Crowd roars, stomping the bleachers until the vibration travels up my legs.
Another shot. Low, glove side.
I trap it. Freeze play.
They reset. The faceoff is to my right.
My guys block two shots in rapid succession—meat and bone throwing itself in front of rubber. Then a rebound lands dead in front of me.
The other team is pinched too deep. Their net is gaping at the other end of the rink, two hundred feet of open ice away.
I see it—the lane.
The empty net.
The moment.
I don’t think. I just take the chance.
I set the puck, flick my wrist, and send it spinning down the center of the ice. It glides clean, perfect, insultingly slow.
The entire arena holds its breath.
The silence is sudden and absolute. Five thousand people freeze, eyes tracking the black disc sliding across white ice.
I watch it.
Past the blue line.
Past the red line.
Bisecting the circles.
It feels like it takes an hour. Time stretches, elastic and thin.
Then—
It hits the empty net. Goal.
The sound that erupts almost knocks me backwards.
Chants. Screams. The physical force of the arena losing its mind at once. The horn blares, shaking the glass, shaking my bones.
The boys slam into me, a pile of navy jerseys crashing against my chest and back.
“GOALIE GOAL!” Cole screams, shaking my facemask. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”
The scoreboard flashes—Titans now first in the division.
I let myself look at the student section. Through the celebration, through the chaos, I find her.
Talia.
She’s standing right where I left her, hands pressed over her mouth, eyes wide and shining. She’s not looking at the scoreboard. She’s looking at me.
I don’t smile—not fully—but I tip my helmet a fraction. A salute.
Yours.
