Page 82 of Offside Angle

“Eat shit, Knox,” Matteo tells him on the way back toward the bench.

I lower the camera for a second and watch him go.

Midway through the third, with the Reapers protecting a two-goal lead, the entire game changes.

They stop taking unnecessary chances and tighten everything in front of Shane, keeping their shifts short and forcing Brooklyn to fight for every inch of ice. It isn’t pretty anymore. Nobody seems interested in pretty. The Bastards try to come through the middle and find bodies waiting for them; they throw pucks toward the net and sticks get into the lanes before Shane ever has to deal with them. Every time Brooklyn starts building speed, somebody in red and black takes it away.

It’s ugly, exhausting hockey.

I love photographing every second of it.

Then one of Brooklyn’s wingers comes flying down the outside with enough speed to finally pull the Reapers’ shape apart.

For half a second, he has space.

Then Matteo and Jace close it together.

Jace takes away the inside lane while Matteo angles across from the other side, and the winger suddenly has nowhere useful to go. He tries to force the puck through anyway, but Matteo gets his stick into the passing lane at the same moment Jace leans into the body, killing the play before it ever reaches the crease.

Behind them, Shane slams the blade of his stick against the ice in approval.

I catch the whole sequence through the lens.

Of course I do.

The final horn comes a few minutes later with the score still 3–1.

The series is tied.

The Reapers bench empties almost instantly, players pouring over the boards as the building erupts around them. Somewhere in the middle of the celebration, Jace drops face-first onto the ice and apparently decides he lives there now.

At first I think he fell.

Then I realize he’s scream-crying.

He’s flat on his stomach, helmet pressed to the ice, laughing and sobbing hard enough that his shoulders are shaking while everyone around him loses their minds. Eventually somebody grabs him under the arms and hauls him upright, but that only makes it worse. He’s crying and laughing at the same time now, clinging to whoever caught him with the kind of joy you’d expect from someone who just won the Cup instead of earned himself one more game.

I keep shooting, catching the exhausted faces, the gloves thrown into the air, Shane disappearing under half the team.

And then Matteo finds me.

It only lasts a second through the glass, but his eyes lock onto mine and he gives me the smallest nod.

Then Cole crashes into him from the side and drags him back into the celebration before I can give him anything in return.

Tomorrow we go back to Ravensburg.

Two days from now, Game 7.

The boys are still screaming by the time we get on the bus.

Someone has music blasting from a phone near the back, somebody else has started a chant that keeps dying and somehow coming back louder, and Jace is still emotional enough that every few minutes he wipes at his face and insists he is absolutely not crying again.

Near the front, Zara seems to be doing her best to pretend none of them exist, although every new burst of shouting tightens her expression another degree, the headache practically developing in real time.

“Simmer down!” Damian finally barks from the front.

Nobody simmers down.