Chapter 29 - Tane
Tane
One by one the playoff opponents fell until the final series against the Lynxes loomed.
It was big. The Lynxes were a legacy team with a proud history, that was for sure.
Tane didn’t need reminding of the fact that the Lynxes were also historically one of the teams that the Enforcers struggled with.
That said, confidence within the squad was high. With Connor and Alex holding court with all their experience and on field attributes, and Jacob bringing his youthful flair and zeal to the ice, things were looking good for another iconic Enforcers triumph.
But for Tane, things still weren’t clicking into place on the ice – and it was becoming an issue that just wouldn’t go away either.
Even as the Lynxes games for the title moved toward an inevitable decider, Tane still wasn’t feeling himself. Tane was wondering more and more whether the decision to stay on for an extra two seasons had been the right move for him.
After all, he had initially decided to make this his final season for a reason.
As Tane paced up and down his office, he couldn’t help but ponder whether it might have been better to stick to the initial plan and bow out this season.
The last thing that Tane wanted to do was see his legacy in any way tarnished by struggling on past his best. That wasn’t how Tane wanted to be remembered by the fans at all.
“Tane? Are you in the office?” Jacob asked, his voice coming from the bathroom having just finished showering. “Do you want to come and dry me?”
Tane smiled. But his heart wasn’t in it.
As much as Tane loved Jacob and usually found the prospect of drying off his boy’s beautiful body irresistible, the stresses of what was happening on the ice were too off-putting.
“No, you dry yourself,” Tane called back, trying his best to sound upbeat. “I need to finish writing an email.”
“Okay,” Jacob called back, a tinge of disappointment in his voice.
Tane sighed. He hated disappointing his darling Jacob. But with his mind unwilling to settle and the prospect of the final game against the Lynxes swirling in his head, Tane knew that he wasn’t the best company at the moment.
Tane stopped pacing and looked up at the various framed photographs on the wall. There was one photo that stood out. It was from Tane’s threepeat season where alongside Coach Mitchell, he not only won three titles in a row, but three playoff and regular season MVPs in a row too.
Tane had been the clutch player for the Enforcers for so long that he had almost taken it for granted that this would always be the case.
But Tane’s shoulder hadn’t felt right since returning from the shooting.
According to the doctors, everything was fine with the shoulder, but Tane knew his body better than anyone – and there was something that just wasn’t the same.
As Tane stared at the photo with Coach Mitchell, the pair of them holding the large title winning cup on each side, Tane smiled ruefully.
Did Tane still have it in him to bring on another MVP performance against the Lynxes.
It was certainly set up for a classic Tane Rivers show of skill, dominance, and total reliability.
A deciding game.
It’s a chance to bring the old Tane Rivers back onto the ice.
But… does that version of me still even exist?
Tane began to recall meeting Coach Mitchell for the first time.
Tane had been at the Enforcers for a couple of years and was doing well.
The team was still young, and the coaching structure was in its infancy.
The Cardini family were still working on improving the training facilities and making sure that all the conditions for success were in place.
But it wasn’t until Coach Mitchell arrived that everything changed for the Toronto Enforcers -and more specifically, for Tane too.
It was as if Coach Mitchell saw something in Tane that no one else could see. Tane had always been a good prospect, and some earmarked him as a future hall of famer. However it was only Coach Mitchell who saw Tane’s true ceiling as a hockey player.
Sadly, Coach Mitchell had passed away a couple of seasons ago. Tane would have done anything to have one of their famous four coffee sit-downs. The two of them would meet up even after Coach Mitchell had returned and sit there four hours talking about hockey and life in general.
But the option of talking to Coach Mitchell was gone, and it wasn’t coming back.
“Tane…” came Jacob’s voice from behind Tane.
Tane turned around and saw Jacob standing at the doorway to his office. Jacob had dried off and was now wearing a white t-shirt tucked into a pair of light-blue denim jeans. To say that Jacob looked cute standing there with his stuffed bear Blade under one arm would be an understatement.
“Hey, sorry I didn’t come through to you in the bathroom,” Tane said. “You know…”
Tane allowed his words to trail off. The last thing Tane wanted to do was burden Jacob with all his internal worries and problems ahead of the final Lynxes game.
“It’s fine,” Jacob replied, stepping into the office and walking up to Tane. “I know you’re worried about the game against the Lynxes. It’s a big deal. But I know that you’re saving your best until last.”
Tane felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders.
To hear and see that Jacob was fully supporting and still believing in him was a big deal to Tane. But as it turned out, the boy wasn’t content with giving Tane one compliment, he wanted more…
“Tell me what’s worrying you,” Jacob said, walking over to the couch in the corner of the office. “Let me snuggle up in your lap and then just talk to me. Get it all off that big chest of yours, Daddy.”
Jacob was going to give him some guidance in his moment of need? It was almost always the other way around. But maybe these times called for a new approach. And opening up before had worked. Tane saw that he had nothing to lose. And if he couldn’t trust Jacob, then who could he trust?
And it was clear as Jacob sat down on the couch and patted his hand on the expensive thread cover that he wasn’t about to take no for an answer when it came to getting deep.
Tane walked over to the couch and after a quick rearrangement, he was sitting with his boy cradled in his lap and looking up at him with his bright blue eyes.
“It’s just…” Tane said, searching for the right words.
“It’s okay, you can take as long as you want,” Jacob said, his sweet smile and cherubic face putting Tane at ease. “You’ve got this.”
“Injury or no injury, I honestly worry that I’m not the player I was,” Tane said, the floodgates suddenly bursting open.
“I’ve done more laps on the ice than I can remember.
I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen great players come onto the scene and fade away.
I’m scared that I’m one of those players now.
Even with the doctor telling me that my shoulder is good, I know that it just hasn’t felt right so far.
I just want to get onto the ice against the Lynxes in the final game and feel good.
Like the old days. I don’t even care about how well I play or even if we win or lose, I just want to feel good on the ice. ”
Tane let out a long sigh.
The cathartic effect of letting go of all his worries to Jacob was something that he hadn’t anticipated. Although it wasn’t quite like how he and Coach Mitchell used to talk, Tane felt so grateful to his love for encouraging him to let go and let his fears spill out.
“I think you feel a bit better now, don’t you,” Jacob said, smiling and burying his face into the space underneath Tane’s arm. “But I’ve got a feeling that the Lynxes aren’t going to be feeling so good once we’re through with them!”
Tane chuckled.
Jacob had the confidence and optimism of youth on his side.
Tane was like that once himself. But now as a veteran, Tane was determined to instead draw on his experience and hockey IQ to help bring home the title once more – and the fact that he would be doing it with his Forever Boy alongside him just made the prosect of success all the sweeter.
It’s about me and Jacob.
Together we’re going to bring the title home.
And after we do, I’ve got something very important I need to ask the boy…
* * *
The Finals had become a war of attrition nobody had predicted.
Game 1 in Pine Rise had felt like destiny. The Enforcers came out flying. Jacob sniping twice in the first period, Alex burying a one-timer on the power play, Tane tipping home the insurance goal late in the third. 4–1. The building shook. The city believed.
Game 2 was more of the same. Jacob danced through three defenders for a short-handed beauty, Tane anchored the penalty kill like it was 2015 again, and the Enforcers stole a 3–2 road win in overtime. 2–0 series lead. Pundits started using words like “dynasty” and “sweep.”
Then the Lynxes remembered they were the team that the Enforcers hated playing against.
Game 3 in their barn was a bloodbath. The Lynxes forechecked like animals, blocked shots with their faces, and scored three unanswered goals in the second period.
Jacob took a boarding major that cost the Enforcers a power play; Tane’s shoulder seized on a blocked slapshot and never quite loosened. 4–1 Lynxes.
The series moved to 2–1.
Game 4 was worse. The Enforcers generated chances, dozens of them, but the Lynxes goalie turned into a wall. Jacob hit two posts. Tane’s line couldn’t buy a bounce. A late empty-netter sealed it. 3–0 Lynxes.
Series tied 2–2.
The momentum had flipped so hard it left skid marks.
Game 5 back home felt like redemption. Tremaine lit into them after morning skate: screaming about compete level, about character, about refusing to let the season end in someone else’s building.
The message landed.
Jacob scored twice in the first ten minutes, both filthy wristers that made the highlight reels. Tane blocked three shots in the third, took a cross-check to the bad shoulder that made him see white, and still stayed out for the final shift. 5–2 Toronto Enforcers.
3–2 series lead. One more win was needed.
But as was so often the case, The Lynxes refused to die.
Game 6 was a grinder—low scoring, high hitting, every puck battle contested like it was the last shift of their careers.
The Enforcers led 2–1 into the third. Then the Lynxes’ top line broke through: a tic-tac-toe passing play, a one-timer from the slot, 2–2.
Overtime. Double overtime. Triple overtime.
At 92:14, the Lynxes’ captain wristed one past the glove. 3–2 Lynxes.
The series was tied 3–3.
Now Game 7 waited.
Tane sat alone in the quiet of the team hotel room the night before the finale, ice pack taped to his shoulder, staring at the muted TV replaying highlights from the series.
The numbers didn’t lie: he’d been solid—plus-4, heavy minutes on the penalty kill, two goals, four assists.
But there was no defining moment.
No overtime heroics.
No signature play that would be replayed for decades.
He’d been good. Not great. The legendary Tane Rivers hadn’t dominated in this run.
Jacob had been the opposite: electric one night, invisible the next.
Six goals in the series, including two multi-point nights that made jaws drop, but also long stretches where he disappeared under the Lynxes’ checking.
The inconsistency gnawed at him—Tane could see it in the way Jacob fidgeted during film sessions, the way he chewed his mouthguard until it shredded.
The locker room felt different now. The early swagger was gone. Guys snapped at each other over small things… whose turn it was to bring the music, who left gear in the walkway.
Tremaine had turned the dial to eleven too.
Morning skates became punishment sessions. Video reviews lasted hours. Every mistake was dissected in front of the whole team. No one escaped. Not the rookies, not the veterans, and especially not Tane.
And yet—beneath the tension, beneath the exhaustion—there was something else.
There was a quiet, stubborn belief.
This series would be remembered.
If they won Game 7, it would go down as one of the great see-saw series in league history: blowing a 2–0 lead, clawing back, refusing to fold when the momentum swung hard the other way.
And if they lost… well, no one wanted to finish that sentence.
Tane peeled the ice pack off, rolled the shoulder once and smiled wryly.
He stood, walked to the window, and looked down at the city lights. Somewhere out there, twenty thousand fans were already lining up for tomorrow’s puck drop. Somewhere out there, Antonio Cardini was probably watching the same highlights, calculating odds and leverage.
Tane didn’t care about any of it tonight.
He cared about one thing: getting one more shift.
One more chance to leave everything on the ice.
One more chance to lift Jacob onto his shoulders when the Cup came around for the second time.
He glanced at the clock. 1:12 a.m.
Jacob was asleep in the next room. The door cracked ajar, soft snores drifting through.
Tane smiled despite himself. This incredibly young man had been on fire in his debut season, yes, but the real fire was the way he looked at Tane after every shift, like Tane was still the hero from those old TV broadcasts.
Like Tane could still do impossible things.
Tomorrow he’d try to live up to Jacob’s expectations.
Tane turned off the TV, flicked on the bedside lamp, and opened his playbook. Not to study systems—he knew them cold—but to remind himself why he still did this.
One game.
One shift at a time.
He closed the book, killed the light, and slipped into bed beside Jacob. His love stirred, mumbled something incoherent, and curled instinctively into Tane’s side.
Tane wrapped his good arm around him.
Whatever happened tomorrow, Tane was determined to make it right for Jacob.
And if the hockey gods were kind, if the bounces went their way, if the shoulder held, if the heart outlasted the body, they would write the ending everyone would remember forever.