Page 86 of Slapshot Baby

"It was still bullshit."

Theo is behind him. The big man stands with his hands at his sides, blue eyes filed with sympathy and restrained anger.

"Whatever you need," Theo says. "Early mornings, extra sessions. I'm there."

Easton walks toward us, arms crossed. "He's not wrong about the game speed, but he's wrong about how he did it."

"I know."

"Take the private ice. Use it. When you come back, make sure nobody can question it."

I nod once and walk through the tunnel.

The locker room is empty. I strip the gear piece by piece, folding each item with the care of a man who isn't sure when he'll put it on again. The jersey goes last. My fingers trace the C stitched onto the chest.

Captain of a team that just watched me get benched.

The shower runs hot enough to scald. I stand under it until the water turns cold.

I dress slowly. The facility is quiet now, practice moved to a different sheet while the Zamboni resurfaces the main rink. Through the concrete walls, I can hear the muffled scrape of blades and Brennan's whistle, sharp and distant.

My stall has a nameplate above it. DONOVAN. Someone polished it recently. The brass is bright, no fingerprints.

Below the nameplate, taped to the inside panel, there's a photo I don't remember putting there. Me and the team after the championship.

It’s the same photo Ava placed on my mantle. I'm holding the cup with both hands and my face is filled with joy.

The man in that photo walked into this locker room and every player in it oriented toward him the way a defensive unit orients toward its anchor.

He earned it through his decisions, the extra film sessions, the hard conversations after losses. The willingness to take blame publicly for mistakes that weren't his.

I did all of that. I just can't remember it yet.

I pull on my shoes, tie them. The laces take two attempts because my hands aren't cooperating the way they did when I was lacing skates an hour ago.

I lean back in the stall and stare at the ceiling.

Brennan coached me before the memory gap. The man knows my game better than anyone alive, and he looked at me today and decided what he saw wasn't enough.

That sits like a stone in my chest.

Not the LTIR designation, which is administrative.

Not the private sessions, which are extra work I'd do anyway.

It's that the man who watched me build this program from the inside doesn't believe I can run it right now. And I can't be certain he's wrong.

Four years of defensive reads I made without thinking, gone. The shorthand with linemates built through hundreds of shifts together, gone.

Dr. Harold's form confirms my brain healed. It can't confirm that the hockey player who lived inside that brain survived with it.

I close the stall. My fingers press against the nameplate once, the brass cool and smooth.

The hallway to the parking garage is empty. My footsteps echo off the concrete. Each one sounds like a countdown to disaster.

I sit in my car for hours.

The clearance form wasn't enough.