We look over.
This is directed at me. I'm thirty-four and six-foot-four and an NHL captain, and I have just been summoned like a schoolboy.
I skate to her. She studies me over the top of her glasses with an intensity of someone who has been evaluating men longer than I've been alive.
"Mrs. Henderson," Cam supplies, suddenly appearing at my shoulder. "Town matriarch. Her cane is both decorative and tactical."
Mrs. Henderson ignores him entirely. "You're the Prescott boy."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Sit with me a minute."
I sit.
She doesn't look at me right away. She looks at the ice—at Levi still moving through drills, at the staff in the gallery, at the arena itself. Like she's checking on something. She glances at Cam and Scott who stay close by.
"These are good people." Plain and factual.
“What they're building here matters."
She turns to me then, and her eyes are very direct. "I'm not asking if you're talented. I know you're talented. I'm asking if you're the kind of man who stays."
I don't answer immediately. She doesn't rush me.
"If I choose Cedar Falls—I don’thalf-step.” I say.
She holds my gaze another moment. Then nods—once, like something has been settled.
"Good. Put me down for season tickets," she adds. "Front row. Center ice. And I'll need a parking spot that doesn't require a hike."
"Done."
"And if you're bringing a woman to town, make sure she's not one of those organic-only types. We deep-fry everything here."
I almost laugh. "Noted."
"Good boy." She pats my knee. "You'll do."
She picks up her coffee and turns back to the ice. Done with the business. Back to watching her town.
I look at Cam.
He shrugs. "She does this." But he's smiling.
I rest my gloves on the top rail. Look down the length of the rink.
Clipboards. Radios. Coffee cups balanced on dasher caps. A lift humming near the concourse. Somebody arguing about exit signage.
Every person in this building right now is the beginning of the Mustangs story.
Cam and Levi put up the structure, the shell.
But this—this early-morning chaos with purpose—is what turns a rink into a franchise.
You don’t inherit that loyalty.
You earn it. You stay long enough for it to mean something.
