Page 155 of Uncoachable

Iveline stills. “That’s not true, Cal.”

“It was,” I say. “I just hadn’t met the right coach yet.”

“I’M DEAD. I’M ACTUALLY DEAD. BURY ME WITH THE CUP!” Cash screams again, breaking the tension and making everyone laugh, but I see the way his eyes glisten as he tries to hide his face.

Marcus wipes his eyes openly, stepping forward to clap my shoulder. “I’m proud of you, man. Hell of a way to go out.”

Brick pulls me into a crushing, rib-cracking hug. “We’ll miss you.”

Leo joins the hug. Then Nico. Then the whole team. It’s a massive dog pile of sweat, champagne, tears, and brotherhood.

When they finally let me breathe, Ivy steps forward.

Her eyes are shining, her face a map of the same joy I feel.

“You did it,” she whispers.

“We did it,” I correct, taking her face in my hands.

She smiles—soft, proud, and with a look that says forever.

I kiss her again, slow and deep this time, the room cheering and whistling around us. And in the middle of all that chaos—the noise, the champagne, the shouting, and the overwhelming love—I know with absolute, bone-deep certainty:

I’m not retiring from something. I’m retiring into something.

Into her.

Into us.

Into a future we finally get to build together, exactly the way we want.

Epilogue: Cal

Two years later

The rink announces itself before you even step through the heavy glass doors.

I stop just outside the entrance for a heartbeat, my boots crunching lightly against a thin, fresh layer of Boston snow.

Talvi Ice.

Her name sits on the sign in simple, unassuming lettering. There aren’t any flashing neon slogans, no corporate sponsors plastered over the masonry, and no grand, ego-driven promises carved into cold steel.

It is just a fact. It is a truth that stands on its own.

Two years ago, this place was nothing more than a dream and a series of frantic sketches she made in the margins of legal pads between morning skates and film sessions. Two years ago, the league executives still whispered behind closed doors, certain she’d come crawling back once the reality of the “real world” set in.

They assumed she needed the prestige of the NHL to be relevant.

They don’t ask anymore.

I remember how her hands used to shake when she held her clipboard at the start of that final championship season. Now, as I look through the glass, I see her hands are perfectly steady as she kneels on the ice to tie a skate for a little girl who can’t be more than five years old.

Ivy has traded the sharp designer blazers and the high-heeled boots for an oversized hoodie with the rink’s logo on the chest, and she has never looked more powerful.

I’ve watched her learn this version of herself over two long, brutal, and beautiful years.

I was there through the endless permit battles and the stressful funding meetings where investors tried to talk down to her. I was there through the nights she fell asleep with her face on the kitchen table, surrounded by blueprints and tax forms. I was there during those quiet, dark moments where the ghosts of her past tried to convince her she was making the mistake of a lifetime.