It went in.
The barn exploded.
I didn’t jump. I didn’t yell. I raised my stick once, short and clean, and my linemates were there—Taft slamming his gloves into my chest, Orly grabbing my helmet. The boards vibratedfaintly under my skates, and somewhere up there, my man in a red jersey was losing his mind. I didn’t need to see it to know it was true.
We went to the third period tied one-one.
I sat in my stall with my headphones on, eyes closed and ran the numbers. Their power play tendencies. Their breakout reads. Fenwick’s glove side on high shots, which was better than his save percentage suggested. The way their second D pairing was slower on zone exits compared to game one of the series.
Coach was talking. I took the headphones off.
“—everything we have. One period. Leave it here.” He looked around the room. His eyes found mine for a moment. He nodded once, which meant what it always meant: he knew I was processing, and he was letting me.
I put my gloves back on.
Our next goal came at 11:44 of the third on a power play. Two-one.
Cap had the puck behind the net. I was in the high slot. Their coverage had been collapsing on Cap’s side all period—I’d logged it on seven consecutive sequences—which meant that when Cap held it one beat longer than they expected, their left defenseman pinched, and the right side of the ice opened.
I saw it and threaded it through traffic, clean to Cap’s tape.
He was positioned for a shot, weight back on his heels. He went to his backhand and put it there, low, hard, under the blocker, and it hit the back of the net. The barn became something I don’t have adequate sensory language for. Taft hit Cap first, then Orly, then the bench was emptying. They were careful with me—no dog pile, space given, helmets and gloves instead of arms around shoulders—but Cap got through all of them and put both hands on my face, which he had never done before, and looked at me.
“That was one hell of an assist, Chip,” he said.
We held them off for the rest of the period. The buzzer sounded—we won. The barn noise rolled over me—I let all of it in.
Within one minute, the ice was chaos. Officials corralling players, the Cup already in motion somewhere toward center, teammates colliding. Cap got the Cup first from the commissioner and lifted it. The sound increased again past the point where I could accurately track it.
I kept my earbuds in my glove. I didn’t put them on.
Cap passed the Cup to Bob, who passed it to Owens, who passed it to Taft, and I skated into the line. When Taft held it out to me, I took it, held it up toward Dane, then I passed it on.
The locker room was champagne, volume, and bodies in various stages of undress. I sat in my stall and peeled off my gear methodically, left side before right, shin guards before skates, and I let the noise run around me.
Taft appeared at my stall a few minutes later with a towel around his shoulders and champagne he hadn’t opened yet. He had his moments of quiet, and this seemed to be one of them, as he hid himself behind me. When he was like this, we often ended up talking together about something completely different from whatever overwhelming thing we had going on. For me, it was the chaos; for him, I don’t know, but he carried depression with him like a black cloak, and sometimes it was too much.
“So, summer break then,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Are you doing anything this summer?” he asked.
“I haven’t decided,” I said and paused. “I mean,wehaven’t decided between vacation or us moving in together. Dane agrees that either is good, although we’d like to live together soon.”
“That’s so cool, Chip.”
I nodded. It felt good to have plans being made with the man I loved. We’d talked about finding a new place to share instead ofmoving into one of our existing homes, but I’d told him I loved his house, so that was that. It was either vacation, then moving, or moving, then vacation, but either way, we’d be living next door to Rabbi Greenburg before the new season began. “Also, some training.” Then I remembered the question I should ask. “You?”
He stared down at the bottle in his hand for a second, turning it slowly. “I feel like I should go home to Hamlin, to see my brother. Haven’t been back to the lake in two years.”
“Family is good,” I said.
Taft looked at me for a moment, then knocked his knuckles once against my shoulder pad still sitting on the bench beside me. “Sometimes,” he said.
Then he was gone, absorbed back into the noise and the spray, recharged enough to get back into things.
I showered. I changed. I sat back down in my stall with my bag between my feet and my hands loose in my lap. I took a slow breath that went all the way to the bottom of my lungs, and I let the noise of the room be the noise of the room without trying to map or reduce or escape it.
