“Oh, it wasn’t me, it was the rest of the team. I just asked myself, ‘What would Gracie do?’ and then started doing it,” Ari said, quickly shrugging it off.
“Don’t do that,” Gracie said firmly. “Youdid this. You werealways capable of doing it, that’s why Coach and I decided you were the best fit for the job.”
Ari was taken aback. She had no idea that Gracie had been involved in that conversation. In fact, she’d felt so bad about Gracie’s accident that she’d pushed the question of why she’d been made captain to the back of her mind. Only sending Gracie a handful of texts and refusing to let herself call for help, even though she knew there was no one better to seek advice from than the woman who’d spent years captaining ice hockey teams.
“You had it in you the whole time.Enjoythis moment,” Gracie said, squeezing her hand. Ari wanted to ask more, finally get some advice and listen for the magic words she needed to win the match. But Gracie was already wheeling herself away. Ari tried to get her to go to the locker room and give the team a pep talk, but Gracie just shook her head and waved her off.
“This isyourmoment; they’re your team now. Just let me be your biggest fan,” Gracie said with a grin before making her way to the entrance of the supporters’ box. She was right. So, Ari left to join her team.
The energy in the locker room that afternoon was different. It wasn’t like the heated tension before their competition against Japan or the terrified dread of their game against Sweden. It didn’t match the hopeful playfulness of their first game or the celebration that followed their last game. This was something different altogether. That afternoon felt like the night before a big birthday. It was excitement, mixed with dread, sprinkled with a healthy dose of fear. Izzy was dancing around the room to her pregame playlist, Yasmeen was spraying her favorite perfume onto her jersey sleeves, and Izzy had her eyes closed, trying to center herself amid the chaos. Ari stood still, framing the memory. She and her best friends would never be as young as they were right now, at their first Olympics, about to play the biggest game oftheir careers. Ari sent out a silent prayer that she would know her teammates for the rest of her life. That even if they grew up, stopped playing professionally, and moved apart, they’d always come back together on the ice. But she decided that if they didn’t, this afternoon would be enough. So, once everyone was ready, she stood up on a bench to make sure they could all see her.
“I know I don’t have a great reputation for pregame pep talks, but it’s the quarterfinals and I’m feeling sentimental. So, first of all, I just want to say that I really love you all,” she said, smiling as they heckled her. They weren’t an emotionally earnest team, but Ari wasn’t going to back down.
“I’ve known most of you since we were just teenage girls with acne, aggression issues, and outlandish dreams. But look around, we made it,” she said softly, gazing out at her girls. “This is a culmination of all the years we spent on the rink, playing our bestlong beforeanybody else believed in us. I’m so proud of how far we’ve come,” she said, watching as they nodded and took it in. “I know everyone’s terrified of playing Team USA, and if I’m honest, so am I. But if they’re going to try and beat us, let’s make every single second they spend on that rink a misery,” she said to a crowd of faces surprised at the pivot in her tone. But Ari knew what she was doing. She wasn’t just there to make them feel good about themselves, she was there to remind them of the huge chip on their shoulders that had carried them through the last decade or so on the ice.
“They have the championship advantage, but we have something to prove. So, I want to see them squirm. For them to be so surprised by how much better we are than when they last played us that they panic on the ice. I want them to remember this as the day they got crushed by a team that was at the bottom of the league two years ago. So, let’s go out onto the ice and give themhell,” said Ari to a round of cheers and applause. Her speech hadfilled the locker room with so much energy that they lifted her up from the bench and carried her around the room, chanting “Give them hell!” Somehow, it was the most wholesome moment the team had shared since landing in Switzerland. Coach McLaughlin shook his head and laughed, then turned up the music. Ari didn’t do pep talks, but she knew how to get the girls fired up.
As they walked into the stadium, they were greeted by a wave of applause. The Team GB supporters’ stand was filled to the brim with Union Jacks and hand-painted signs. She knew that her family had bought tickets, but she hadn’t spoken to them since leaving them to sort out their issues on the phone. She usually had a strict no-contact rule in the twenty-four hours before a monumental game, restricting her conversations to just her teammates and coach. She did it to avoid being thrown off by an unexpected text, doom scroll, or call; and no matter how much drama was going on back home, her family usually respected it. But since their last conversation had ended on bad terms, she’d almost expected them to stay at home. She’d been pretty harsh with them and hadn’t checked in each morning like she usually did. But as she looked out at the supporters’ stands, she saw two familiar faces. They were dressed head to toe in Team GB supporters’ merch, singing along to each chant the crowd sang. Her sister spotted her first and started jumping up and down with a sign that readTEAM ARI!. Then Ari locked eyes with her mother. She was wearing a big Team GB hoodie, crying tears of joy, and holding the sign up even higher. Ari whipped her phone out to take a photo of them, but when she looked at her screen, there was a message waiting for her.
Mama:We should have been at every game. We love you. I’m sorry.
Ari nodded and waved at her family before putting her phone in the locker and letting out a sigh she’d been holding in for years. The weight she’d been carrying felt lighter now. For once she could channel all of her mental energy onto the ice.
When the girls skated onto the rink this time, their whole demeanor was different. The tension that had been lingering among them had dissipated. The caution with which they’d been playing ever since they’d landed in Switzerland was replaced by a confident yet playful sense of determination. Because today, for the first time, they’d resolved to play like they had nothing to lose.
They took their positions, glanced over at one another one more time, and got ready for the game to begin. Team USA did the same thing, skating across the ice in their blue-and-white jerseys, dripping with confidence.
As Ari made her way to the center, so did Thandie. They made eye contact through the helmets that protected their faces.
“Good luck,” Ari said quietly enough that only they could hear. Thandie smiled.
“Break a leg,” Thandie whispered with a wink. Ari laughed and then tried to regain her composure as the stadium quieted and everyone on the ice locked in. They gave each other one final nod before positioning themselves for game time. This was it.
The stadium went silent as the referee skated to the center and raised his hand. The world slowed down for a second as he loosened his grip, let go of the puck, and watched it land.
Ari clutched her hockey stick, swept the puck before Thandie could touch it, and in an instant, the game was on her side. Everything happened at full speed after that.
The puck whizzed across the ice from player to player as each team took control of the game, lost it, recovered, slipped up, triumphed, and started again. The first score should have gone to Team USA, but Izzy saved it by just the width of a hair.
After an excellent three-person attack, Sienna scored Team GB’s first goal and raised the stakes of each second.
Thandie missed her first attempt, but made up for it by scoring twice before the end of the first period.
But then Yasmeen and the defense built an iron-clad wall between the blue jerseys and the goal, blocking each of their attempts and shooting the puck across the ice each time they got close.
They went back and forth, nonstop. The game was so action-packed that they didn’t have a moment to second-guess themselves. Ari scored a goal and then another. For a fraction of a second, she saw what looked like fear in Thandie’s eyes, but her teammates immediately picked up the pace with another score just seconds into the third period.
The scoreboard kept going up. Each time one team scored a goal, so did the other. The action was nail-bitingly intense as they skated up and down the rink, chased after each other, and hit precisely angled shots.
But when the game reached its final thirty seconds, something magical happened. Izzy blocked a goal that unintentionally shot the puck to Yasmeen, who sent it flying on the ice to Sienna, who expertly hit it toward Ari, just as their opponents looked to the side.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Ari hit it with her hockey stick and watched the puck fly across the ice, skim past a blue-and-white jersey, and hit the net, scoring a majestic goal in the last twenty seconds of the game.
They had never played in such harmony before or executed a play with such skill and precision.
Ari’s eyes widened as she realized what they’d done. A goal in the final twenty seconds that tied their score with Team USA.
However, before she could allow herself to smile, the puckwas out in the rink again, the seconds before the game ended counting down in slow motion as the blue jerseys took control of the game and passed the puck back and forth until Thandie Dlamini got ahold of it and scored the winning goal.
