This is fan fiction. Every character, team, rink and event in it is made up. No real league, team, player or game is involved, and nothing here happened.

The Lake Wekiva Gators had not won a beer-league hockey game since the rink's ice machine was installed, and the ice machine was older than most of the team.

Their problem was goalies. They'd had a dentist who flinched. They'd had a guy named Tony who brought a lawn chair. They'd had nobody at all one night and lost 14-0 to a team sponsored by a tire shop.

So when a tall, quiet man signed up at 11:58 p.m. on October 31, nobody asked questions. He wrote his name as "Lon." He said he only played on Halloween. He said he didn't need a locker.

"Do you have pads?" asked Captain Ricky Dupree, who sold pool chemicals for a living and had never once completed a backhand.

"I'll grow into them," Lon said.

First period, Lon was fine. Kind of hairy around the wrists, but this is Florida. Everyone's a little damp and a little hairy.

He stopped nine shots. The Gators led 1-0, a lead so rare the scorekeeper checked the clock to make sure it was real.

Second period, the rink's back window cleared, and a full moon rolled up over the parking lot like a spotlight.

Lon howled.

It wasn't a hockey howl. It wasn't "nice save, boys." It was the kind of howl that makes a dog three counties over sit up in bed.

The referee, a retired high school band director named Merle, skated over slowly. "Son," he said, "are you a werewolf?"

Lon gloved a slap shot without looking. "Is that against the rules?"

Merle pulled out his rulebook, the actual paper one, and flipped through it for a full minute while both benches waited.

"It says goalies can't leave the crease to fight," Merle said. "It doesn't say anything about fur."

"Then I'm good," Lon said.

He was more than good. He stopped a breakaway with his tail. He stopped a one-timer with his teeth and spit the puck back out to center ice. A skater from the Tire Shop Bandits tried a spin-o-rama, and Lon simply ate the momentum out of the air somehow. Nobody could explain it. The rink's security camera footage is just a blur and one very clear shot of the scorekeeper fainting.

Third period, Lon was mostly wolf. His mask didn't fit anymore, so he wore a traffic cone someone brought in from the lot. The Bandits got off 31 shots. He stopped all 31.

Final score: Gators 1, Bandits 0. The first shutout in team history.

In the handshake line, Lon shook every hand politely. He had paws by then, so it took a while.

"Same time next year?" Ricky asked.

Lon looked up at the moon, then down at the scoreboard, and smiled with about forty more teeth than he'd shown up with.

"Book the ice," he said. "And get Merle a bigger rulebook."

By sunrise, the only things left in the goal crease were a pair of size-15 skates, a traffic cone, and a puck with teeth marks in it. The Gators framed the puck. They still haven't won a game that wasn't on Halloween.

Again: this story is fiction. There is no Lake Wekiva Gators hockey team, no werewolf goalie, and no real game, score or person in it.