I roof it.
The arena goes loud. Not our section — theirs. That particular stunned loud of a crowd that didn't see it coming.
I skate back to center and Rhys is already there. He doesn't celebrate, doesn't take a moment, just skates past me with his shoulder brushing mine and says without looking at me:
"Told you. Weak side center."
I keep my face neutral.
He's insufferable.
I've never liked anyone more in my life.
We go into the second up one.
Hartwell ties it four minutes in off a power play we should never have given them — Cooper taking a penalty that was unnecessary and expensive and earns him a look from Fitch that could strip paint.
The period gets physical after that. Board battles, late hits, the kind of game that gets inside your head if you let it. I don't let it. I've been playing hockey my whole life in conditions a lot worse than this and I know how to slow the world down until it's just the puck and the ice and the next decision.
Bennett is a wall behind us. Three saves in four minutes, two of them with no right to go in the net, one of them that has the bench actually yelling. He punches the post after the third one like he's personally offended anyone even tried to get past him.
Mid-period, Kowalski walks one in from the point. No celebration. He's Kowalski. He just turns around and skates back to position like it’s the usual.
We’re all in it.
2-1.
Third period, six minutes left, and Hartwell pulls everything they have. The ice tilts. They're everywhere — bodies crashing, pucks bouncing, the kind of chaotic last-ditch pressure that wins games if you let it rattle you.
I don't let it rattle me.
I win a battle behind our net and find Rhys streaking up the right side and hit it to him with everything I have. He takes it in stride, pulls their last defender wide, and at the absolute last second — when everyone in the building thinks he's shooting — drops it back across to Bryce charging late.
Bryce scores into an empty corner.
3-1.
Bench erupts.
We hold it.
Final buzzer.
The locker room afterward is exactly what months of building toward something sounds like when it finally pays off. Guys yelling, gear flying, Bennett getting mobbed by Cooper and nearly taken out at the knees. Fitch standing in the middle of it with his arms folded and the look of a man who has been waiting for this and is not going to show how much it means to him. "You guys got lucky," he says, which from Fitch is a standing ovation.
I do the rounds. Hand on Kowalski's shoulder. Clapping Cooper on the back even though he still owes me for that penalty. Finding Bennett in the middle of the chaos and telling him quietly that he won us that game, which is true, and watching his face do the shy thing it does when he gets too much attention.
I'm looking for Rhys. He's at his stall. Not celebrating. Not talking. Just sitting with his elbows on his knees and his helmet in his hands and his eyes somewhere else entirely. The room is loud around him and he's in the middle of it and I can’t reach him. I've never seen him look like that. Like he’s not even here. This is rawer than anything else. This is the look of someone who just won that means they have to do the harder thing. It makes everything real now.
I cross the room and sit down beside him. Way too close, how he likes it.
"Hey."
He looks up. His eyes find mine and he doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything, just looks at me like I'm the only thing in the room right now and he’s trying to latch onto me like a life raft, before he floats away.
"We play them next week," he says, dejectedly.
"Yeah, but it’s a good thing. Focus on the good."
