Chapter 15
Road Grade
Luke
The team bus smelled like diesel, stale coffee, and twenty-five guys trying to sleep in upright positions.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass of the window. Outside, the Massachusetts landscape was a blur of gray trees and dirty snowbanks.
My phone buzzed in my lap.
Austen: Radiator is making a sound like a dying bagpipe. Have initiated percussive maintenance.
I smiled, the tension in my chest loosening a fraction.
Me: Don’t dent the valve. I need heat when I get back.
Austen: Heat is preserved. Also, I’ve been reviewing Amherst’s game tape against Merrimack.
I frowned. He was watching tape?
Me: Why?
Austen: Data collection. Sending you a heatmap. Look at the Green Line.
An image loaded on my screen. A diagram of the offensive zone, but Austen had drawn a bright green line straight down the center, splitting the ice into two vertical halves.
Austen: This is the “Royal Road.” It’s the line dividing the ice. Amherst’s entire offense is predicated on crossing it.
I had to grin. Getting nerd-splained hockey gave me the giggles. Across the aisle, Ryan opened one eye and looked at me. “Austen’s nerd-splaining again.” Ryan grunted and closed his eyes again.
Me: It’s called a cross-ice pass, Austen.
Austen: It’s geometry. When the puck crosses that line laterally, the goalie must change his angle and depth simultaneously. The save percentage on shots following a Royal Road crossing drops by 28 percent.
I stared at the screen. Twenty-eight percent. Massive.
Austen: Do not let them cross the Green Line. If they pass across it, move early. Beat the angle.
Me: You’re such a nerd.
Austen: I’m a nerd who wants you to win. Defy the physics.
I locked the phone and slid it into my pocket.
“So, what did Lovell have to say?” Ryan asked.
“The usual,” I said, staring at the seat back in front of me. “Still trying to get me to employ mathematical reasoning to defend the crease.”
I closed my eyes and visualized the rink, seeing the glowing green line running down the center of the ice.
“Well, if it stops one puck from getting past you tomorrow, follow the nerd.” Ryan spat a shell into a paper cup.
“Amherst’s a grinder game, Monk. Small rink, lively boards.
Their student section sits right on top of the visiting goalie.
They’re gonna chirp you about everything from your pads to your mother. ”
“Let them chirp.”
“That’s the spirit.” Ryan kicked my boot. “Lock it in. We need you to be a wall. Javier’s got the flu or a hangover, I saw him skating slow in morning practice. Maybe he’ll be at one-hundred percent tomorrow, but who knows.”
I looked back two rows. Javier was asleep, his face pale, a hoodie pulled tight over his head.
Great. Our top scorer was out of commission. That meant a low-scoring game. That meant one mistake would kill us.
I put my headphones back on, but I didn’t play music. I turned on the noise-canceling and listened to the low hum of the bus and tried to find the zone.
The Tsongas Center was loud.
Even for morning skate, the building hummed with HVAC noise and the echo of pucks hitting glass. The rink had hard ice, which was a godsend.
I spent twenty minutes working the crease, testing the angles. Ryan was right; the arena was loud, and there weren’t even people in the stands. A puck fired wide of the net ricocheted back out into the slot like a grenade.
Geometry, I told myself. Geometry.
“Carter!” Harper barked from the bench. “Rebound control! Stop kicking it back into traffic!”
“Yes, Coach.”
I reset. I focused. But my mind felt crowded.
In the locker room before the game, Javier sat in his stall, looking green. He was taping his stick with slow, miserable movements.
“You alive?” I asked him.
“Fluids,” he muttered. “Need fluids.”
Ryan stood in the center of the room, playing air guitar with a composite stick to a track only he liked. “Let’s go, boys! We steal two points, we own the bus ride home! Who wants it?”
“We want it!” a few rookies yelled back, nervous energy spiking.
I sat in my corner, the noise of the room fading into a dull hum. Time for the ritual.
In the book of goaltending, equipment isn’t protection; it’s an extension of the skeleton. If the gear fails, the goalie fails.
I started with the foundation. Base layer, then the knee pads.
A lot of guys taped their knees to death, terrified of them slipping, but I never had an issue. I trusted the friction. I slid the knee stacks in place, pulled the heavy knit hockey socks over the top, and let the fabric lock them down.
Next, the cup. Essential. Keep the vitals covered.
Then, the pants.
I stepped into the breezers and cinched the internal belt. No suspenders—I didn’t like the restriction on my shoulders. I tightened the waist until it sat flush.
Then, and only then, did I reach for my skates.
I knew guys who put their skates on before their pants. I couldn’t trust people like that. There was something fishy about the mechanics of it, fighting to pull nylon over a sharpened blade. It was, in Austen’s words, inefficient and illogical.
I pulled the left skate on. I ran my thumbnail across the inside edge of the blade. It scraped a thin curl of nail—sharp. Good. I liked a 3/8-inch hollow, deeper than most guys, because I needed that bite to push across the crease instantly. I tightened the laces until my circulation throbbed.
Now, the leg pads.
Strapping them on wasn’t enough; they needed calibration. Toe ties were fastened with shock cord, not lace, to relieve the strain on the ankles. Rotation was the priority: too tight, and the five-hole stayed open; too loose, and the landing gear failed.
Fully armored from the waist down, the upper base layer came next, followed by the chest protector.
The unit slid over my head, carrying the metallic tang of the drying room.
Side buckles cinched tight. Next came the neck guard.
Hated or not, the NCAA mandated the restrictive collar, even if it choked me every time I dropped into the Reverse-VH to look for pucks.
Finally, the helmet. Chin cup checked, but the throat dangler stayed off. The constant ching, ching, ching of plastic hitting the cage was a distraction I couldn’t afford. Silence was the only option.
Finally, the gloves and the stick.
Everything was a constant.
Singular. That’s what my dad always said. Be singular. Nothing exists but the puck.
But as I snapped my helmet straps, I wasn’t thinking about being singular.
I was thinking about how much I missed the constants I couldn’t tape or strap down. The radiator. The tea. The guy who told me I didn’t have to be a robot.
Coach Harper walked in. The room died.
“Amherst plays heavy,” she said, her eyes scanning us. “They dump and chase. They crash the net. They want to make it ugly. We don’t play ugly. We play fast.”
She looked at me.
“Carter. You’re the backstop. Clean sights, no soft ones. Give us a chance to win 1-0 if we have to.”
“Got it,” I said.
“Let’s go.”
The first period was a war of attrition.
Amherst came out flying, hitting everything that moved. They didn’t try to finesse plays; they threw pucks at the net from everywhere to generate chaos.
My job was to kill the chaos.
A defenseman wound up at the point. I fought through the screen, looking over the shoulder of their massive center. I found the release point.
Thud.
The puck hit my chest protector dead center. I collapsed my upper body, smothering the rebound against my jersey before it could drop to the ice. Whistle.
“Nice pillow,” Ryan muttered, giving me a tap on the pads.
Two minutes later, a shot from the half-wall. I didn’t block it; I punched it with my blocker, directing the rebound into the corner, away from the slot. Control the chaos.
I was busy. I liked busy. It kept the brain off.
We escaped the first period 0-0. My shot count was fourteen. Decker’s count on the bench was probably zero, lucky guy.
In the second, the game opened up. Ryan sprung Javier on a breakaway. Javier, looking like death warmed over, managed a weak deke that the Amherst goalie bit on. Javier tucked it five-hole.
1-0 Frost Demons.
Amherst answered three minutes later. They were on the power play. They set up the umbrella formation.
Their point man had the puck. He faked a shot.
My instinct—my training—said to challenge him. To telescope out and cut down the angle.
I saw his eyes shift. He wasn’t looking at the net. He was looking cross-ice. To the winger waiting in the left circle.
The pass was coming. It was going to cross the center line.
The Royal Road.
Austen’s text flashed in my mind: Save percentage drops by 28 percent. Move early.
I didn’t wait for the release. I pushed off my right skate—hard. I slid across the crease in a butterfly slide, arriving at the far post a split second before the pass connected.
The Amherst winger one-timed it. A perfect shot, destined for the open net.
Thud.
The puck slammed into the NRU logo on my chest. I was already square.
The crowd gasped. The winger looked at the ceiling in disbelief.
“How did you get there?” their center muttered as he skated by.
I flipped the puck to the ref. “I took the Green Line.”
I tapped my posts.
Constant.
Amherst eventually scored on a scramble goal that bounced off three skates—physics is cruel like that—but that cross-ice save? That stayed with me.
Third period. 1-1. Four minutes left.
My legs were burning. My shoulder was starting to throb with a dull, persistent ache every time I lifted my glove.
Amherst was pressing. They sensed blood.
Our defenseman took a tripping penalty. Two minutes in the box.
Thirty seconds later, Ryan slashed a guy’s stick in half. Broken stick, automatic penalty.
5-on-3. Two minutes left in the game.
The Amherst coach called a timeout.
I skated to the bench. Coach looked intense, drawing lines on her whiteboard with violent strokes.