They reset.
For a few seconds, I let myself just watch. The rhythm of the game is still familiar in a way nothing else is anymore. Not since all the changes - me in college, my brother playing pro and my dad dead.
Back then everyone in the building had known my name. Now no one looks at me twice.
But as the Giants line up for the next faceoff, I can’t stop the quiet thought - they’re not the same team anymore.
My father built something here once - something disciplined and impossible to break down.
I shouldn’t still feel this connected to it.
I don’t play anymore, not since I finished up at the Junior League before starting college.
There’s no team here for me.
No place on the ice.
Blackwood cut the women’s program three years ago.
Quietly. Like it didn’t matter.
So instead, I sit in the stands.
And watch the men’s team lose.
ZANE
The season isn’t supposed to start like this.
I know it the second the puck slides past my stick and skitters harmlessly into the corner instead of the back of the net.
Three weeks ago, that play worked every time.
Pre-season had been tight. Every drill snapping into place the way Coach Calloway wanted it to. The passes were tight, the transitions fast, and the whole team moved like we actually trusted each other. For the first time since I came to Blackwood, it felt like we weren’t just hoping to win games - we expected to.
Calloway had that effect on people.
He’d walked into the locker room at the start of camp with that calm, steady confidence that made everyone sit up straighter without quite knowing why. He didn’t yell much. Didn’t need to. When he talked about the season ahead, about rebuilding the Giants into the team they had been in the past, there was something in his voice that made it sound inevitable.
We believed him.
But then the moment the other team actually pushes back, the whole thing starts to crack.
I circle behind the net. Our winger hesitates, the defense pinches too late, and suddenly the play that should have been simple turns into a scramble.
“Reset!” Russo yells.
Our captain’s voice cuts clean across the ice.
I push hard on my outside edge and swing back into position, but I can feel the tension creeping into the game already. It’s there in the way our passes start landing half a second late, in the way the bench goes quiet whenever the puck leaves ourzone.
We’re thinking too much.
Pre-season was easy. Without the crowds or the pressure.
Out here it’s different. Out here the mistakes count.
Miles saves our asses again a few seconds later, dropping low to trap a shot that should never have gotten through the slot in the first place. The whistle blows and the crowd cheers like it’s a highlight play instead of the warning sign it really is.
