The whistle blows. We take the ice. Three forwards. Me on the right wing, Dante on the left, Gio at center. This line is new. We’ve practiced it, but we have not played it in a game this big. 2:47. Tie game. Frozen Four. The crowd noise presses against the glass and waits.
Offensive-zone faceoff. Gio wins it clean, his hands quicker than Michigan’s center, the puck kicked back to our defense.We set up in their zone. The cycle begins. Dante along the half-wall, me in the corner, the puck moving in the patient, ruthless rotation Addison built this program on. Possess. Cycle. Wait for the opening.
Michigan stays disciplined. They clog the lanes. Their goalie tracks the puck with steady, focused eyes. The cycle continues. Thirty seconds. Forty-five. The clock keeps draining. My legs scream. Dante’s face is red behind his visor. Gio skates high between the circles, restless, stick blade turning open and closed.
Michigan’s defenseman takes the puck behind his net and starts cycling it back, buying time. I am already low enough to pressure when I read the angle, the lazy backhand, the half-second where the puck sits exposed on his blade. I close the gap in two strides and strip it clean, my stick through his, the puck free on my blade before he registers what happened.
Gio.
He has drifted to the slot. Lower than he should be. Right in the danger zone, between the circles, low enough that both Michigan defensemen have lost track of him. He has found the soft ice.
I feather the pass.
Soft. Flat. No bounce.
It slides between the other defenseman’s skates and reaches Gio’s blade at the exact speed a shooter needs. The second it lands, my vision tunnels. Crowd, clock, stakes, scouts, draft, noise all fall to the edges.
Gio’s stick.
The puck.
The net.
Gio shoots.
The release is fast, deceptively fast. From the press box, it probably looks casual. From the ice, it looks impossible. Theshot comes off one clean transfer of weight from his back foot to his front, and the puck explodes off his blade with a velocity that doesn’t match the effort.
Top corner. Glove side. The water bottle on top of the net launches into the air.
The horn sounds. The boards shake under the noise.
Gio’s arms go up, his stick over his head, his mouth open in a scream I cannot hear because the noise has swallowed everything except vibration.
I reach him first. My arms close around him, lifting, his skates barely catching the ice before Dante hits us a half second later. The three of us collide at center ice, helmets crashing, gloves gripping jerseys. The rest of the team swarms from behind. Dante and I grab Gio from both sides, and the pile builds until we are six deep for one wild second before the officials start shouting and Gio is screaming at the center of it.
“I FOUND IT!” Gio screams into my face cage, his eyes wild. “THE SOFT ICE! I FOUND THE SOFT ICE!”
I’m laughing, and my eyes burn hard enough that I know I’m crying too.
I don’t give a damn who sees it. Sixteen thousand people are on their feet. The team is crushing in around Gio. The horn is still ringing in my ears, and somewhere in the press box, third row, left side, Maya is watching.
The team peels off and lines up for the final ninety-seven seconds. Michigan pulls their goalie. Six attackers press into our zone. We survive blocked shots, cleared pucks, and one last save from Declan’s knees that is pure instinct and no technique. The final horn sounds. 4–3. Briarcliff.
The handshake line comes next. Helmets off, gloves off, the ritual of hockey that I love more than almost anything. Two teams that just tried to destroy each other file past and shakehands because that is what hockey makes you do after the horn. Michigan’s captain grips my hand hard.
“Hell of a game,” he says.
I nod. It was.
Then the celebration hits again. The team swarms center ice. Sticks and gloves scatter. Declan gets dragged out of his crease by four teammates, his mask pushed back, his face split into the widest grin I have ever seen on him. Adrian picks up Gio, literally lifting the smaller man off the ice and hauling him against his chest like a trophy. Gio spreads his arms and tips his head back.
Gio breaks away from the group and skates toward the tunnel opening. Zoë is there, pressed near the glass in the front row, Clara and Talia beside her. Gio reaches the boards, pulls his helmet off, and kisses her over the low gap near the tunnel, full and in front of the press cameras, the broadcast team, anyone watching. Her hands clamp on his face. His mouth stays on hers.
I’m already skating toward the boards. Toward the rinkside press opening. Toward the place I know Maya will come down to after the horn.
She is there.
Standing at the glass. Arms crossed. Mouth fighting a war with a smile.
