I gazed around the room as everyone suited up for our home opener. All these men—all nineteen of them, plus the staff, plus anyone called up from the minors—expected me to live up to the captaincy. They expected a leader, and they’d chosen me.
Not for the first time, I debated asking the team to select a different captain.
I couldn’t do that to them, though.
Most of the guys had played with Leif, and they were all grieving him. Everyone was leaning hard on everyoneelse, trying like hell to be stronger for each other than we were capable of being for ourselves.
I didn’t think I was strong enough to shoulder the captaincy, but the men in this room needed me to do it. If I could wear the C and lead this team, if I could keep putting one skate in front of the other, then they could too.
I pulled on the C-laden jersey and finished getting my gear together for warmups. Tonight would be hard, but we could do this.Icould do this.
Warmups weren’t too bad. Fans cheered. We tossed them some pucks. We went through our usual routines. I mostly managed to ignore that I couldn’t shoulder check Leif tonight and he wouldn’t thread the puck between Eminem’s skates while he was stretching. We’d always done those for good luck—not that hockey players were superstitious or anything—but I’d had similar rituals with teammates who’d left over the years. It came with the territory; if your superstition involved someone else, you’d find a different one after that person left.
I shoulder-checked Baddy, earning me a shout of “Hey!”
A few minutes later, Davis threaded a puck between Eminem’s skates, and they exchanged smiles.
Yeah. We could do this. We could move forward as a team, superstitions at all.
Warmups came to an end. We returned to the locker room briefly, then came back out for the game.
Since this was the home opener, we came out in numerical order as the announcer introduced us by our number, name, and hometown. As one of the alternate captains, I’d gone second to last for the past two seasons. Baddy had always gone before me, and then Leif, being the captain, went out last.
Tonight, we had a new alternate captain.
“From Samara, Russia, number twelve, alternate captain Nikandr Mikhailov.”
Mix took off, waving to the crowd as he headed for the circle.
“From Houston, Texas, number thirty-six, alternate captain Luis Abadiano!”
Baddy skated out.
No one left but me.
I swallowed.Here we go.
“And finally, from Abbottsford, British Columbia, captain of your Pittsburgh Whiskey Rebels—number seventy-two, Avery Caldwell!”
The roar of the crowd made me smile, and I waved at the fans as I hit the ice.
Then I joined my teammates in the circle, and the announcer repeated, “Please welcome this season’s Pittsburgh Whiskey Rebels!”, which prompted even more cheering. My heart pounded, and not in an entirely bad way for a change. The fans were pumped. Maybe I could feed off that and get into the game the way I needed to tonight.
The cheers started to die down. At this point, most of the team would normally retreat to the bench while the starting lineups for both teams stood at the blue lines for the national anthems. This time, every player remained in the circle around center ice, and the visitors joined us, slotting themselves between Whiskey Rebels
I gritted my teeth. Even though I knew what was coming and I’d been steeling myself for it all damn week, I wasn’t ready.
The arena went dark, and I stole a second to close my eyes and swallow hard. This was going to be hell, but I was determined to make it through.
For my team. For our fans. For Leif’s family. For Leif’s memory.
For myself.
The lights stayed down, and the screen lit up, showing a photo of Leif in his jersey, no helmet on and his dark hair neatly arranged, with his stick in one gloved hand and that brilliant smile on his face.
The announcer’s voice was unusually subdued as he said, “In August of this year, the Pittsburgh Whiskey Rebel family suffered a terrible loss when Leif Erlandsson unexpectedly passed away.”
I pushed out a ragged breath, the thin cloud forming in front of me as I stared up at the screen. I didn’t hear much of what the announcer said. I was too focused on the clips of Leif. There were some highlight reel shots of his most incredible goals, and that time he’d come out of the penalty box, taken a pass from Davis and scored before the other team had known what hit them. There were shots of him and Rachel with their kids at the family skate on Christmas Eve, on the ice during practice, and at home. There was the image the team had displayed of the smiling parents with their minutes-old daughter at the hospital one night when Leif had understandably had to miss a game. Pictures and clips showed him with his teammates over the years, both on and off the ice. I laughed even as some tears spilled down my cheeks when the video switched to some of us pranking one of the rookies last season, followed by some of our other hijinks.
