SHORTHANDED

Synopsis

The Thursday Night Drips have lost eleven playoff openers in a row, and Mitch Hovland has captained all eleven. This year the first-round game falls on the same night as a wedding, a flu and a bad batch of wings. He has six skaters and a goalie with a bad knee. The league requires seven. His only available recruits are his cousin Roy, the rink's night janitor, and the one man in Fargo he swore never to ask for anything. The opponents are the firehouse team. They show up with matching jerseys, a trainer and a mascot.

Who this is about

Mitch Hovland is thirty-six, a plumber from Fargo, and captain of the Thursday Night Drips, a beer league hockey team that has not won a playoff game in eleven years.

What goes wrong

Four of his skaters call in sick for the first-round game, and the league rule says he plays with five players or forfeits to a team of off-duty firefighters.

What's at stake

A forfeit ends the team's last chance to win before the rink is sold. Filling the bench means calling people he has been avoiding for ten years.

Why it keeps going

Three hours to find two skaters, a goalie with a bad knee, a referee who knows everyone's secrets, and a rink with one working scoreboard light.

Takeaway

A team is whoever shows up, and sometimes that's your ex-brother-in-law.

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