Phantom Ice Hockey

# The Phantom Ice Hockey League

Martha Pendleton adjusted her blue scarf—carefully folded into three precise triangles—and tapped her coffee mug twice against the café table. The woman at the next table, wearing an identical scarf but folded into only two triangles, nodded subtly and tapped her own mug three times in response.

*Contact established. Operation Slap Shot proceeding as planned.*

"Did you get the coordinates for tonight's match?" Martha whispered, leaning slightly toward the woman while pretending to check her phone.

"Yes," replied Doris Whimsley, a retired accountant who had never played ice hockey in her life. "Sector 7, behind the abandoned Walmart. I've informed Team Maple of the location change. The Russians almost intercepted our last game."

There were no Russians. There was no Team Maple. There had never been any intergovernmental ice hockey games.

But in the quiet suburb of Millfield, population 8,742, nearly a third of the residents believed otherwise.

It had started three years ago with a Facebook post claiming that the government was using underground ice hockey matches as cover for international negotiations. The post, written by local conspiracy enthusiast Jerry Plimpton, suggested that ordinary citizens could "join the resistance" by forming their own counter-intelligence hockey network.

Now, every Tuesday and Thursday, dozens of middle-aged suburbanites gathered in empty parking lots, abandoned buildings, and occasionally the community center (when Brenda from accounting could secure the reservation under the guise of a "knitting circle"). They wore specially coded accessories—scarves in winter, baseball caps in summer—and carried hockey sticks they didn't know how to use.

"I've got intel that the Canadian delegation will be sending observers tonight," whispered Martha, despite having no contact with anyone Canadian other than her cousin in Toronto who sold artisanal maple syrup.

"Excellent," Doris replied. "I've prepared the special signals. Three clockwise skates followed by a counterclockwise figure eight."

Neither woman could skate backward.

At the edge of town, Frank Danvers was preparing for his role as "Chief Intelligence Officer" of what the group called GLICE (Global League of Ice-based Covert Exchanges). In his garage, he had set up a "command center" consisting of an old ham radio, several printed Google Maps with circles drawn randomly across them, and a whiteboard tracking imaginary "match scores" that supposedly represented coded diplomatic agreements between nations.

"Denmark is up by two points over Australia," he muttered to himself as he adjusted the numbers. "That means the uranium deal is proceeding as planned."

Neither Denmark nor Australia had expressed any interest in uranium deals, and neither country was particularly known for ice hockey.

That evening, twenty-seven Millfield residents gathered behind the abandoned Walmart, hockey sticks in hand, scarves properly folded, stomping their feet against the autumn chill. Some had brought folding chairs. Others had brought thermoses of hot chocolate. Nobody had brought ice skates.

"Remember," announced Frank to the assembled group, "we're not just playing hockey here. We're saving democracy."

There was no hockey being played. There was, however, a lot of meaningful nodding.

For two hours, they stood in various formations, occasionally hitting a tennis ball (no one had thought to bring a puck) across the parking lot while whispering nonsensical code phrases to each other.

"The eagle nests at midnight."

"Chocolate muffins are on sale Tuesday."

"My sister's boyfriend's cousin works at the Pentagon."

As the night grew colder, Martha pulled Frank aside. "Any word from headquarters about when we'll see results from all this counterintelligence?"

Frank looked serious, lowering his voice. "These things take time, Martha. We're up against powerful forces. Could be months, could be years before we see the real impact of our operations."

"It's been three years," Martha pointed out.

Frank nodded knowingly. "Exactly. That proves how important our work is. They're fighting hard to keep this under wraps."

On the other side of town, in the actual town hall, the real Mayor of Millfield was holding an actual public meeting about fixing potholes and building a new community playground. Only four citizens had shown up.

The parking lot "hockey game" concluded when Mrs. Heidelman, a seventy-year-old former librarian, announced she needed to get home to let her dog out. The group dispersed with elaborate farewell rituals involving complicated handshakes and precisely timed nods.

As Martha drove home, she felt the familiar rush of excitement and purpose. Tomorrow, she would make three posts on Facebook using predetermined code words, and she would wear her red sweater to the grocery store—signaling to other "agents" that the night's mission had been successful.

What the mission was, she couldn't quite articulate. But she was certain it was working. After all, the government hadn't collapsed yet, which clearly meant their vigilance was keeping democracy safe.

She parked in her driveway, carefully positioned her hockey stick by the front door (facing north, as protocol demanded), and went inside to prepare for the next day's operations.

The phantom ice hockey league would play on, forever skating on imaginary ice, forever awaiting a governmental collapse that would never come, forever trapped in an elaborate game with no rules, no score, and no end.

And they were absolutely convinced they were winning.