I can see her here. Laughing. Bright. Relentless.
The question is: can she see herself here?
Farther down the street, a confectionery shop at the bottom of a large three-story building of repurposed industrial brick. There’s a sign that saysCandy Jar—the display window is so full of color it practically vibrates against the orange February dusk. That's Levi's wife's place. Lily. He's mentioned it approximately four hundred times.
I imagine Jane inside. Elbows on the counter. Sampling truffles. Asking Lily how she sources her cocoa beans. Making notes. Probably negotiating bulk orders for some future client event I don'teven know about yet.
She'd fit here. The question is whether she'd want to.
Farther out, I catch the shape of an auto shop—Cedar Crest Customs, the sign half-lit by a work lamp inside the bay. Somebody's still under a hood at this hour. Small towns keep their own clocks.
I don’t see the arena yet. Was told it doesn’t even have an official name. The town council is running some kind of contest.
Then a fire station. A guy in a fire department jacket holds the door for a woman carrying a pie dish. She says something that makes him laugh—I can't hear it through the closed windows but his whole posture changes, the way it does when something genuinely lands.
I drive past it all at twenty-five miles per hour. Not because of the speed limit. Because I'm reading the place the way I read ice—surface conditions, sight lines, where the space opens up and where it tightens. Where the energy concentrates. Where people actually live versus where they perform living.
No curated storefronts angled for Instagram. The bistro has fogged windows because people are inside eating, not because someone designed the aesthetic.
It's not loud. Doesn't need to be.
Because it gets noticed.
Skyridge Hotel rises at the edge of downtown — modern lines, glass and stone. The only five-star in town.
I check in. Unpack. Text Cam and Levi my safe arrival.
NHL contract ends June 30. Coaching contract would start July 1.
I order coffee from Cedar Grounds downstairs and review the contract again.
February 21 | Saturday morning. Nine a.m.
I slept eight hours. Uninterrupted. No sirens. No neighbor’s subwoofer vibrating through drywall. No garbage trucks staging a percussion concert at five-thirty.
Just quiet.
The particular quiet of a mountain town in February, where even the birds seem to operate on a more civilized schedule.
I shower, dress, and head out on foot instead of driving the rental car.
The sun is sharp and gold against the mountains like it has something to prove. In New York, February feels gray and crowded. Here it feels… clean.
The arena’s a little less than three miles from the hotel, but I stretch it into twenty minutes—long strides, controlled breath, working up a light sweat. Warm-up before warm-up. My body likes ritual. My head needs it.
Somewhere between the first mile and the second, my mind drifts back to the week the Olympic roster dropped.
They called then. Not officially. Not through agents. Cam texted first:You good?
Which in hockey language means: I saw. That’s brutal.
Levi followed five minutes later.If you’re tired of freezing in New York, we might have something interesting out west.
That’s how competitors recruit each other. Casual. No pressure. Like it’s nothing.
We talked that night. Not long. Just enough.
They’re not pretending the AHL isn’t what it is. Guys get called up. Guys get sent down. Careers pivot overnight.
