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The Ottawa Centaurs are a family. That was the only way Wyatt Hayes could think of it. Not a team, not an organisation. A family. And if he was honest, he wouldn’t have it any other way. He had been in other teams that didn’t have that dynamic. Toronto most noticeably. Ottawa was a dream compared to the toxic nature of that team. Hell, the players even had their designated spaces in this family.
Wiebe was definitely a dad, despite his young age for his position. He was tough but fair, always looking out for them.
Bood was like an uncle, always joyous, always ready to talk about food and fun. Always ready to have a chat, be it joking or serious. Basically a fixture at this point, a living, breathing example of Ottawa pride.
Dykstra was an older cousin. Fun, outgoing and the team's DJ. Always quick to laugh and happy to help out.
Rozanov was a brother. A great friend, cheeky and yet loyal. Same with Chouinard.
Barrett was like a younger cousin, coming from a broken home (Toronto) and slow to find his place in a world where he no longer had to project an image of toughness but now he had his new family and would fight to the death for them.
The others were all various versions of a sibling, a nephew or a child, depending on the day and the mood Wyatt was in. Except Haas who was clearly Roz’s child. The kid had imprinted on their Captain like a lost duck and had never looked back.
But Wyatt was getting off track. What he wanted to say, was the Centaurs were a family and family protected each other.
Which was why there was currently a problem.
It had only been a few short months since Shane Hollander had joined the team. Not that Hollander was a problem. Far from it. The guy was socially awkward, yes, probably due to some undiagnosed neurodivergence (Wyatt’s cousin was on the spectrum. He knew the signs even if Hollander himself didn’t seem to realise), but he was sweet and kind and a hell of a hockey player. And more to the point, Roz was completely obsessed with him. It was kind of adorable and reminded Wyatt a lot of when his sister Kristy brought her girlfriend (now wife) Eve, to a family dinner for the first time.
No, the problem was his old fucking team.
Wyatt was a seasoned hockey player. He had played with and against just about everyone. Hell, he was an All Star. And he could say with some certainty, Montreal was a team full of fucking bigots.
He had always had a bit of a dislike of them before Hollander switched sides, as much as it pained him to say so. He had always tried to be friendly and kind to everyone. But Montreal had always rubbed him the wrong way. Hell, Hollander, and maybe to a lesser extent, his friend Hayden Pike, were probably the only two good things from the team.
But since the trade, the horror stories had gotten so much worse.
Social media had a field day when Hollzy was traded to Ottawa, the rumours spreading that he had left due to homophobia. Which was unsurprising. When their star player and Captain of many years is outed publicly and then almost immediately trades to another team, it doesn’t take a genius to think something was deeply problematic. The owners of the team were trying hard to quash the rumours but the team itself wasn’t doing the organisation any favours.
Many of them had been busted on the ice, throwing slurs at others, not just queer players, or people they suspected were queer, but POC players and rookies. The League, unsurprisingly, was trying to cover for the team, claiming all was fine but those on the ice knew better.
Hunter, the Captain of the New York Admirals, had even raised a formal complaint against them after a particularly brutal game a few weeks prior and a lot of players were siding with him. Not that anyone actually liked Montreal anymore. They had upset the balance by allowing the two greatest hockey players to be on the same team and no one was willing to give them grace right now. But Crowell had championed Kent during the Toronto sexual assault incident. Of course, he wasn’t going to admit to a problem culture in a whole team. And definitely not his highest earning team.
So it was unsurprising that there was bad blood on the ice for the first game between Ottawa and Montreal since the trade.
The crowd seemed to know it too, the stadium sold out with fans, waiting to see a fight. And they hadn’t been disappointed.
Three fights had broken out on the ice so far and the refs were looking beyond stressed.
Over the previous weeks, the whole Centaur team subtly managed to get a few names out of Hollander, to identify the main offenders and they were all determined not to let any of them near him.
Wyatt had been horrified to realise that Hollander had probably been a target long before he had come out to the team. He was too good a player and it seemed that Montreal was full of jealous dicks who were just waiting for him to fall, probably from his rookie season. Him coming out to them had given them the ammunition to target him subtilty and hurt and criticize him under the guise of ‘guy talk’ and when it was revealed he was with Roz, they hadn’t even bothered to try and hide their hatred for him behind ‘jokes’ anymore.
The Montreal Locker room must have been an absolute nightmare. No wonder Hollander only seemed to talk to one or two of them since leaving. The POS’s had managed to successfully bully Hollzy out of their team and none of the Centaurs was stupid enough to think they wouldn’t use the game as an excuse to target him again, not that anyone was going to let them.
Hell, the night before the game, the Centaur team's Group Chat had been on fire with everyone plotting how they were going to handle this. Hollander was part of the group chat but given he was uninterested in social media, it had been easy to get Harris to block his access for the night so he was unaware of their plans. His access would be returned as soon as the game was over after they figured out what they were going to do, since if they didn’t plan ahead, there was a very real possibility Roz would break someone's nose and as cathartic as that would be, it probably wouldn’t do the team any favours long term.
Eventually, they managed to make a plan. Names had been given, of players Hollander had mentioned in passing who were toeing the line and ones who were the main perpetrators of the bullying. Everyone was in agreement, that as soon as one of them did anything, even a fucking chirp that was out of line, everyone would pounce.
Well, not everyone.
No one wanted Roz getting in trouble since he was their Captain, and besides, he would probably also be a target of the Montreal asshats, given he and Hollander had just gotten married and a strike against him would also be a strike against their former Captain. And no one wanted Hollzy getting caught in the middle either. He was their newest player and had already endured years of bullying behaviour from these guys. They all wanted to show him that shit didn’t fly in Ottawa.
So their plan was simple.
They would play as if this was the Stanley Cup. With purpose and with the only goal to win. And if anything happened, half their team would pounce. Barrett had offered to lead the charge on that one and given he was also out and had his fair share of fights under his belt, Wyatt guessed he was looking forward to punching some homophobes. Bood too, was looking to take some swings. As was Dillon. No one cared if it was a single player behaving badly. Any one of them so much as blinked wrong and they would face a wave of players ready to knock them down a few pegs.
Haas and some of the kids were tasked with blocking, keeping any of the other fuckers from coming to their teammates aid. If they had to tie the players up or create a wall, they would.
Roz had the simplest task but the one that was most likely to go wrong. His task was to focus on scoring goals to humiliate the other team and, should a fight break out, was to tie up Hollander. To make sure that Hollander, being the decent guy he was, didn’t try to interfere and help the Montreal idiots out. None of them deserved Hollander's mercy.
So if punches were thrown, Roz had to grab Hollzy and bear hug him, dragging him out of the fight. It was the most risky because Roz was a chirper, not a fighter but if his husband was threatened, well, Wyatt could see him forgetting his task.
Wyatt's task was equally simple. He had to stop Montreal scoring. Which should be easy. He was the best goalie in the League and Montreal had traded its best player. No one else could match Hollander.
So that took care of most of the problems. Except one.
Wyatt had been disturbed to learn, one of the main instigators against Hollzy was Patrice Drapeau, the Montreal starting Goalie.
Wyatt hated that someone so despicable was representing his position on the ice. And more to the point, the fact that he had the unwritten protection of the Goalies meant even though all the Centaurs would love to see the guy slam into the boards, it wasn’t likely to happen.
Although they were all angry, no one was suicidal enough to touch the prick. Which meant, despite the three fights which had already broken out on the ice since the first puck drop, Drapeau was frustratingly still out there, untouchable.
Thankfully, the rest of the plan had worked. Roz hadn’t lost his head and had done his job. They had scored two goals so far, one courtesy of Hollander and with the clock ticking down to the final siren fast, Montreal had still yet to score, much to the team's evident and growing frustration. He had also been quick to do his second job, tying up his husband whenever a punch was thrown, to the other man’s confusion, since normally tying up a player was reserved for a member of the opposite team.
The kids had managed to block or tie up everyone else and Barrett had spent more time in the penalty box this game than any of his other games combined, the shit eaten grin he had given the Montreal players every time he had been sent off enough for them to know he wasn’t playing.
Hell, it seemed at least a few of the Montreal players were aware and possibly even assisting in their own way. Wyatt was fairly sure he saw Hayden Pike blocking another player from getting involved in the fight between Bood and Gilbert Comeau, the new Captain of the team.
The crowd was loving it and given a lot of fans were also online, they definitely knew the gist of why Ottawa was looking for a fight. Wyatt didn’t doubt the commentators were going nuts and Coach Wiebe was probably already dreading the post game media run. Harris too, was probably already drafting up a statement about the game and knowing the guy, it wouldn’t be an apology.
Most of their ‘hit’ list had been taken care of in those first three fights. Still, Wyatt was feeling frustrated that Drapeau was still standing.
So Wyatt paced his goals, occasionally muttering reassurances to the posts, his water bottle and himself.
His team had managed to keep his half of the ice fairly clear, so he wasn’t risking much by losing focus briefly.
Then it happened. Wyatt wasn’t sure exactly how it had begun. Haas had managed to grab the puck and was going for a goal when someone must have tripped him.
Haas had called it out and then there was a Montreal bully in his face, shoving him backwards. Immediately, Wyatt saw the team put their plan into effect. Barrett was still in time out from the last fight, but Dykstra must have taken his place on the offence, charging in to get the guy out of the kid's space. Unfortunately, as Haas tried to pull back, he had stepped too close to the Montreal goals.
Wyatt saw that jackass Drapeau skate up and strike Haas across the back, shouting something about the kid being in his Crease. It was dirty, a call from the asshole for Montreal to savage the kid. And it was bullshit. Haas was nowhere near Drapeau’s space.
Wyatt saw red.
He didn’t care, even if Haas had crossed that invisible line. It was an accident caused by the Montreal player pushing the younger man backwards.
Drapeau had gotten away with attacking Hollzy for years and now he was going after the team's rookie. Fuck that!
Wyatt didn’t even remember leaving his goals. He didn’t remember charging down the ice.
He did remember seeing Drapeau leaving his own goals, pushing Haas again and again. He remembered pushing through the scrapping teams, a stray punch hitting his shoulder but he ignored it, his eyes fixed firmly on his target. He remembered ripping his helmet and gloves off, since he wasn’t a fucking coward.
Then he had Drapeau’s jersey firmly in his grip, pulling the man away from Haas and into his personal space.
“What tha…?” Drapeau gasped out in surprise as Wyatt pulled him off balance, but Wyatt didn’t give him any time to react. He grabbed the edge of the guy's helmet and ripped it off his face. Then he formed a fist and punched the fucker.
Drapeau fell back in shock and Wyatt didn’t hesitate to follow through, throwing haymakers at him. Most of them landed.
Drapeau tried to retaliate but he was definitely not a fighter. One wild punch did land, clocking Wyatt on the nose but Wyatt was too keyed up and barely felt it as he continued to lay into the other man, striking him in the face and body as hard as he could. Drapeau slipped and Wyatt immediately grabbed him by the collar, pulling him back up. He wasn’t going to let the POS cower like the dog he was.
Hands grabbed him, the Refs trying to pull him off and Wyatt didn’t even realise he was shouting at Drapeau, calling him out for the homophobic piece of shit he was, until he was pulled away, the other guy crumpling onto the ice in defeat.
“Hey! Hazy!” A voice shouted and Wyatt realised Roz was there, an arm grabbing the back of his jersey to pull him off. “Stop. He’s done.”
Wyatt turned to his Captain, his blood still hot but the grin on Roz’s face immediately pulled him back into the moment. Roz looked as feral as Wyatt felt.
Then he heard the noise. He glanced over to the Centaur’s bench and saw his whole team slamming their sticks down on the ice or the boards in a loud applause for his actions. The crowd too, was roaring its approval.
Wyatt couldn’t stop the grin on his face. He glanced over at Drapeau, still laying on the ice as his own team tried to help him up. The guy was definitely sporting two black eyes. Good. Let the bastard see his shame every time he looked in the mirror.
“You’re bleeding.” Roz said. Wyatt glanced at him as Hollander and Haas skated up to check on him.
Roz pointed to his own nose and Wyatt reached up, wiping away the blood that was dripping down his face from the one sloppy punch Drapeau had managed to land.
“Good.” He said, grinning. He didn’t even feel it. He glanced up at the big screen which was showing his face. He could see the blood, which had trickled down to coat his teeth. He looked truly mad.
“You ok?” Haas asked as he arrived, his voice only a little bit louder over the crowd.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Hollander added as he too, skated to their side. It looked like he had finally caught on to the team's plan.
Wyatt glanced between the three. All of them were his family. Drapeau and his bigot crew had targeted all of them and Wyatt was done pretending it was ok. And if that got him in trouble, he didn’t care anymore.
“Yeah I did.” He replied, grinning at Hollander. He glanced up at the crowd, still cheering his image on the big screen. He nodded upwards. “And they all know it.” He added.
Hollander glanced up at the crowd. Ever since he had stepped onto the ice as a Centaur, the support thrown at him had been insane and now, the crowd were on their feet. Rainbow flags were flying. Hollander, Roz and Barrett’s numbers were all displayed prominently.
Wyatt saw Hollzy glance away, his face flushing as he realised the cause behind all this. Reaching over, he pulled the other man into a one-armed hug, the other wrapping around Haas.
Then, not even bothering to wait for the refs to make their call, he made his way over to the penalty box where Barrett was waiting, a small grin on his own face. The door opened and he stepped inside, receiving a fist bump from his friend.
Wyatt didn’t care if his fight cost him his good standing or his reputation in the NHL as being a friendly player. He had made his point.
Montreal had learnt an important lesson today. You don’t fuck with Wyatt Hayes family.