For a second, I can’t breathe or move. I hear the whistle blow, hear players circling, hear the arena go silent.
Get up.
I try to move, and pain shoots through my ribs.
Get the fuck up.
Gregory, one of the trainers for the Angels, appears above me, asking questions, shining a light in my eyes. I wave him off and push myself up on one elbow, then slowly climb to my feet. The crowd roars, and I skate to the bench, trying not to show how much it hurts.
“You’re done,” the trainer says.
“He knocked the wind out of me. I’m fine.”
“Patterson—”
“I said I’m fucking fine.”
I sit down and grab a water bottle, squirting some into my mouth while I catch my breath. My ribs are aching. Bruised? Absolutely. Cracked at worst. I’ve played through broken ones before.
Hunter drops onto the bench beside me. “Patty, you good?”
“Never better.”
“Then get back out there and score a fucking goal,” Hunter says with a grin.
He hops over the boards, and I sit there, trying to breathe through the pain. Coach watches me and waits to see what I’ll do.
I’m not coming out of this game when we’re this close.
The buzzer sounds, and we head to the locker room for intermission, down 2 to 0 with twenty minutes left in our season. Guys are quiet, frustrated, some of them already looking defeated.
I stand up, and the room goes still.
“Look at me,” I say. “Every single one of you.”
They do.
“We didn’t come this far to lose. We didn’t survive the bullshit to roll over in the third period.” I make eye contact with each of them. Callan. Hunter. Smiley. Wyatt. The rookies in the corner, who are terrified. “They’re up by two. So what? We’ve come back from worse. We’ve beatenbetterteams than this.”
“Patty—” Callan starts.
“It’s the fucking Kodiaks.” I take a breath, and my ribs protest, but I ignore it. “Everyone in this room has given everything they have this season. Every practice, every game, every fucking shift. And we can’t quit now.” I point at the door.“There are twenty minutes of hockey left. Twenty minutes to choose if we’re going home or making the playoffs. We have to decide who we are and what we’re going to be. Are we winners or losers?”
The room is dead silent.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going out there, and we’re going to play our motherfucking asses off. We’re going to play hockey like we’ve never played before. We’re going to hit everything that moves and put pucks in the net. Give it everything we have and make it count.”
I look around the room one more time.
“Who’s with me?”
Callan stands up first, and then Hunter, Tyler, Wyatt, Jacob, Smiley, and then the rest of the room. One by one, they get to their feet until the whole room is standing, sticks tapping against the floor in a sound that builds into a roar.
Coach gives us a pep talk, and by the time he’s finished, we’re pumped and ready to win.
“Let’s fucking go,” Callan says, and we head back to the ice.
The puck drops for the third period, and we come out like a completely different team. Every player fights for each inch of ice like their life depends on it. The crowd feeds off our energy, and the arena comes alive again. Hearing twenty thousand people screaming on their feet will never get old.
