Chapter 34
Fire on Ice
JONAH
The tunnel before puck drop feels like someone stuck a battery to my ribs.
Every guy in here is on edge. Traye’s chewing a mouth guard like it owes him money.
The rookies are bouncing skates off tile, burning nervous energy.
Somebody’s tried to hide the funk of old sweat with citrus body spray, but it only makes it worse.
We wait for the anthem. Wait for the lights.
Wait for the seconds to start sliding off the board.
First game of the Western Conference Finals, and I run my glove down my stick—one more time, for luck. The tape feels right tonight. Gloves broken in, boots laced down to the last fucking eyelet. I lean forward, elbows on knees, letting the noise of the arena bleed in around the edges.
Carter drops next to me and thuds a fist on my shinpad, saying nothing. Doesn’t have to. The look in his eyes is enough: whatever tonight takes, he’s all in.
Across the row, McDavid stares straight ahead.
Helmet low, jaw flexing. He looks like a guy with something to finish, but rumor is he hasn’t slept in a week.
Dylan gave birth to twins, and he’s been pulling the middle of the night feedings on off days.
Nobody brings it up, because he’s Sawyer McDavid, and you do not fuck with the man’s home life, but it’s written in the set of his shoulders.
Coach runs us through the same pregame mantra. “Keep your head up. Move the puck. No hero plays.”
I nod. Tonight, I’m not interested in heroics. I want the win.
For once, the rest of it—the noise in my skull about Zoe, the swirl of regret and all the what-ifs—is background. Not gone, but quiet.
We line up for the walk.
Out there, the boards vibrate. The fans have packed every inch of the glass—somebody’s got a sign that literally says, “HOLT: HIT SOMEBODY.” I’d roll my eyes, but fair point.
I scan the arena. My eyes find them.
Third row, just left of the tunnel: Mom and Dad, sandwiched around Eli, who is wearing a replica jersey over a hoodie and has his nose almost pressed to the glass.
He’s waving hard enough he might throw a shoulder out.
Dad’s steadying him with one hand, but even the old man looks like he could break something.
Eli’s been back home for exactly two weeks, and I’m grateful for every minute we have together. Maddie’s stepped in as a great nanny, but she’s not Zoe, who’s back in Dickens, by the way, her Zoe Knows podcast now part of W2Beaver.
No one will ever be Zoe. I love her; I miss her, Eli too, and we want her in our lives. Today, I plan to do something about that.
The thought hypes me up even more.
The Seals pile out of the opposite tunnel. Seattle’s finest—or, depending on who you ask, the league’s biggest pricks. Their captain clocks me right away—dead-eyed, all business. Word is they’ve been chirping about running us out of the building. I believe it. I hope they try.
Anthem. Crowd noise. The ice lights up, blue and white, logos turning the surface into something electric. I don’t hear anything except the countdown in my own head.
Let’s do this.
First face-off, and the Seals send their top line.
I square up over the dot. The guy across from me is new this season, fast hands, dirtier mouth. He slaps at my stick before the puck’s even down. I don’t flinch. The referee drops it, and we’re live.
Chaos, right out of the gate.
They’re on us—hard. Zero respect. First shift, I eat a cross-check to the ribs so solid I see stars.
Jenkins takes a run at a winger and bowls him into the stanchion.
Boos rain down. The zebras whistle, throw Jenkins in the box for two.
He gives the crowd double birds on the way, which only stokes them.
On the penalty kill, Carter’s a machine. He blocks a shot with his thigh, barely reacts. Clears the zone like it’s nothing. I get low, keep bodies out of the slot, take a stick to the wrist and don’t even bother barking at the ref. Not tonight.
Eli’s at the glass—every stoppage, I catch him mouthing something that’s probably “GO, GO, GO!”
I told him I wanted to win this for him.
Five minutes in, the Seals draw first blood. Bad bounce, shot off a skate.
I hit the bench, sucking wind. McDavid claps me on the helmet. The next shift, he’s an animal. Chasing every puck, forechecking like he’s got a personal vendetta. He pins a guy behind the net, strips the puck, centers to Jenkins fresh out of the box—sniped, top shelf, tie game.
The place explodes.
It’s a knife fight from there.
The Seals don’t play clean. They hack at ankles, finish every check, run picks the refs “miss” every time. I pay for every inch of ice. I get dumped twice at the blue line, once barely missing a stick to the face. My ears ring, but I push harder.
Carter’s everywhere, covering mistakes before they happen. Block, recover, dish. I trust him tonight in a way I haven’t trusted a defense partner in years. He’s dialed in.
Jenkins can’t shut up. Every whistle, he’s in somebody’s ear. The Seals start to fray—after one shift Carter and I have to pull Jenkins off a guy who calls his mom fat. The only reason the bench doesn’t clear is because Coach is already threatening to bench Jenkins for the rest of the period.
The goals grind in: us, then them, then us again. By halfway through the second, we’re tied 2-2, and I’ve lost count of the bruises climbing up my ribs. At some point there’s blood on my glove; not sure whose. Doesn’t matter.
I keep glancing at Eli—habit now. Sometimes he’s rabbiting along the glass, tracing the puck with both hands. Other times he’s side-eyeing Dad, feeding him stats or predictions. Every time he catches my gaze, he does a fist pump, double or nothing.
It works.
It makes the pain background noise. It makes it worth it.
Period ends tied.
The locker room at intermission is like a war hospital.
Trainers are working over Jenkins’ ankle with tape and what smells like Tiger Balm.
Someone’s getting stitched up under an ear, and the doc is cursing about the angle.
Guys don’t talk. We nod. We hydrate. We lock eyes, let the adrenaline do the work.
Coach draws a play on the whiteboard. It looks like chicken scratch, but everybody knows the assignment. Stay out of the box. Finish checks. Punish mistakes.
We go back out.
Third period is a brawl.
Seals are desperate. Two of their guys try running Carter behind the play. Jenkins jumps in, cleans house—two minutes for roughing, worth every second. The crowd is up, screaming. I see Eli bounce out of his seat, nearly upending Mom as he double-pumps his arms over his head.
We kill the penalty. McDavid wins a face-off in our own zone, wraps it up the boards to Jenkins. Jenkins takes it deep, draws three defenders, then feathers a backhand to me at the point.
I step into it.
Shot finds traffic—hits somebody, slow motion, and just barely trickles behind their goalie. The puck’s just sitting there.
Eli starts pounding the glass, screaming.
I dive for it, get a stick on it, shove it across. Goalie sprawls. Somebody else swipes, chips it through. Lamp lights.
We lose our collective minds.
But the Seals aren’t done. They answer, two minutes later, on a rebound. 3-3. It’s a fistfight all the way down.
Sweat in my eyes. Shifts are shorter now, fifty seconds and you’re gassed. Carter and I barely have time to catch a gulp of water before Coach is barking again. I think I’ve left pieces of my lungs on the ice.
Final minute, tied.
Seals call a timeout. I sit, head in hands, counting the seconds, trying not to look at the scoreboard. Trying not to imagine what Eli is hoping for, what kind of hero he wants tonight.
Doesn’t matter. I know what I want.
Coach points at me, Carter, and McDavid. “This is the unit. Get it done.”
I pull the glove tight again, just to feel the tension through my palm.
Regulation ends. Still tied.
Crowd is nuclear. Playoff spot on the line, and they all know it. I can hear a literal chant from somewhere behind our bench: “HOLT! HOLT! HOLT!” Feels fucking surreal.
Overtime. NHL rules—three-on-three, sudden death.
My heart is out of my chest, but my brain is ice.
Coach goes with us: me on D, Carter wing, McDavid anchoring the line.
We line up. The Seals look tired, but hate carries you a long way. Their captain wants to end this, you can see it in the way he squares up over the dot.
Puck drops. Away we go.
First thirty seconds, pure trading chances. We get a look—Carter wheels behind the net, wraps, but their goalie stones him. They come back, odd-man rush, and I have to sprawl, full-length, to get my stick on the pass. I knock it away. McDavid scoops it up, controls, circles.
Everything slows down. That’s the thing about overtime. It’s not faster. It’s slower, heavier, like gravity doubled.
McDavid passes cross-ice to Carter. Carter sells the shot, eats the D-man alive, then spins. I trail in high, looking for the open ice.
Carter sees me. Flicks it—low, hard, tape to tape.
I take it in stride.
The Seals’ goalie is squared, watching Carter. I know the angle—he expects a dish, not a shot.
I curl it onto the blade, feel my legs load. Then I rip it.
Top shelf, glove side, right under the bar.
Time crawls.
It’s perfect.
The net ripples. The lamp explodes red.
For a half-second, nobody moves. The puck falls to the ice, rolling lazy. Then the horn goes.
The building melts down.
We charge the glass. Brooks screams so loud I can see veins in his neck even from the bench. Carter slams me into the boards, mouth open in a whoop. McDavid hugs me, and for a guy who doesn’t smile, his face is all teeth.
But I don’t even see them, not right away.
I see Eli.
He’s at the glass, both fists up, face split by the world’s brightest grin. He’s shouting, and I can see the shape of my name, and for one hot second I think my heart might actually give out right here, right now.
Dad’s pounding his back. Mom’s crying, obviously.
But it’s Eli’s face that lands the hit.
He looks proud. Not regular proud. The kind of proud that matters.
I slam the glass with my glove, point at him, just so he knows: this was for you, kid.
The rest is a blur.
Guys mob me, dogpile, Jenkins doing the kind of postgame dance that’ll get him fined on Monday. The coach is screaming something incoherent. I couldn’t even hear it over the thunder in the arena if I tried.
We shake hands with the Seals—respectful-ish, for a team I mostly want to flatten. I get a hard look from their captain, but he gives it back, nods, says, “Nice snipe, Holt.” I say, “Thanks,”, still tasting sweat in my mouth.
Camera teams swarm. Someone says something about playoffs. Someone else says something about legacy.
But every time I come back to breathing, every time I let the adrenaline fade, all I can think about is Zoe.
And how, if she was here, if she saw this—if I could just turn and see her face in the crowd next to his—it would be a kind of perfect I don’t even have words for.
Glass sits under my gloves. Blood’s somewhere in my sock. Eli’s smile burned into retinas.
We won the first game of conference finals.
He’ll never forget it. Neither will I.
Tonight, I was the hero for him.
And if the universe has any sense of balance left, next time, maybe I’ll be the hero for Zoe, too.
That remains to be seen.