Russian Liquor

My mother used to tell me there were things I could control and things I couldn’t.

I wanted to believe that was true. I wanted so badly to believe that there were circumstances out of my control, that sometimes life saw you heading in a certain direction and grabbed you by the shoulders and spun you around to keep you from making a serious mistake.

Life doesn’t work that way, though, and my mother was wrong.

Take my life for example. I couldn’t control that my parents had chosen to raise their four children in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. I couldn’t control that my father had given my brother Adam a pair of hand-me-down skates for his fourth birthday, thereby preparing him for a life of major junior hockey. I couldn’t control that hockey rivalries were to be taken seriously, and I definitely couldn’t control that the Soo Greyhounds and Sarnia Sting just couldn’t put aside their differences because if I could control any of those things I wouldn’t be in the position I am now.

We’re only 18 months apart, Adam and me, so we were always the closest out of all the Jezik children. He was gone a lot, with him being some sort of hockey messiah and all, so it was arguably the best day of my life when we got word he’d been drafted by the Greyhounds. My two other brothers, Landon and Owen, were off at college by then and I was having an awful time adjusting to being an only child.

Growing up in Sault Ste. Marie, we’d all heard the stories about Gretzky’s time there, so Adam’s first game in a Greyhounds uniform was a surreal experience for everyone. Landon and Owen made the trip home — Landon from Toronto and Owen from Michigan — and Dad got all his buddies from work to come out, so roughly half of the Essar Centre’s 5,000 capacity was occupied by us.

I spent the half of the first period trying to calm down my mother who, for some reason, wouldn’t stop crying. She kept saying she couldn’t help it, that seeing Adam in a Soo uniform just put her over the edge, but Landon and I were convinced she hadn’t even tried. Dad wouldn’t stop yelling and pounding on the glass, and when the home team scored the game’s first goal Owen got so excited he spilled his beer all over me.

By the halfway point of the third period I was ready to forget I even had a brother on the team. I’d been grumbling the entire time — even more so since Sarnia tied the game at two goals a piece. I hated them. I hated hockey.

And then the unthinkable happened: Adam went head-first into the boards and didn’t get up. I looked to my mother first, who’d gone white like she was on her last breath, and then to Landon since he was the oldest and always knew what to do. He, too, was pale as a ghost. Dad immediately took off running and it wasn’t until after the game that I found out he’d gone down to the locker room. Owen was just as useless as I was.

I hadn’t been paying enough attention to know what’d happened. I didn’t know if someone had checked him from behind or he tripped and fell at a bad angle. I didn’t know if it’d been an open-ice hit that sent him flying. All I knew was that my brother, my best friend in the entire world, was laying motionless on the ice and I really, really had to throw up.

Then 5,000 people started clapping. He’d gotten up on his own, shook his head a few times, and gave my mother a thumbs-up. Adam had always been a little shit, constantly trying to put Mom in her grave prematurely.

Landon sat back down in a huff as soon as Adam was in the locker room, mumbling something about a fucking Yakupov, the dirty mother fucker. I figured he was talking about a brand of Russian liquor — maybe whoever had hit Adam was hungover and wanted to be doing anything other than playing hockey. I asked my brother about this and he asked me if I’d lost a few braincells since he’d last seen me.

“Is that even a serious question, Greer?” I shrugged. “Can you believe this, Owen? She has no idea who Nail Yakupov is.”

“Am I supposed to?”

Owen rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah. He’s only the most talked-about Sarnia player in decades. Seriously, Greer, are you even a hockey fan?”

“Are you even Canadian?” Landon chimed. I slugged him on the shoulder and he recoiled. “Ow!”

Mom shushed us as the game resumed. Dad didn’t come back until overtime, which was also when Adam returned to the Soo bench. You couldn’t even tell he’d nearly had his head taken off. Then again, by the way this Yakupov character was laughing it up with his teammates and skating up and down the ice, you couldn’t tell he’d nearly decapitated someone, either.

And then Russian Liquor potted the game-winning goal with 42 seconds left and Mom was in tears again. Nail Yakupov had almost murdered my brother and ruined his first OHL game in a matter of minutes.

Adam was in better spirits than we were when we met up with him afterwards, but that was usually the case. He introduced us to his new teammates, very obnoxiously told all of them I was off-limits, and convinced Mom a dozen times that his head was fine. He was a hockey player, after all. He could take hits.

Mom went around interrogating his teammates, asking them what their favorite foods were so she could invite them over for team dinners now that Adam would be living back home. She was only halfway through the roster when they declared her Team Mom. It sounded too much like “Teen Mom” to me so I tried to forget all about it.

Owen got to talking with one of the Greyhounds who had a sister that also went to the University of Michigan. As soon as he started telling party stories I tuned out, my eyes searching the room for either my dad or Landon. Both of them were talking plays and formations with Adam so I excused myself to get a bit of air. The locker room smelled like sweat and death and I was sure I’d suffocate if I had to bask in it for another second.

Sault Ste. Marie was nice. I had no qualms about growing up there, since I could’ve grown up somewhere much worse, like Saskatoon or Regina. The Greyhounds were a pretty big deal which was also nice — at least Adam’s hockey accomplishments wouldn’t go unnoticed by the kids he’d grown up with. The chances of him being the next Wayne Gretzky were pretty slim but he had a good head on his shoulders; I knew he wouldn’t take the opportunity for granted.

“‘Scuse me, miss.”

I turned, alerted by the sound of a Russian accent disrupting the peaceful silence.

“Can I help you?” I guess he wasn’t very confident in his ability to speak English because he didn’t reply, just jutted his thumb backwards, pointing in the direction of the rest of his team. Then I realized I was blocking the way to their bus. “Oh, sorry.”

He nodded, thanking me (I think), and was halfway there when I realized who I’d just spoken to, only I couldn’t remember his name for the life of me. It wasn’t like Landon and Owen had said it so many times it’d been drilled into my head.

“Hey!” I called after him. No one stopped. “Hey, you!” The entire Sting roster stopped that time. “Not you guys,” I said to the ones near the back of the line. “Hey, where’s the one that told me to move?”

Someone nudged him and nodded in my direction. He stopped, eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Miss?”

“Did you hit my brother?” His eyebrows knit together so severely they nearly made me a sweater. “His name’s Adam Jezik, he wears number 39.” More confusion. “He went into the boards head-first in the third period.”

What was I doing? He clearly had no idea what I was saying and I couldn’t speak a word of Russian except da.

“For Soo?”

“Yes, for Soo. Jezik, number 39.”

“I know him.”

I nodded, thankful I was making any progress at all. “Did you—” I pointed at him. “—check him—” I made some sort of checking motion with my shoulder. “—into the boards?”

He shrugged and we were back at square one.

I yanked the nearest Sting player by the arm and drug him over, hoping he had extensive training in English-Russian translation. He looked just as lost as I did, and to this day it’s the only time I had any kind of respect for a Sarnia player. But I digress.

“Can you ask him if he’s the one that checked my brother?”

“Who’s your brother?”

“Adam Jezik.”

The kid nodded. “Oh! Yeah, I think that was Nail. Is he ok?”

Some kind of medieval shriek came from my mouth as I lunged at Nail, driven by the desire to extract revenge. I’d never been a particularly combative individual but I’d been raised with three brothers that refused to accept I was a female instead of the fourth Jezik boy. It was very unlikely that Adam even needed my help — if he could beat up Landon he could surely hold his own against Russian Liquor, who may have had a few inches on my oldest brother but definitely wasn’t as stocky — but I didn’t care. We looked out for each other.

“Hey, whoa!” the kid yelled. “Are you insane?”

I glared daggers at Nail. “You almost killed my brother, asshole!” He looked to his teammate for clarification, still not getting it. “Tell him it was a dirty hit and I’d send him back to Russia in a goddamn wooden box if I could!”

He didn’t tell him anything I said, just ushered him onto the bus before Canadian authorities (or worse, my mother) got involved. With Owen spilling his beer on me and my outburst there’s no way I’d convince them I wasn’t drunk.

As I watched the bus pull away from the player’s lot, I was left with one thought: I fucking hated Nail Yakupov.



Mom was in tears again and we hadn’t even gotten to Pittsburgh. It was Draft Day 2012 — otherwise known as the biggest day in Adam’s life thus far — and we had no idea what to expect. We’d been doing interviews with various media outlets for the last few months, constantly telling whoever would listen that Adam Jezik would be the perfect addition to so-and-so’s hockey team for a number of reasons.

It was a whirlwind, really. Adam was a mess of nerves and self-doubt, constantly asking me what would happen if he didn’t get chosen. The idea was ridiculous, of course, because he’d been an offensive machine for the Greyhounds for the last few years and everyone noticed.

Not only did all the scouts notice Adam, they also noticed Nail, who I’d kept an eye on since the first day I met him. He, too, was a big deal, and everyone that paid attention to the OHL constantly had him and my brother pegged against one another like it was Crosby vs. Ovechkin all over again. Hockey analysts were constantly at war with one another over who’d get chosen first overall and who was more NHL-ready. I didn’t pay attention to any of that stuff since it’d only upset me, but I knew Adam did.

I don’t know how my brother truly felt about Nail Yakupov. He’d joke about their “rivalry” in interviews — though I had my doubts that there even was one — but he paid attention. He knew everything everyone was saying about him. He also knew everything everyone was saying about Nail, which was hard to avoid. You would’ve thought he was the next Great One with the way the hockey world was talking him up.

Naturally I was biased and wanted Nail Yakupov to get chosen dead last if it meant my brother’s future would be secure and he’d stop second-guessing himself, but over the years my anger started to fade and I began asking myself if I kept an eye on Nail because of Adam or because I was a massive creep.

“On a scale of one to I’m-gonna-puke-everywhere, how nervous are you?” I asked Adam, trying not to laugh as he did and undid the buttons of his sleeves.

He didn’t answer. He was too busy trying to take everything in, from the excited chatter to the championship banners hanging from the ceiling to the congratulations he was receiving from complete strangers. They all knew who he was. They all knew where he’d be in a few months.

The next few hours were a blur. All I remember is that Jordan Staal got traded to Carolina and that Mom was still crying by the time Steve Tambellini and the rest of the Edmonton Oilers ensemble took to the stage to announce their choice as first overall.

I’ll remember those words forever: “The Edmonton Oilers are so proud to select, from the Sarnia Sting, Nail Yakupov.”

He won. All that talk back and forth about who was better and he won. Just like that day a few years ago, the draft was a game and Nail Yakupov scored the game-winner one more time.

I didn’t dare look at Adam, already knowing he’d be crushed. There was only going to be this one draft — he’d get picked in the top five, nixing any idea of next year — and there went his one chance at going first overall. He’d be honored and blessed to get picked by anyone in any position but even I knew he’d began to believe the hype, regardless of how scared he was to admit he deserved to play in the NHL.

Mom was so stunned she stopped crying and Dad was at a loss for words. We’d all believed it, already on the verge of ordering our custom Oilers jerseys. This was going to be Adam’s year. And then it all came crashing down, once again, because of Nail Yakupov.

Adam wound up getting chosen next and all of us were a blubbering mess, not just Mom. My brother hugged me first, thanking me for supporting him through everything in an unsteady voice, before he moved down the Jezik line and took his place onstage. He’d stopped crying by then and was now sporting a proud smile like he wound up there by sheer luck instead of on pure talent and skill.

He had interviews and photo shoots to do so we didn’t see him until hours later. I did a few small interviews of my own with low-scale bloggers looking for a story on the Jezik-Yakupov rivalry to pass the time. Backstage I got to meet Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Mario Lemieux and, to my displeasure, 2012’s first-overall draft pick himself.

“Hi, Greer.”

I groaned but acknowledged him nonetheless. He just looked so damn happy. “Nail.”

“We talk?”

I shrugged, following him to a quieter part of the arena that no one else seemed to know existed since we were the only ones there. In the right light I realized his suit and tie combination was ridiculous and I rolled my eyes. How could someone with such awful fashion sense get drafted before my brother?

“Congratulations,” I told him, filling the awkward silence with sincerity. He nodded, thanking me in a way only Nail could. “I’m sure your dad is excited.”

“You mad?”

“Jealous,” I clarified. There was no sense in explaining why. Although his English had gotten better, he was nowhere near fluent and I still hadn’t learned a word more of Russian. “Adam’s happy for you, even though you tried to kill him.”

“Sorry.” I shrugged, unsure of what else to say. “You look nice.”

“Your tie is horrible,” I replied.

Next thing I knew his lips were on mine and his hands were running through my hair. My back was against a wall and my dress was hiking up a little too far for my liking, but Christ Almighty, I was kissing Nail Yakupov. I’d get deported for this. Adam would disown me as his sister and the Oilers would win the Stanley Cup next season just to spite me. I’d make my mother cry and if there were any gossip magazines in the hockey circle I was about to be plastered across the front page of all of them, labeled a traitor in menacingly bold letters.

He was grinning when he pulled away, like he’d been waiting forever to kiss me and just fulfilled some sort of prophecy by finally doing it. I didn’t know what to think. My lips were tingling and my knees were wobbly and Nail’s tie was still ugly, though it was halfway undone now.

“I like you, Greer.”

I closed my eyes in an attempt to stop this from happening. It couldn’t be; not to me. This happened to girls whose brothers weren’t highly-tooted OHL players or girls who didn’t kiss their brother’s number one rival.

“You can’t.”

His face fell. “How?”

He meant why? but I didn’t have the heart to correct him. I was the Grinch and he’d just made my heart grow three times its size. “My brother—”

Nail nodded, pretending he understood where I was coming from even though I knew he didn’t. We could barely speak to one another coherently; there was no way he’d understand why I was turning him down. I was sure it didn’t happen to him often.

“I wish things could be different.”

“Me too,” he said. We could both understand that.

I kissed his cheek before I left, knowing I’d just ruined any chance of a happy ending. Remember how I said I wished that life grabbed you by the shoulders and kept you from making a huge mistake? It would’ve come in handy right then.

But, like my mother said, some things were out of my control. Fate was one of those things, and as I walked away I couldn’t help but feel like this wasn’t the end of the Jezik-Yakupov saga.

Maybe my mother had been right all along.