitched demonic growl from the depths of my soul. My growl grows and I clench my grip on his toothy snout. Beo starts whimpering. He lies on his back and puts his curled front paws up into the air. He cries until I get off him and let him up. I release my grip on his neck and nose. He stops crying and gets to his feet. He puts his head down and comes over to me where I’m still sitting on the ground, and he begins to softly lick my hands. He never nips at my ears again. He never places my head in his mouth. From that moment on, the wolf is my loyal friend and subservient. A precedent is set and some ground rules are established. He knows it and I know it. “You’re lucky he didn’t bite your face off,” Fitzy laughs. “He must like you.” For the rest of the season Beo sleeps at the foot of my bed, keeping my feet warm during those Binghamton winter nights in upstate New York. Months pass and I feel the monotony of the hockey season. Playing four games a week and sitting there on the bench on the fourth-line, playing four minutes a night. I’m frustrated. Almost broken. Feel like I’m not doing anything out there. Maybe Coach doesn’t like me. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. I need some inspiration—I’m feeling drained and hollow. The vibe is thick and putrid, coming at me from all angles, from the coach, from the fans, from everyone—telling me that I’m supposed to fight. Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here on the bench all game if I actually fought for real. I know I’m supposed to be a fighter. I’ve always known it. It’s in my DNA. I know the exact moment when I’m supposed to fight, but I can’t do it. I pump myself up before every game and tell myself all kinds of affirmations: I can make it to the NHL, I will make it to the NHL, I’m going to fight today, I can fight today, I will fight today. But I don’t. The fear wins. My moment of clarity comes early in the season, and I accept the fact that I’m a coward. It’s who I am. I’ll never make it. We’re playing against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins again in their sold-out barn in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. They have a legendary enforcer on their team called Dennis “The Bone Doctor” Bonvie. This guy’s no joke, a throwback from a time forgotten, when real meat roamed the rinks and fought for keeps. I’m so scared of The Bone Doctor—everyone is. Rule #1 – Don’t make eye contact with The Bone Doctor. The game’s getting chippy and I just got a greasy assist on a big goal from our fourth-line. Next shift I’m buzzing around with confidence and slamming into opponents out there. I must have gotten too reckless because The Bone Doctor is yelling at me from the bench. “Big point for you eh, kid? You better settle down out here.” I skate back to the bench and act like I didn’t hear it or that it didn’t faze me, but I know that The Bone Doctor is the one who said it. If there’s one guy’s radar you don’t want to be on, it’s The Bone Doctor. This is the year that the legendary Robbie Schremp arrives on the pro hockey scene, up from Juniors in the OHL. His name precedes him and it’s no secret that he’s the most skilled and talented player on the ice. I can’t help but stare at him when he’s out there. I hop over the bench onto the ice and skate across the neutral zone to backcheck. Young Robbie Schremp is along the boards and skating up the right side of the ice. The Pens have possession of the puck and their right defenseman throws a suicide-pass up the boards and into Robbie’s skates, the puck careening like a grenade. I’m streaking across the neutral zone toward the puck like a fucking psychopath. Robbie is looking down at his skates, oblivious to the creature hunting him. I have the opportunity to absolutely demolish Robbie Schremp with a shoulder right through his chest, right through his heart. But I turn away from the hit. Instead of smashing my shoulder right through his soul, I hold up and play the puck and form a scrum in the neutral zone along the boards. I can’t believe I didn’t hit him. This is what I live for. This is how I became a legend at Lowell. Throwing bodychecks like this and crunching dudes into different dimensions. But I know why. Right before I lay the devastating hit, I see out of the corner of my eye that The Bone Doctor is on ice too, and once I destroy Robbie Schremp, The Bone Doctor will grab me by the collar and kick my ass for certain. All these thoughts and decisions happen instantaneously, and show me who I really am. I’m the only one who knows. Robbie had his head down and didn’t see the hit coming. The coaches will applaud me for making the smart read and not taking a charging penalty. But The Bone Doctor knows. Of course he does. Just us two. I let the fear reign supreme over me again, my master. How long can this go on? ------ Thanks for reading! I'm a Creative Writing English Major and just so happened to be a hockey fighter too and fought my way to the NHL in the most insane story in all of sports, actually written by the athlete himself. SEX DRUGS PUCKS AND SOULS: Secret Life of a Hockey Fighter. It's my soul, mind, guts, and nuts on full display. Guaranteed to blow your mind or your money back. Check out BobbyRobins.com for more info and to order 1st Edition Hardcovers and paperbacks. All the best.

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