“Please make it flattering. We are vain and under-caffeinated.”
I leave the arena, get halfway to the Airbnb, and turn around at a red light.
No.
I am not letting Jennifer be the last voice in my head before I write this piece.
Practice is still running when I slip into the upper level. My credential works.
For now.
Below, the Stampede move through drills with playoff urgency. Coach Sully’s voice snaps off the boards. Pucks crack. Skates carve. The bench gate opens and shuts with a metallic slap.
Ryan is easy to find.
The ice keeps answering him.
He works a two-on-one with Colt and Kowalski, defending both with edge work, timing, and focus that makes everything around him look louder than it is. Coach barks a correction. Ryan adjusts. No argument. No pride.
Then Finn misses a read and drifts too high.
Ryan taps his stick once. Finn drops back into position. The drill resets. No embarrassment. No lecture. Just correction.
I hate how much that matters.
Evan McKinney takes the next rep and blows through a seam I barely see until he is already past it. Ryan closes him off with one shoulder and a clean stick lift. Evan laughs, spins away, and sends the puck back through traffic to Roman like the whole drill is an insult he is answering personally.
The team has edges.
Ryan does not smooth them all down.
He uses them.
I write that in my notebook, then cross out the line because it sounds like a thesis and I am tired of my own brain trying to wear a blazer.
At the end of practice, Ryan is the last one off the ice. He skates one slow lap after everyone else heads for the tunnel, breath visible in the cold air, body moving through something private.
Centering himself.
Or punishing himself.
Maybe both.
He looks up before he reaches the tunnel.
I should step back. I do not.
Our eyes meet across empty seats and rink glass. No smile. No signal. Only the awful knowledge that I have touched the man under the captain, and tomorrow I might hurt him in public.
Ryan lifts one gloved hand to the boards, not a wave. A pause. A question he would never ask where cameras could catch it.
My hand tightens around my notebook.
I do not lift it back.
If I did, Jennifer’s whole office would be right about the danger of access.
Ryan drops his hand and disappears into the tunnel.
