A few jaws tighten.
“They will try to slow this game down,” she says, tapping the board once. “Grind you into penalties. Drag you into whistles. That’s how they win on the road.”
She looks up and meets every stare.
“Don’t give them that.”
The marker clicks again. “First shift matters. I want speed. I want pressure. I want them uncomfortable before they figure out what system they’re supposed to be running.”
A murmur of agreement ripples through the room.
“If they want to play clean,” she adds evenly, “out-skate them. If they want to play physical, finish every check and make it count.”
Her eyes land on me. “Make them adjust.” I nod again, and she steps back, voice dropping just enough that we all lean in. “You know who you are. Play like it.”
That’s it, no theatrics. Not from her anyway,
We line up for the tunnel, Faulker bumps my shoulder. “Switch on.”
I touch two fingers to my helmet, then the boards as if to say, engaged.
The whisper comes, like it always does.
Mikhail. Do not stop hitting me.And a new one filters in, not invited, but I really hope it stays there forever.Sofie. Win this game.
Then the lights drop, all of them. The arena plunges into darkness, and the first note hits.
That unmistakable bassline, slow, heavy.
“Seven Nation Army, Detroit band, fucking weaponized against them.” Marshall grins. And not in the usual goofy way, it’s dark and menacing.I like it.
Red lights bloom through the dark, Brooklyn red. They pulse to the beat, slow and steady, like a heart coming back to life. Thump. Thump. Thump. The lights rise and fall in time with themusic, climbing the walls, cutting through the crowd, crawling under skin. The noise swells now. Chanting starts before the words do. The announcer lets it build. Let’s Detroit feel every second of it. Then?—
“Now entering the ice…” The tunnel doors slide open. “…thefirst-place team in the league.” The bass drops harder. The lights flash brighter. “The team that owns the heart of this city.”
I push off with the rest of them, skates biting into ice that belongs to us.
“Your Brooklyn Bears!”
The building detonates, and I swing my eyes to Coach D, in question. She smirks and shrugs her answer. Total badass still. She moves aside, and we spill onto the ice in a wave of red and black, the crowd losing its mind, the chant rising around us like a physical force. I glide forward, low and controlled, heart steady, world narrowing into edges and sound and instinct.
Detroit is watching now.
Good.
I circle once, slow, letting the noise wash over me, letting the music carry through my chest and slow even more as I pass her box and look up.
Sofie taps her chest, nods, and throws me a W.
“Fuck yes!” I laugh and point to her. “Fuck yes!”
She motions, eyes on the ice, points to me, and throws another W.
One firm nod and my focus is nowhere else. But my heart, yeah, I don’t just need to win this game, I need to win the girl.
Coach D’s musical theatrics worked magic; Detroit’s moving fast tonight. Sloppy, aggressive, trying to draw penalties. I welcome it, hell, the whole team does.
We play hard, but we play clean.
