There are four caskets at the front, polished wood gleaming under the sanctuary lights.
Cap’s is draped with the team flag, a gesture that probably made some PR director’s week, but looks cheap and desperate in real life.
The other three are smaller, flanked by tired bouquets, surrounded by photos of guys I’d spent the last six months sweating and bleeding alongside.
We’re seated together, team row, dressed in rental suits that itch and pull in all the wrong places.
O’Doul’s pants are two inches too short; Raz’s tie is so tight I wonder if he’s losing circulation.
I’m no better, my collar is strangling me, the starched cuffs cutting into my wrists. If there’s a hell, this is the uniform.
Coach Vasquez sits at the end, hands folded, face a mask of pure steel. She hasn’t said a word since we walked in.
The rest of us alternate between not making eye contact and staring so hard at the altar we might burn a hole through it.
The service starts with a hymn, which no one sings.
The pastor keeps his message mercifully short, “God’s plan,” “gone too soon,” all the greatest hits. He doesn’t know any of us, and it shows.
Coach is next. She walks up, heels echoing off the marble, and stands behind the lectern like she’s calling lines for a playoff game.
There’s a visible tremor in her hands, but when she speaks her voice is surgical, every word cut and measured.
“They were not saints,” she says, and I hear a wet chuckle from somewhere behind me. “But they were ours. They gave everything to this team, to each other, to the game they loved.
And they did it knowing that the world does not reward sacrifice with fairness. There are no guarantees, not in hockey, not in life. There is only the next shift. The next chance to do right by your brothers.”
She names each of them, and each time the crowd mutters the name back, an echo that’s more instinct than respect.
“And to those still with us,” she says, and for a split second her eyes sweep the pew where we sit, “the best way to honor what we lost is to get back up. Every day, every game, every time.”
There’s a silence after that, dense and complicated.
The ceremony ends. The pallbearers, Steelhawks, old and current—rise as one and move to the front. I see the muscles in O’Doul’s jaw flex, like he’s chewing through concrete.
I watch Cap’s casket hoisted up, remember the weight of him on the ice, the way he could body-check a man twice his size and smile while he did it.
As they process down the aisle, all of us rise in sync, a muscle memory we never needed to practice.
Outside, the day is cold and bright.
The press is waiting, but they’re kept at a safe distance by a cordon of volunteers in orange vests.
The team drifts into loose clusters, guys I’ve fought with, sweated with, never really talked to outside the rink.
I want to leave. Instead I stand with hands clasped behind my back, watching my breath ghost in the air.
I see him then, alone at the edge of the sidewalk, Cap’s little brother, Caleb.
He's twenty-two but looks younger, smaller than Ryan but with the same impossible hair, the same restless hands. Hewears his grief like a badly-fitted jacket, shoulders hunched, eyes ringed with red.
He looks up, sees me, and for a second I think he’ll turn away. Instead, he walks over, every step heavier than the last.
“Darius,” he says. His voice is so quiet it’s almost a secret.
“Hey, man,” I say, because I don’t know what else to offer.
He stares at the ground, scuffs his shoe in the salt and gravel. “Ryan talked about you guys all the time. He said you were the only one who never let him coast.”
