In the small town of Cold Creek, the local high school hockey team was once the pride of the community, boasting numerous state championships. But all that changed one winter with the arrival of an old, unmarked hockey stick at the town’s sports memorabilia shop. It was gnarled, its blade slightly curved in a menacing arc, and despite its worn appearance, it seemed to possess an eerie glow under the flickering lights of the shop.
The shop owner, Mr. Harrow, felt a chill crawl up his spine the moment he laid eyes on it. The stick had an unsettling aura, but he dismissed his trepidation, attributing it to the late hour and his overactive imagination. He placed it in the window, thinking it might attract the curiosity of collectors.
The stick didn’t sit there long. It was bought by a high school senior, Jake, the star player of the Cold Creek Skaters. The first game Jake played with the stick, he scored five goals, an unprecedented feat for him. But each goal was followed by a series of strange and unfortunate incidents. Opposing players inexplicably lost their balance, pucks shattered glass without cause, and chilling winds swept through the arena whenever Jake took a shot.
As the season progressed, the horrors escalated. Jake began to change; his eyes grew dark, his presence on the ice ominous. Teammates whispered of hearing whispers from the locker room, of seeing shadows flit across the walls with no discernible source. The stick, they said, seemed to move on its own, tapping against the floor rhythmically, as if communicating with some unseen specter.
The climax came during the state championship. With the game tied and only seconds remaining, Jake set up for a final slapshot. As he swung the cursed stick, a terrible howl filled the arena, a sound so ghastly that it froze the blood of all who heard it. The puck flew like a bullet, smashing through the goalie’s net—and the goalie himself vanished, leaving behind only a cloud of frost.
Jake disappeared that night, along with the stick. The team searched everywhere, but they found nothing except the icy remnants of the goalie’s gear in the net. The town of Cold Creek never recovered. The rink was shut down, left to the mercy of the creeping cold that seemed to emanate from the very ice Jake had dominated.
Now, they say the rink is haunted by the Slapshot Specter, a dark figure wielding a gnarled hockey stick, doomed to replay that final, cursed shot for eternity. And on quiet, snowy nights, you can still hear the echo of the puck slamming into the net, followed by the spectral howl of the wind.
