10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Leo

Fifteen points. Four spots in the rankings. That's how far away we are from even having a shot at the wildcard position for the playoffs. And with the way we've been playing lately, that gulf feels insurmountable.

With each passing game, each missed opportunity to gain ground in the standings, the weight of my promise to Wendy grows heavier on my shoulders.

Fuck this.

Time to get out of my own way. Nothing's stopping me from going out there and beasting except the bullshit between my ears. My body feels good—legs springy, shoulders loose. I’ve got this.

Standing in the tunnel, I roll my neck and shoulders to loosen the tension coiled in every muscle. The concrete walls around me seem to close in, amplifying every sound. I focus on steadying my breathing, in and out, grasping for that icy calm control I've honed over the years.

Smitty’s up front, dialed in, and ready to take the ice. The rest of the team is amped up, ready to take on Arizona.

The lights dim and the whole Minotaurs’ entrance show starts. The roar of the crowd grows louder, reverberating through the tunnel. We skate onto the ice, taking a few laps, then line up to do some warm-up drills. The familiar scrape of skates on ice is almost soothing. Wyatt's hitting the net and Morrow seems more on his game than he's been lately.

Of course, Mykyta’s hamming it up near the plexiglass, his toothy grin on full display. He's juggling a puck on his stick, much to the delight of the wide-eyed kids pressed against the glass. While his dumbass should be focusing more, I know PR is important, and as long as he doesn’t start flirting with any moms I’ll keep my mouth shut.

Hudson glides over, his wide smile mirroring his sunshine personality. Guy might look like a fucking grizzly bear, but he’s more Winnie the Pooh than ferocious. Same with his giant mastiff. Never met a dog who just seemed to want to be a couch potato.

“Gonna kick some coyote ass tonight,” he says as he pulls up to me.

I nearly choke on my mouthguard. “Since when do you curse?”

“Figured I’d try something new. Maybe it’ll help with the slump we’re in.”

Before I can respond, Wyatt skates over, then proceeds to slap his stick across his best friend’s butt. “How about you shake . . . that ass!”

I swear it’s the stupidest pre-game ritual, but the fans eat it up. And when the two knuckleheads start laughing, I can’t help but smile. Their damn energy is infectious. And for a moment, the weight on my shoulders feels a little lighter.

“If you’re done, we need to dial it in.”

As we line up for the opening face-off, I catch Smitty's eye and give him a nod. We're going to need him to stand on his head tonight if the rest of us can't get our acts together.

Smitty nods back, then kisses both posts as if they’re his children. None of us know exactly what he mumbles to them. He won’t tell us. Except for a few weeks ago when he turned around and started yelling at the goal that it was in time-out.

But no one dares shit on the goalie’s rituals.

It’s bad juju.

The puck drops and Wyatt wins the face-off. He passes to Morrow, who immediately comes under pressure from their forecheckers. Arizona’s on us quick, swarming the puck and forcing errant passes.

Lund manages to chip it out to the neutral zone, and Morrow chases it into the corner, taking a nasty hit along the boards. But we regain possession, moving the puck around to create an opening.

Wyatt takes a shot, which goes wide and ricochets off the plexiglass.

We can’t corral it cleanly and their defenseman snags it, pivoting to launch the counterattack. While Lund and Hudson remain on the ice, the forwards change lines and I hop over the boards.

I dig deep and put on a burst of speed, angling my skates to cut off the passing lane. Chipped tooth bared in a sneer, their forward tries to dangle around me, but I get my stick in there and poke the puck away. Smirnov, having changed with Hudson, pounces on it.

For a few fleeting moments, it feels like we might have something going. My linemates and I weave in and out, playing tic-tac-toe with crisp passes as we navigate through the neutral zone.

Arizona’s defense is back and set though, standing us up at the blue line. I manage to dump it deep into their zone but we're a step slow on the forecheck. They break out with ease, catching Smirnov and Petrov flatfooted for an odd-defensemen rush.

I pivot hard and race back, pushing my legs to eat up the ice, but I'm too late. Their forward rips a shot from the slot and Smitty barely gets a piece of it with his blocker. The puck clangs off the post and ricochets in.

Just like that, we're down 1-0.

Dropping onto the bench next to Wyatt as the third line goes out, I take a swig from the water bottle. “Fucking hell.”

“It’s like something’s in the air. No way we should be losing to them.”

The rest of the period is a slog, like we're skating through quicksand while Coyotes dance around us. Smitty bails us out—time and again with acrobatic saves, but he can't stop everything. By the time the buzzer sounds, it's 2-0 and we're lucky it's not more.

In the locker room, the air is thick with frustration that it borders on despair. I let the guys stew for a minute, the silence broken only by the occasional clatter of a thrown piece of equipment. Finally, I clear my throat. Heads swivel my way and I meet each gaze levelly.

“This isn't over,” I say, my voice hard with a conviction I'm not sure I feel. “We've got forty minutes to turn this around. Forty minutes to show what we're made of. I don't care about the score right now. I care about how we respond. Are we going to feel sorry for ourselves, or are we going to dig deep and fight? Every single shift, every single puck battle. That's where we turn the tide. So let's go out there and take the game to them. Let's go!”

The guys all cheer, but their eyes are still shadowed with doubt. I don't blame them. My words feel like empty platitudes even to my own ears. But what else can I say? What else can I do but put on a brave face and keep battling, even as my dream slips further away with each mounting loss?

The second period starts with us chasing the game, scrambling in our own zone as they control the puck with practiced ease. Five minutes in, Lund gets called for a slash. We're down a man, and based on how we've been killing penalties lately, we might as well be down two.

Sweat is pooling on my lower back as I fight tooth and nail for us to get on the board. The Coyotes are only up by two, so there’s still hope, but as the minutes tick down to the end of the game, that hope is quickly being overridden by frustration.

Morrow intercepts a pass and heads for the blue line, but before he can line up a shot, one of Arizona’s forwards flies past, strips the puck, and sends it sailing toward Smitty. Our goalie pulls some kind of contortionist move to stop the shot.

I’ve always been in awe of how fast he moves. No way I could ever do what he does.

It’s a mess of back and forth over possession, so Coach signals for a line change, and as I hit the ice, Lund gains control of the puck. “Hart!”

He sends it right to my tape and I take off. Wrapping around the net to beat out one of their defensemen, I pivot and shoot, the puck squeaking into the tiniest opening between the goalie’s waist and the post.

The red light flashes. The horn blares. The crowd erupts.

Perfect. Fucking. Snipe.

Thank fuck.

Wyatt bear hugs me, patting my helmet. “Fucking beautiful, Cap!”

The team’s energy shifts, a spark of hope igniting. Guys are standing, banging their sticks against the boards. We’re only down by one. We still have a chance.

As we skate back to the bench, Coach nods approvingly. “That's what I'm talking about. Let's keep this momentum going!”

But as the minutes tick by, that taste turns bitter. Every shot we take seems to find the goalie's glove or pad. Morrow hits the post. Smirnov fans on an open net. No matter how hard we put up a fight, the goddamn puck refuses to go into the net again.

With ten seconds left, the puck comes to me at the point. This is it. Our last chance. I wind up, everything I have left channeled into this one shot.

The puck leaves my stick like a rocket. It weaves through a sea of bodies. The goalie's screened.

CLANG!

The puck hits the crossbar. The sound reverberates through the arena like a death knell for our hopes.

The horn blares and it’s over.

The score ends 2-1. Another loss. Another nail in the coffin of our fading playoff hopes.

I slam my stick against the ice, the crack of it splitting a fitting punctuation to another disappointing night.

We file down the tunnel, the usual post-game chatter conspicuously absent. The only sounds are the soft thuds of our skates on the rubber mats and the occasional frustrated sigh.

In the locker room, I slump onto the bench in front of my stall, still in full gear. My muscles ache, a dull throb that matches the pounding in my head. Around me, guys start peeling off their sweaty jerseys and pads, tossing them into overflowing laundry bins.

Morrow's skates clatter to the floor as he yanks them off. Wyatt methodically unwinds the tape from his socks. The familiar post-game routines play out in slow motion, as if we're all moving through molasses.

I close my eyes, pressing the heels of my palms against them until I see stars, the promise I made to my late wife flittering around the edges of my consciousness, taunting me with the likelihood that I'll fail her in this too, just as I failed to save her from her disease.

Some protector, some provider I turned out to be.

“Hey, Cap.” Smitty's voice breaks through my spiral. I look up to see him standing there, still in his goalie pads. “We've still got a shot.”

He’s right.

There’s still games left to play, minutes left on the clock of this season and my career. I won’t stop. I won’t give up. Not while there's still breath in my body and strength in my legs to chase down every last puck, to fight for every last inch of ice.

I made a promise, and I intend to keep it.