I joined him, staring down at a groaning Tucker. “Good thing he doesn’t have any sponsorship deals to lose.”
Tucker nodded eventually, slowly pushing himself up. “Just wait until I stop seeing double. I’m gonna kick both your asses.”
He skated off, but not clean or steady at all.
“Next man up!” Grayson shouted, clapping his stick.
We had no choice but to readjust. Shifts got shorter, and faster. Whatever hesitation held us back at the start had to be cut out. I found myself digging deeper, but it still felt like I was chasing the game instead of controlling it. Every touch mattered. Every mistake cost us big time.
“Middle, Aiden!” Grayson called late in the period.
I cut into the slot, stick down. He fed me a perfect pass and I took the shot.
Glove save.
I skated past the net, exhaling hard, frustration biting at the edges. That was it. That was my shot. Colorado wouldn’t be giving us another chance like that again.
“Next one,” Landon said as we looped back. “You’re right there.”
Right there. Always right there.
The clock ticked down, each second heavier than the last. Hits kept coming. Bodies crashing. Ice carving under sharp turns and desperate stops.
By the end of the second, it felt like we’d played three games already.
We skated off tied.
1–1.
And it felt like the hardest fight of my life wasn’t even halfway done.
The locker room was loud, but it wasn’t chaos. It was something tighter. Coiled.
Coach stood in the middle of it, eyes sweeping over every single one of us like he was taking inventory of what we had left. Sweat dripped, gear clattered, guys leaned forward, elbows on knees, chests heaving. Nobody was relaxed. Nobody was satisfied.
“Look at me,” Coach said, voice cutting clean through the noise.
Everything stilled.
“You think this is supposed to be easy?” he went on, stepping closer, voice rising. “You think they’re just gonna roll over and hand you this game because you want it more?”
No one answered.
“Good,” he snapped. “Because they don’t care what you want. They don’t care how close you think you are. That team out there is trying to take everything from you. Everything!”
He pointed toward the tunnel, toward the ice.
“And right now? Right now it’s a tie game. Which means what? It means this is where it gets decided. Not in the first. Not in the second. Here.” He tapped his chest. “Right here. This is what you’ve got left.”
My pulse kicked harder.
“You don’t save anything for later,” Coach said, voice dropping, dangerous now. “There is no later. You leave it out there. Every hit, every stride, every goddamn breath.”
A stick smacked against the floor. Then another. A steady tapping underscored Coach’s words.
“You fight for the guy next to you. You fight for this team. You fight for everything you’ve worked for your whole life to get to this moment.” His eyes landed on me for a split second. “Because this is it. This is where you decide who you are.”
The room erupted.
