Hockey is the fastest, hardest, most brutal team sport in the world. It’s a war on skates, played at speeds of 30 mph, with collisions that rival car crashes.

It’s gloves dropped at center ice, fists flying, blood splattering onto the ice like a crime scene. It’s a place where men become legends, where enforcers die young, and where goaltenders stand alone in a battlefield of flying rubber and shattered bones.

And beneath the surface?

There’s a darker side of hockey. One the league doesn’t like to talk about.

• The stalkers—fans who cross the line from admiration to obsession.
• The horror stories—from players being hunted by dangerous fans to the hidden traumas behind the masks.
• The real-life bloodshed—severed arteries, shattered jaws, and careers ended in an instant.

This article is the first in a new Gothic Bite Magazine series: THE HORROR OF HOCKEY, an unfiltered deep dive into the darkest moments in the sport—from major leagues to international ice rinks, from urban legends to true crime cases.

And today, we start with the book that was inspired by all of it: A Stalker & Blocker.

Welcome to A Stalker & Blocker

Book 1 of The Goaltender Trilogy in The Owl City Talons Series

Hockey is a brutal ballet. It’s a war fought in steel cages, where masked men throw themselves in front of frozen rubber missiles at 100 mph. It’s blood smeared on the ice, shattered teeth, broken fingers gripping sticks like weapons.

It’s a religion for some. A horror show for others. And for the ones who stand in the crease—the goaltenders—it’s a graveyard where gods rise and fall in the blink of an eye.

This is where A Stalker & Blocker was born.

It’s a hockey thriller, but it’s not the Cinderella-story romance that polite fiction demands. It’s a blood communion between obsession and destruction. It’s the dark underbelly of the sport—the one whispered about in locker rooms and buried in scandal reports.

It’s a story about a man who’s worshipped like a god but stalked like prey.

The Goalie: A Myth, A Monster, A Martyr

Meet Valerică Cobălescu—Romania’s silent wall of flesh and fury. The first overall draft pick of the Owl City Talons, the man who doesn’t flinch when pucks fly at his face but begs to be bitten behind closed doors. He’s the masked savior of his team, but every save takes another chunk out of his soul. And someone has been watching him since he was fifteen.

A stalker.
A worshipper.
A thief of flesh who marks his gear with human remains.

This isn’t a love story.
It’s a war between devotion and destruction.
And when gothic journalist Melisandre “Vlad” Färber walks into his world, she finds herself tangled in the obsession—both his and his stalker’s.

Because in the world of A Stalker & Blocker, love is teeth sinking into flesh.
And devotion? It comes with a body count.

The Real Horror in Hockey

Hockey isn’t just a game. It’s a symphony of violence, a cult of pain, and a legacy of bloodshed.

• Clint Malarchuk’s throat slit on the ice, spraying blood like a horror movie.
• Richard Zedník clutching his neck, eyes wide as he realized his own mortality.
• Paul Kariya knocked unconscious by Scott Stevens, only to return minutes later and score—because that’s what warriors do.

And let’s not forget the unspeakable moments: the hidden scandals, the enforcers who die too young, the players who never escape the game’s grip, even when the final buzzer sounds.

This is the real horror of hockey.
And in A Stalker & Blocker, it’s not just on the ice.
It’s in the shadows.
In the eyes of the ones who watch.
In the teeth that sink in too deep.

Why Goalies? Why This Story?

Goaltenders are a different breed. They’re not just players—they’re monuments. Saints of the crease, demons of the mask. And the best ones? They’re a little unhinged.

Inspiration for Valerică Cobălescu

🩸 Patrick Roy – The king of the crease, the man who played with a fire that burned through the net.
🩸 Samuel Montembeault – The underdog with a heart of steel, proving every night that goalies are built different.
🩸 Ron Hextall – The last of the wild ones, the netminder who turned every game into a blood feud.

Valerică is all of them and none of them. He’s a myth, a martyr, a monster in his own right. A man built to stand alone, until someone gets too close.

Join the Blood Communion

Hockey isn’t just a sport—it’s a battlefield. And in the world of A Stalker & Blocker, love is war, devotion is violence, and the only way out is through the blade.

🔥 Are you ready to enter Owl City?
🩸 Follow the journey. Watch your back.

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🪓 The mask is on. The ice is red. And the stalker is waiting.