The second period started with the standard deployment. Our first line took the opening faceoff. I tracked the neutral zone positioning and logged the entry, then moved my attention to the defensive structure.
Tolrek was on the ice.
The play developed.
Their forward drove the zone, cutting toward the high slot with speed. A good read on his part. He’d identified a gap in our coverage and was exploiting it.
Tolrek tracked him.
I saw his positioning in real time. It was textbook. He was exactly where he needed to be to cut off the passing lane and force the forward wide.
Brutal contact was coming.
I’d watched this sequence play out a hundred times in the past two weeks, on video and in practice, noting his half-second hesitation and protection of his left side. Followed by a retreat from contact he used to meet head-on.
Instead, he absorbed the hit and made the play, stripping the puck and sending it up ice in one motion.
Our forward received the pass cleanly. Three strides later, he hit their zone and shot, scoring a goal.
The arena erupted.
I sat in the press level with my hands frozen on the keyboard. No one in the building understood what they’d just watched except me.
The footage had given me access to him in ways that weren’t available to anyone else. I’d watched three seasons of tape before the injury numerous times, plus games after, before they traded him. I’d watched him hesitate in every sequence I’d pulled from the last three practices.
He hadn’t hesitated now.
While the crowd cheered, I watched the replay on the arena screen, paying more attention to his face than the guy scoring the goal. Satisfaction flashed across his features.
It was only after a few moments had passed that I realized that play had resumed on the ice and I wasn’t tagging. My handsmoved, catching up on the tags I’d missed. I was behind on my log. This had never happened.
I caught up, filling in for the gap.
A handful of journalists and two scouts from other teams stood in the press area, but I doubted they knew what they’d just seen. There was no one I could turn to and say,Did you see that? Do you understand what that cost him and what it means that he did it anyway?
I was so proud of him.
The third period was tight. The Slayers pushed hard, trying to make up for the goal. My team held. The final score was decided by the second-period goal.
As the buzzer rang, the arena noise swelled. Players poured onto the ice to slap hands with the opposing team. Congratulations, and all that. Standard post-game stuff that looked the same in every building.
I stayed in my seat and ran my real-time log cleanup.
This was standard too. I was often one of the last people out of the press area. The assistant coaches needed the breakdown before they left the building, and I provided it.
My father found me twenty minutes later.
He was still riding the energy of the win, the version of him that came off a successful game, satisfied in ways he wasn’t when we lost.
“Your power play call was perfect,” he said. “They tried it twice, and we shut it down both times.”
“I’m glad it worked.”
“It worked because you saw it.” He stood to my left. “I don’t say this enough, but you’re the best thing about this program. You do a lot of work that few see. But I do.”
I’d been invisible at team dinners, standing in corners because I didn’t fit anywhere else.
He saw my work, but he didn’t see me.
