I looked back two rows.Javier was asleep, his face pale, a hoodie pulled tight over his head.
Great.Our top scorer was out of commission.That meant a low-scoring game.That meant one mistake would kill us.
I put my headphones back on, but I didn’t play music.I turned on the noise-canceling and listened to the low hum of the bus and tried to find the zone.
The Tsongas Center was loud.
Even for morning skate, the building hummed with HVAC noise and the echo of pucks hitting glass.The rink had hard ice, which was a godsend.
I spent twenty minutes working the crease, testing the angles.Ryan was right; the arena was loud, and there weren’t even people in the stands.A puck fired wide of the net ricocheted back out into the slot like a grenade.
Geometry, I told myself.Geometry.
“Carter!”Harper barked from the bench.“Rebound control!Stop kicking it back into traffic!”
“Yes, Coach.”
I reset.I focused.But my mind felt crowded.
In the locker room before the game, Javier sat in his stall, looking green.He was taping his stick with slow, miserable movements.
“You alive?”I asked him.
“Fluids,” he muttered.“Need fluids.”
Ryan stood in the center of the room, playing air guitar with a composite stick to a track only he liked.“Let’s go, boys!We steal two points, we own the bus ride home!Who wants it?”
“We want it!”a few rookies yelled back, nervous energy spiking.
I sat in my corner, the noise of the room fading into a dull hum.Time for the ritual.
In the book of goaltending, equipment isn’t protection; it’s an extension of the skeleton.If the gear fails, the goalie fails.
I started with the foundation.Base layer, then the knee pads.
A lot of guys taped their knees to death, terrified of them slipping, but I never had an issue.I trusted the friction.I slid the knee stacks in place, pulled the heavy knit hockey socks over the top, and let the fabric lock them down.
Next, the cup.Essential.Keep the vitals covered.
Then, the pants.
I stepped into the breezers and cinched the internal belt.No suspenders—I didn’t like the restriction on my shoulders.I tightened the waist until it sat flush.
Then, and only then, did I reach for my skates.
I knew guys who put their skates on before their pants.I couldn’t trust people like that.There was something fishy about the mechanics of it, fighting to pull nylon over a sharpened blade.It was, in Austen’s words, inefficient and illogical.
I pulled the left skate on.I ran my thumbnail across the inside edge of the blade.It scraped a thin curl of nail—sharp.Good.I liked a 3/8-inch hollow, deeper than most guys, because I needed that bite to push across the crease instantly.I tightened the laces until my circulation throbbed.
Now, the leg pads.
Strapping them on wasn’t enough; they needed calibration.Toe ties were fastened with shock cord, not lace, to relieve the strain on the ankles.Rotation was the priority: too tight, and the five-hole stayed open; too loose, and the landing gear failed.
Fully armored from the waist down, the upper base layer came next, followed by the chest protector.The unit slid over my head, carrying the metallic tang of the drying room.Side buckles cinched tight.Next came the neck guard.Hated or not, the NCAA mandated the restrictive collar, even if it choked me every time I dropped into the Reverse-VH to look for pucks.
Finally, the helmet.Chin cup checked, but the throat dangler stayed off.The constantching, ching, chingof plastic hitting the cage was a distraction I couldn’t afford.Silence was the only option.
Finally, the gloves and the stick.
