We were all silent. Nobody wanted to be the first to ask how fucked they were.
Coach stepped forward. "Here's what we're gonna do. We control what we can control. The ice. Each other. The rest of it?" He shrugged. "Above our pay grade."
He turned toward the door, then stopped. "Practice in twenty. Show me you still remember how to play hockey."
Then he was gone, leaving us with Crawford and his corporate smile.
"We'll keep you informed as the situation develops." Crawford rechecked his watch. "Thank you for your time."
The suits left. The door swung shut.
I looked around at my teammates—my brothers—and realized we all thought the same thing.
How do you fight something you can't hit?
The suits hadn't been gone thirty seconds before Pickle started pacing.
"What if they don't renew my contract?" His voice pitched higher with each word. "What if I have to move back home? Do I call my agent? What if I never make it to the show? What if—"
Jake whipped a towel at his head. "Fuck, kid. Breathe."
I kept taping my stick, wrapping the blade in slow, deliberate spirals. The rhythm helped—something to focus on while my brain processed what Crawford had just dropped on us.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Probably Rhett, wondering why I hadn't responded. For almost a month, we'd been doing this—whatever this was—and I still didn't know how to explain that everything I'd built my life around might disappear before we figured out if we were serious or just Thunder Bay's favorite piece of gossip.
"Seriously, though," Pickle continued. "Do they just... announce it one day? Like, 'Thanks for playing, here's a bus ticket to Saskatoon'?"
"Worse places than Saskatoon," Desrosiers said from across the room.
"Name one."
"A bus depot in Moose Jaw at 3 a.m."
Coach appeared in the doorway like a ghost, watching us pretend everything was normal. His gum snapped once, sharp as a whip crack.
"Don't start writing obituaries before the season's over," he said quietly.
Then he was gone again, leaving us with the echo of his words and the sound of skates scraping against concrete as guys finished getting dressed.
The ice felt wrong the moment my blade hit it.
Not choppy—that would've been the Zamboni's fault. This was my edge. Dull where it should've been sharp, catching on the inside when I tried to pivot. I'd sharpened them yesterday. My hands knew that pattern like breathing.
Except now they didn't.
"Corners drill!" Coach barked. "Hawkins, MacLaren—you're up!"
I lined up across from MacLaren, both of us low and ready. Coach dropped the puck. We crashed together—shoulders, sticks, the familiar crunch of bodies competing for space.
Except when I tried to drive through him, my knee didn't hold. Not buckled—worse. It clicked—felt more than heard—and my leg went numb from hip to ankle.
MacLaren won the puck easily. Swept it free while I adjusted my weight, testing.
"Again!" Coach called. We reset. This time, I protected the knee and compensated with my right side. I got my stick on the puck, but MacLaren's elbow caught my ribs—in the same spot Desrosiers had tagged two days ago.
The pain was white-hot and immediate, stealing my breath.
I doubled over. Just for a second. Just long enough for everyone to notice.
