Chapter 14

The semi-final against Minnesota is a headbanger from the first whistle. Thanks to some trash talking on social media, our team goes into the game Friday night hot and ready to eat those asshats for dinner. We’re sticking to our game plan, though—high press, be physical. Minnesota is a technical team, but they won’t be able to absorb our pressure for sixty minutes. We won’t let them touch the puck without feeling us breathing down their necks. Every pass we’ll let them know we’re going to make it hurt.

We end scoreless after the first period. Then right out of the gate in the second, Hunter gets the puck on a breakaway and fires it into the net to put us on the board first.

“Atta boy!” Coach thunders from the bench, smacking his clipboard against the Plexi.

He calls for a line change, and Hunter and I heave ourselves over the wall and squirt water into our mouths from bottles brandishing the Gatorade logo. The rest of our line settles on the bench, all eyes glued to the ice. The Briar D-men are struggling to keep Minnesota out of our zone, Coach barking for them to get it together.

“Dude, you need to do that exact same move again,” Bucky’s saying to Hunter. “Deke that ginger-haired fuck and just book it—he’s not fast enough to keep up with you.”

Bucky’s right. Hunter’s the fastest man on the ice tonight. Nobody can stop him.

We change on the fly, substituting Alec and Gavin for me and the captain. We hit the ice hard, ready to extend our lead by another goal. But Minnesota must be seeing their life flash before their eyes, because the next time Hunter receives a pass, number nineteen for Minnesota slams him into the boards. I see fucking red watching my team captain hit the ice, and before the whistle even blows I’ve got that asshole against the glass.

“Get off me, pretty boy,” he growls.

“Make me.”

We exchange some punches and elbows. At one point I feel someone wailing on me with jabs to my ribs as both benches clear to take sides in the fight. Ultimately, nineteen and I both sit in our respective penalty boxes for the brawl. Fucking worth it.

Minnesota ties it up with a wrist shot from one of their forwards just as the second period winds down. We trudge into our locker room feeling the heavy weight of that score, 1-1, bearing down on our shoulders.

“Unacceptable!” Coach Jensen rides our D-men the moment the door swings shut. “We let them dominate us those last three minutes. Where was our defense, huh? Jerking off in the corner?”

Matt, who was the leading scorer among the defense all season, hangs his head in shame. “Sorry, Coach. That one’s on me. Couldn’t intercept that pass.”

“We got this, Coach,” Hunter says, steel in his eyes. “We’ll finish ’em off in the third.”

But everything goes wrong in the third period.

Gavin crumples to the ice out of nowhere with a pulled hamstring and has to exit the game. Matt then gets tossed in the sin bin on a major penalty. We manage to kill it, but with the clock winding down it seems Minnesota is picking us apart. They’re catching their second wind while half of us are gassing out. Maintaining the high pressure becomes more difficult and cracks form in our defense. The offense can’t find any openings to force turnovers or break away.

The game turns into an uphill, brutal battle for us. Our opponent is now faster and more aggressive, and that’s when it happens. Minnesota strings together four uninterrupted passes and catches all of us a step too slow. Their left-winger slaps the puck past our goalie Boris’s glove to put Minnesota up by a point.

It’s one point too many.

We can’t claw our way back. The buzzer goes off to signal the end of the third. The end of the game.

We’ve been eliminated.

Back in the locker room, it’s like a fucking wake. No one says a word or even looks at each other. Gavin, with ice taped to his thigh, launches a trashcan across the room, and the resounding crash makes everyone flinch. As a senior, this was his last chance for a championship, and he couldn’t even finish the game. No matter what anyone says, he’ll be convinced for the rest of his life that he could’ve made the difference. Same for Matt, who will torture himself with the guilt that taking that penalty cost us the momentum we might’ve had to tie it up.

When Coach Jensen walks in, the room is silent but for the rotating fan whirring in the corner.

“This one hurts,” he says flatly, rubbing his jaw. He’s sweating nearly as much as the rest of us.

Negative emotions pollute the air we’re breathing. Anger, frustration, disappointment. And the exhaustion of playing at such a high level for so long is slowly seeping into our bones, causing shoulders to sag and chins to drop.

“That’s not how we wanted to go out,” Coach continues. “For the seniors, I wanted to get you guys to the big dance—we just didn’t have it tonight. For everyone else, we do it all again next year.”

Next year.

Hunter and I exchange a determined look. As juniors, we have one last shot to leave a legacy at Briar. Gold and glory and all that.

Straying from his usual short-and-not-at-all-sweet style, Coach goes on to say he’s encouraged by the way we played tonight, by the progress we’ve made since the start of the season.

I choose to believe better days are ahead, because right now the feeling in this room is miserable. A dream died tonight. And it’s only now, I think, that most of us are realizing we were entirely convinced we had this title in the bag. It never occurred to us we wouldn’t be playing in the final. Now we just go home and pretend it doesn’t gnaw at our insides.

I fucking hate losing.