I felt on top of the world. The lights were bright, the score was in our favor, and the person I wanted to impress the most was exactly where I could see her. We were twenty minutes away from a 3-2 series lead, and I felt like I could skate for another three hours.
The third period was coming, and I was ready to bring the house down.
It didn’t start with a whistle but a war cry. The Minnesota Wild came out of the tunnel like a team that had been told their season ended in twenty minutes unless they drew blood. The brick wall Coach had talked about? It was currently being hammered by eighteen pairs of shoulders and a barrage of heavy, low shots.
"Keep your heads on a swivel!" Hunter bellowed from the crease, his voice cracking over the din. He was under siege. TheWild had abandoned the trap and switched to a full-throttle, desperate forecheck that left our defense scrambling.
I sat on the bench, my chest heaving, watching the first line get absolutely pulverized. Cash took a hit into the boards that sounded like a car crash, his helmet flying off as he crumpled. The refs let it go. This was playoff hockey. The rulebook had been tossed into the Zamboni.
"Michael! Landon! Get out there and kill the clock!" Coach screamed.
We hopped the boards and were immediately met with a blizzard of white jerseys. The puck was a frenetic, bouncing thing. Landon, ever the showman even in a street fight, caught a high bank-pass on his glove, dropped it to his skates, and executed a spinning 360-degree pivot that left two Wild defenders looking for their dignity.
"Showoff!" I yelled, though I was already moving to cover his lane.
Landon zipped the puck to me. I took a cross-check to the kidneys that felt like a lead pipe, but I stayed on my feet. I leaned into the defender, using my back to shield the puck, and ground my way toward the half-wall. This wasn't about highlight reels anymore. It was about survival.
"Mason! Low slot!" I yelled.
I fired a pass, but a Wild stick deflected it. The transition was a nightmare. They broke out three-on-two. Hunter made a sprawling, desperate save with the tip of his toe, but the rebound was sitting in the blue paint like an invitation to disaster.
I dove without thinking about the ice or the skates. I just launched my body into the crease. My chest hit the frozen surface, and I swept the puck away with my glove a millisecond before the Wild captain could bury it.
"Clear it!" Hunter yelled, his mask centimeters from mine.
The clock was a torture device, ticking down in agonizingly slow increments. Five minutes. Four. Three. The Wild pulled their goalie for the extra attacker, and the pressure became a physical weight. It was six-on-five, and we were trapped in our own zone.
"Landry, watch the point!" Grayson screamed, his face a mask of blood from a high-stick the refs had missed.
I saw the lane opening. The Wild defenseman was winding up for a slapshot that would have cleared a path through a mountain. No time for second thoughts. I threw myself into the lane, my shins taking the full force of the blast. The pain was a white-hot flare that blinded me for a second, but the puck deflected into the neutral zone.
Landon was there. In typical Landon fashion, instead of just dumping it, he chased it down, performed a flamboyant toe-drag around the last defender, and sliding on his belly, poked the puck into the empty net from the blue line.
3-0, Surge.
The crowd ate it up, screaming so loud I thought the glass would shatter. We had done it. We’d taken the round. I looked up at Box 204. Kayla and Gabe were embracing, jumping up and down, their joy a brilliant contrast to the carnage on the ice.
The final horn blared, a long, triumphant scream of victory. We poured off the bench, gloves and sticks flying into the air. We were moving toward Hunter to celebrate the shutout, the adrenaline finally beginning to ebb into a sweet, aching relief.
But Minnesota wasn't done.
The handshake line hadn't even formed yet when a scrum broke out near the Wild’s bench. It was post-game frustration that turned ugly in an instant. A Wild forward, blinded by theloss, took a run at Grayson, who was coasting toward the center circle with his arms raised in victory.
"Grayson, look out!" I yelled, but I was too far away.
The hit was late. Disgustingly late. An assault. The defender caught Grayson blindside, his shoulder connecting squarely with Grayson’s chin. Grayson’s head snapped back, his helmet dislodging as he hit the ice with a sickening, limp finality. He didn't slide. He didn't try to get up. He just went still.
The celebration died instantly. The arena went from a roar to a haunting, suffocating silence.
"Medic! Get the trainers out here!" Hunter screamed, dropping his blockers and skating toward his teammate.
I was one of the first to reach him. His eyes were rolled back, breathing ragged and shallow. Blood pooled on the white ice, a dark, terrifying stain under the bright arena lights.
The trainers rushed out, their orange bags sliding across the ice. The stretcher followed a minute later, the rhythmic clacking of the wheels sounding like a funeral march. The Surge players stood in a protective circle, our helmets off, the joy of the win completely evaporated.
As they lifted our captain onto the backboard, his neck immobilized, I looked up one last time at the box. Kayla was holding Gabe, her hand over the boy’s eyes, her own face pale with horror.
We had won the round. We were moving on. But as I watched the medics wheel our teammate off the ice, I realized the cost of the Cup had just gone up. And I didn't know if we had enough left in the tank to pay it.
