Four to two. Twenty minutes left.
Coach stepped in and the room settled without anyone calling for it. His tie hung loose, shirt sleeves shoved up his forearms. He planted himself in the middle of the room and scanned over us, taking in every face.
“That’s the kind of hockey we’ve been chasing all season.” He wasn’t yelling like he usually did, and this calmer, firmer tone felt more serious somehow.
“You’re moving the puck. You’re trusting each other,” Coach went on. “That’s why they can’t get comfortable out there, and that’s exactly what we want.” He pointed toward the hallway that led back to the ice. “Dallas came in here expecting to walk over us. Now they’re scrambling every shift.”
Landon leaned back on the bench beside me, helmet resting against his thigh.
“Coach,” he said, dragging a hand through sweat-soaked hair, “it’s not like this is the playoffs. We’ve got it covered.”
A few guys snorted, but Coach didn’t even blink.
“The road to the playoffs starts in October,” he said, voice steady. “You want to play in April? Then nights like this is when it starts.” He stepped closer, the room tightening around his words. “You think those guys out there are treating this like another regular season game?”
Nobody answered.
“Didn’t think so.” He jabbed a stubby finger at the Surge crest stitched across his chest. “You lost Mason and everyone outside this room wrote the ending for you. Said we were done. Said this season went with him.”
The silence thickened, and Coach nodded toward the hallway again.
“Look at the ice out there. Those fans came in tonight wondering if we still had a fight left in us. Now they’re on their feet.”
My pulse drummed in my ears. Either I was about to pass out, or his locker room speech was actually having an effect on me.
“You’ve got twenty minutes to show them that belief wasn’t misplaced,” he said. “You don’t protect a lead by sitting back. You bury them. Every shift. Every battle. You make them feel it until the horn ends this thing.”
Landon lifted both hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, the speech worked. You were right, Coach.”
A few chuckles broke the tension, but as expected, Coach barely cracked a smile.
“Save the comedy routine for after the win.”
Landon saluted with his water bottle.
“Let’s finish it.” Grayson clapped his hands sharply, and it got us all in motion. The locker room buzzed as guys started pulling helmets on and tightening chin straps.
Grayson nudged my arm, and I turned to find him holding his phone low between us. “You might want to see this.”
The screen lit up with a flood of posts flying past faster than I could read them. Clips from the current game already cut together. My goal replayed from three different angles, Grayson’s pass across the slot, the shot beating the goalie clean. Another video showed the second goal from ice level, the crowd erupting while Landon crashed into me after.
My name sat under every clip. I’d never been a hashtag before. It was surreal. I scrolled once and stopped. One post had thousands of comments piling up under it.
The Surge’s secret weapon, they called me.
Another showed a meme of Mason’s jersey hanging in the locker room beside a caption about the team finding new life. Yet another looped Grayson’s goal with a caption about his partnership with the ‘new’ center.
Grayson tapped the screen. “That one’s already past half a million views.”
“This game isn’t even over.” My stomach twisted with an unfamiliar feeling..
“That’s the point,” he said, sliding the phone back into his bag. “Fans thought the season went down with Mason’s injury, and you just gave them something to hope for.”
Across the room Tucker slapped a fresh roll of tape into his locker and grinned toward us. “Guess they missed the backup plan.”
Two periods on the first line and suddenly the whole arena believed again. Because of me, apparently.
The room started to rise around us. Sticks lifted, and helmets snapped into place. Guys headed for the tunnel in a steady stream, the noise of the arena filtering down the hallway, swelling with every step closer to the ice.
