12
Sloane
The Mammoth Center after hours feels like a different building entirely. I push through the glass doors of the executive wing, my heels clicking against polished floors that reflect the emergency lighting strips running along the baseboards. Most of the offices are dark—ghosts of ambition and fluorescent headaches left behind by people with dinner plans and families and lives that don’t revolve around proving they belong.
But not me. Never me.
I settle back into my desk chair, the leather still warm from my earlier twelve-hour marathon. The Northstar presentation spreads across my monitors like a digital war room—demographic breakdowns, engagement metrics, competitive analysis reports painting a picture I’m still not satisfied with.
Close. But not transcendent.
Not the kind of pitch that makes executives forget they’re looking at numbers and start seeingpossibility.
My marketing brain churns. Traditional sponsorship integrations—predictable ROI. Digital campaigns—solid engagement. CSR initiatives—on brand. But nothing that captures thevisceral excitement of eighteen thousand people on their feet, screaming for their team. The raw emotion thatmakes fans drive six hours to away games, that makes grown men cry when their team hoists a championship cup.
I lean back in my chair, rubbing my eyes. The building hums around me with the white noise of ventilation systems and distant ice-making machinery. Through my office windows, downtown Minneapolis twinkles like scattered diamonds, the city going about its evening routine while I chase perfection in spreadsheets and slide decks.
What I need is the intangible factor. The human element that separates data from storytelling, metrics from magic. And suddenly, I know exactly where to find it.
Game footage. Raw, unedited moments—the kind of split-second decisions that reveal everything stats can’t. The chemistry. The grit. The belief.
The team film room is three floors down. By now, it should be empty – coaching staff gone, players home or in bed.
Perfect.
I grab my laptop and head for the elevator, mentally reviewing which games might deliver: The November 15 comeback against Detroit. The OT win over Nashville where the team looked genuinely surprised by their own resilience. Moments where you could see something clicking, chemistry developing, the intangible team culture that makes fans invest emotionally in outcomes they can't control.
The service elevator descends with mechanical precision, carrying me deeper into the building's working heart. The corridors down here smell different—less like corporate cleaner and more like honest work. Ice and rubber and the lingering ghost of equipment tape. The film room sits at the end of a hallway lined with storage closets and maintenanceequipment, its door marked with a simple placard that probably intimidates visiting teams more than it should.
I push the door open, expecting darkness and the antiseptic glow of dormant monitors.
Instead, I find light.
A single workstation glows in the corner. One screen plays slow-motion footage. A figure hunched in focus.
Garrett.
He’s traded his jersey for jeans and a Mammoths pullover, hair tousled like he’s been running his hands through it for hours. The moment catches me off guard. Just a man lost in the game he loves.
My chest tightens.
“Working late?” I ask, voice neutral.
He glances up. His concentration fades into something softer, warmer. “Could ask you the same. Though I guess rising stars don’t get to clock out with everyone else.”
“Neither do alternate captains, apparently.” I step inside, letting the door click shut behind me. The room feels smaller now. Intimate.
“What’s the occasion?”
He gestures at the monitor, where Chicago’s power play flickers. “They’ve been shutting us down all season. I figured if I’m gonna complain about our PP coordinator’s system, I should at least understand theirs.”
I move closer, curiosity overriding caution.
“What am I looking at?”
“See their D-man? He’s cheating center—reading our guy’s eyes. It’s not textbook. It’s instinct. He’s baiting the pass, sliding over just enough to kill the lane.”
The way he sees the game makes something inside me stir. Not attraction, though it’s there too—but admiration.
