If Turner started watching me more carefully, started noticing other interactions between Wesley and me, started talking to other players about his suspicions…
I settled into my seat and stared out the window as the plane began taxiing, forcing my breathing to steady. This wasexactly the kind of mistake I couldn’t afford. One careless moment, one unguarded expression, one wink that said too much.
Be more careful. Be smarter. The next four years of your career depend on it.
Four to six years, then retirement and freedom. Four to six years of perfect control, flawless performance, absolute vigilance.
I could do that. I had to do that.
I just had to stop being stupid enough to wink at my secret boyfriend on a team plane in full view of a homophobic D-man who already hated both of us.
The flight to Seattle was smooth, mercifully short, and I spent the entire forty-five minutes avoiding eye contact with both Wesley and Turner. I reviewed game footage on my tablet, discussed strategy with Holloway and Laasko across the aisle, and projected exactly the image of a focused captain preparing for a divisional preseason game.
Wesley sat six rows back. We didn’t speak. Didn’t look at each other. Maintained a professional distance that should have been our default from the beginning.
By the time we landed at Sea-Tac and boarded the bus to the hotel, my nerves had settled into the familiar pregame focus that made everything else fade to background noise.
Game-day routine was sacred— hotel check-in, light skate, rest, pregame meal, warm-up… The rituals grounded me, gave structure to the chaos of professional hockey, transformed anxiety into productive energy.
In the visiting locker room, I taped my stick with methodical precision while the familiar sounds of preparation surrounded me—equipment clattering, music thumping from someone’s phone, Coach Roberts reviewing defensive zone coverage.
“Lapierre.” Holloway dropped onto the bench beside me,already in his base layer. “Third line looked sharp in this morning’s skate. Whatever you did with them at your place, it’s working.”
“Just video games and pizza.” I tested the tape job, satisfied with the texture. “But yeah, Webber and Kozlov are reading each other better. Saw it during practice too.”
“Chemistry’s building.” Laasko joined us, his Finnish accent pronounced. “Team feels different from three weeks ago. More connected.”
“That’s the goal.” I stood, my gear half on, and raised my voice to address the room. “All right, listen up. Seattle’s tough at home—we knew that coming in. But we’ve been working on our passes, building trust, learning to play as a unit. Tonight, we prove to our old teams that our expansions trades can lead to victory on the road.”
A few players chuckled at my reference to the trade, but the energy in the room sharpened. I had their attention.
“When we get opportunities, we bury them. No hesitation, no second-guessing. We play our game, we execute our systems, and we walk out of here with two points.”
The room erupted in agreement—stick taps against the floor, shouts of “Let’s fucking go!” and a unified energy that made the captain’s C on my chest feel less like a burden and more like a privilege.
Forty minutes later, I stood in the tunnel waiting for our entrance, the roar of the Seattle crowd a wall of sound that vibrated through the concrete. My legs felt strong, my hands steady on my stick, my mind clear of everything except for the next sixty minutes of hockey.
The Stormhawks’ preseason was three games old. We were 1-2-0, understandable for an expansion team but not good enough for my standards. A W tonight would prove webelonged in the league, would validate every decision I’d made since arriving in Portland.
The lights dimmed. The crowd roared. And we burst onto the ice.
The first period was a feeling-out process—both teams testing plays, probing for weaknesses, trading chances without breaking through. Seattle’s forecheck was aggressive, but our defense held strong. Turner, for all his personal failings, was an elite D-man who read plays like poetry and shut down Seattle’s top line with ruthless efficiency.
I took my third shift midway through the period, my line matching up against Seattle’s second unit. The puck dropped, and muscle memory took over—reading the play, anticipating passes, moving my feet to create space and opportunities.
I won the draw, pulled it back to Holloway at the point. Holloway surveyed options, then fired a shot that I tipped—not enough to redirect it, but enough to create chaos in front of Seattle’s net. Their goalie made the save, but the rebound kicked out to Laasko, who buried it blocker side.
1–0 Stormhawks.
The bench erupted as Laasko celebrated, and I skated past to tap his helmet. “Fucking beauty!”
The goal energized our team, and we carried that momentum through the rest of the period. By the time the horn sounded for the end of the period, we’d outshot Seattle 14–9 and looked like a cohesive unit instead of a collection of castoffs and expansion draft picks.
In the locker room during the first intermission, Coach Roberts made minor adjustments but mostly emphasized continuing what was working. “Stay disciplined, keep skating, don’t give them easy chances. You’re playing smart hockey out there.”
The second period started fast. Seattle came outaggressive, pressing our defense and creating chaos in our zone. My legs burned as I backchecked, broke up a two-on-one, then transitioned the puck up ice for an odd-man rush that nearly resulted in our second goal.
Hockey at this level was controlled violence—bodies colliding at high speed, sticks slashing and hooking in the corners, the constant battle for inches of ice and fractions of seconds. My lungs bellowed with each shift, my muscles screamed with the accumulation of lactic acid, and sweat poured down my back despite the arena’s chill.
