Eight seconds of absolute, ringing, devastated quiet.
I stand.
The clipboard stays on the bench. The notes I took during the game are thorough, but they are redundant now. Mae covered every deficiency I documented and several I missed, delivering the assessment with an emotional conviction that my analytical approach could not match. She did not just identify the problems. She made them feel the problems. Made them understand that the errors on those pages are not abstract tactical failures but concrete consequences that affect real people with real stakes.
Her father would be proud.
The thought arrives with a certainty that surprises me. I did not know Coach Rose. I have read his published work, studied his systems, heard his name referenced in professional circles with the reverence typically reserved for innovators who changed their field before the field was ready to be changed. But watching his daughter command that room, watching herchannel decades of absorbed knowledge through the filter of her own experience and fury, I understand why his methodology endures.
He did not just teach strategy. He taught conviction. And his daughter inherited both.
I look at Cal.
"Collect Coach Rose's papers," I say. The instruction is quiet but carries no ambiguity. "Every page. They are hers and they represent hours of work that this team is going to need if it intends to survive the next game."
Cal nods, already rising from the bench.
I turn to Etienne.
"Help him. Make sure nothing is missing."
Etienne stands without a word, his dark eyes carrying the focused calm of a man who has transitioned from fury to purpose in the span of a single request. The two of them move through the locker room, collecting scattered pages from the floor, from benches, from the shoulders of players who sit motionless while strategy documents are retrieved from their vicinity like evidence being gathered at a scene.
I look around the room.
Twenty-three faces stare back at me. Some humbled. Some defensive. Some wearing the complicated expression of men who have just been called pathetic by an Omega half their size and are struggling to reconcile that assessment with their self-image. Rafe is still against the lockers, the papers Mae slapped against his chest now clutched in his hand, his gray eyes fixed on the door she exited through with an expression I cannot fully read from this distance.
"Everyone's performance was shit on the ice today," I announce.
No preamble. No softening. The assessment delivered with the blunt efficiency of a man who has captained professionalteams and does not have the patience or the inclination to sugarcoat a loss that did not need to happen.
"Your choice is yours to make. If you want to continue running the same system that produced tonight's result, you can show up on Monday for my younger brother's practice schedule and see if the definition of insanity treats you any kinder the second time around."
I pause, letting the alternative build before I deliver it.
"If you want a real shot at this, if you want to prove to the six scouts who watched you tonight that the performance they documented is not the full picture of what this team is capable of, then you will show up tomorrow. Bright and early. With your gear ready, your egos checked at the door, and the understanding that I am not Rafe. I do not scream. I do not threaten. I do not bench players who challenge my decisions because I am secure enough in my strategy to welcome scrutiny."
I scan the room one final time.
"But I also do not tolerate mediocrity. And I do not repeat instructions. You get one explanation. One demonstration. One chance to execute before I adjust and move forward with or without you."
I straighten my jacket.
"And do not be fucking late," I add, allowing the ghost of a smirk to cross my features, "because I have every intention of taking Mae Rose out for dinner tomorrow evening for putting up with this team's collective stupidity, and whatever else you are probably going to ignite during practice. So the sooner we finish, the sooner I can make a reservation at a restaurant that does not smell like sweat and regret."
A few of the rookies exchange glances that carry the faintest trace of amusement, the first break in the room's tension since Mae's exit.
Henderson, the senior defenseman who raised his hand first during the vote, nods once. A silent agreement from a man who has been waiting three years for leadership that matches the talent on this roster.
I do not wait for a consensus.
Consensus will come tomorrow morning when they show up, or it will not come at all, and either outcome provides me with the information I need to build a team that can compete in the preliminary rounds. I have rebuilt programs from worse wreckage than this. I have taken fractured locker rooms in Paris, in Munich, in Milan, and forged them into units that won championships through discipline, trust, and the shared understanding that individual ego is the enemy of collective success.
This team has the raw material. The talent is there. The hunger is there, buried beneath layers of mismanagement and the learned helplessness that develops when athletes spend years following a leader who punishes initiative and rewards compliance.
Mae gave them the diagnosis. I intend to administer the treatment.
I walk away, leaving them to decide.
