Knight wins the draw clean, sends it back to Camden, and we push up ice. I track the play from my crease, knees bent, stick centered, eyes locked on the puck.
Viktor loses an edge near the boards, and suddenly the puck’s going the other direction.
The opposing winger cuts wide, and his shot comes in low glove side.
Easy.
I drop, seal the ice, smother it before there’s a rebound.
The ref blows his whistle for a routine faceoff.
I hand the puck to the ref and reset. This is what I’m good at. This is what makes sense. But the second play comes harder.
Cam miscalculates at the blue line, and suddenly it’s a two-on-one coming straight at me. My body goes quiet in that way it does when everything slows down.
Shooter’s eyes flick right.
Pass.
I push across, extend—
Pad save.
The puck ricochets into the corner. Knight clears it out before they can crash.
“Atta boy!” someone yells.
I nod once. That’s all I give.
Midway through the period, things start getting chippy.
It always happens this way with the Redhawks. A missed call. A bad hit. Someone decides to test the temperature.
Their center—big guy, plays like he’s got something to prove—starts lingering in my crease a little too long after whistles. The first time, I let it go.
The second time, I nudge him with my blocker. Not hard. Just enough to say move. He smirks at me in response.
The third time, he plants himself right on top of my toes after a save, crowding my space while the ref blows the play dead.
“Back it up,” I demand.
He doesn’t move, just leans in a fraction closer, like he didn’t hear me. My pulse ticks up because this is my space.
The ref finally skates in and separates us, but the guy taps my pad with his stick as he backs off.
Friendly. Real friendly.
I stare at him until he turns away and resets. Play resumes as I try to shake it off. Try being the key word.
The next rush comes fast. Bowen gets stripped at the blue line, and suddenly they’re coming down again, numbers in their favor.
A shot rings out from the slot. I glove it clean.
Another whistle sounds, and there he is again, right on top of me. This time, he “loses his balance,” or at least that’s what everyone else might think. To me, it feels like two hundred pounds of dead weight slamming into me, his skate clipping my pad, his stick jamming up into my ribs.
My spine hits the ice hard, and for a split second, all I see is white. Then sound crashes back in. Crowd noise spikes. The ref yells. My heartbeat pounds in my ears.
He’s still on top of me. Still in my crease.
