The PR box sat above the far side of the rink, glass catching the arena lights in fractured reflections that made it hard to see clearly unless you knew where to look. Bea stood near the railing, headset looped around her neck, one hand braced lightly against the ledge as she leaned forward, watching the ice. Not the crowd. Not the screens.
Her posture was composed, but there was something sharper in her focus. Intent. Locked in. Like she was reading the game in her own way, processing, adjusting, already thinking three steps ahead of whatever came next.
For a second, everything else dropped.
The noise dulled.
The bench blurred.
It was just—her.
I clenched my jaw.Focus.
The next few shifts got uglier.
Every time we tried to force something through the middle, it died on a stick or got picked clean and turned the other way. Their defense didn’t overcommit. Their forwards didn’t cheat. They trusted the system—and each other—to hold.
We didn’t.
I saw it in the small things. Guys stretching for passes instead of trusting they’d come. Routes getting cut short. Coverage slipping half a step because someone expected someone else to be there. Fractures.
Not big enough to call out.
Not small enough to ignore.
It built.
Shift by shift.
Until it snapped.
Zee got hit in open ice. Not dirty. Clean enough that no one would call it. Hard enough that it didn’t matter. He wentdown heavy, sliding into the boards with a sound that carried over the crowd noise, sharp and wrong.
I was already moving.
Their guy, Wabash, turned, ready for it, shoulders squaring as I came in. I lined him up, weight dropping, hands tightening on my stick as I shifted into the hit—and for a split second—everything narrowed.
That familiar edge that lived just under my skin, the one the league liked to pretend was a problem instead of a function.
I pulled at the last second.
Not clean enough. But contact still hit hard—shoulder into chest, enough force to send him back a step, enough to draw attention immediately.
The whistle came fast.
“Two minutes,” the ref barked, already pointing.
I didn’t argue. Didn’t look at him. Didn’t look at anyone. Just turned and skated for the box, chest steady even as something underneath it tightened in a way I didn’t like.
They scored on the power play.
Clean.
Predictable.
2–0.
We didn’t recover.