Riverton Wolves are one of our team’s oldest rivalries. They’re located close enough to steal fans, and far enough to hate each other properly. Our games are always ones that turn ugly by the second period: filled with cheap shots and long memories.
My instincts stretch and flex, eager and sharp. I can already picture it: the noise, the hits, the way the ice feels faster when you want blood.
“You’re all buzzing,” Emery says mildly. “Try not to implode before puck drop.”
I laugh. “No promises.”
But beneath the humor, there’s something steady holding us together now. A shared center of gravity. A pack that knows where it starts and where it ends.
And when we take the ice against Riverton, we won’t just be playing for points.
We’ll be playing for each other.
*
By the time game day rolls around, Iron Lake has settled into that deep-winter mood where the cold stops being a novelty and starts being a fact of life.
The air hurts when you breathe it in too fast, the snowbanks along the roads are layered with months of plow scars, and the Icebox parking lot looks like a frozen graveyard of pickup trucks and beat-up sedans that refuse to die. The sky hangs low and white, threatening more snow but never quite delivering it all at once—just enough to keep everyone irritated.
Perfect hockey weather.
We’re in the conference semifinals now; one step from the finals, and one step from making this season mean something permanent.
The locker room is loud, but not sloppy. (There’s a difference.) Music’s playing, but nobody’s dancing. Tape gets wrapped with intention and steel gets checked twice, and I lace my skates slower than usual, feeling the familiar tightness in my chest that always hits before big games.
Nerves, sure. But mostly hunger.
Across the room, Beau is quiet in that way he gets when he’s locked in: shoulder taped and jaw set, his eyes sharp. Theo sits beside him, methodical as ever, rewrapping the brace on his wrist from an old injury, movements calm and precise.
The three of us barely talk, but we don’t need to. There’s a current running between us now, something that didn’t exist earlier in the season.
Pack awareness.
Coach finishes his speech without theatrics. After all, we all know what this game is. We all know who Riverton is.
“Discipline,” he says, voice steady. “They’ll try to drag you down to their level. Don’t let them. We skate our game, we finish our checks, and we make them chase us.”
He looks right at Beau when he adds, “And we don’t retaliate stupidly.”
Beau gives a single nod.
We file out into the tunnel, the noise of the crowd swelling as the doors crack open. The Icebox is packed, and when the puck drops, Riverton comes out fast and mean.
They forecheck hard, two men deep, trying to force turnovers along the boards. We answer with clean breakouts, D-to-D passes snapping tape to tape, wingers flying the zone the second we gain possession.
The ice feels fast tonight—fresh cut, edges sharp—and my legs hum with it.
First period stays scoreless, but it’s not quiet. Hits rattle the glass as sticks slash at ankles just a fraction late. Their goalie plays aggressive, cutting angles early, while ours stays deep and patient, trusting the defense to clear rebounds.
Second period is where it turns.
We score first, and the Icebox erupts. The Wolves answer back five minutes later on a power play, one-timer from the left circle after a clean seam pass that we should’ve closed.
1–1.
Tension coils tight, and I’m changing on the fly when I hear it—clear as day, shouted from the Riverton bench as Emery passes behind them with the trainers.
Something crude. Personal.
