Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Marco
The two-on-one developed fast. Too fast.
Ottawa’s center had blown past Kinnunen at the blue line, and suddenly it was just me and their first line bearing down on Belov. Their center on the left, their winger on the right, both of them flying down the ice with the kind of speed that made your defensive instincts scream.
I read the pass before it happened. Saw their center drifting wide, saw the winger’s stick angle shift. Cross-ice pass incoming, the winger would have the one-timer, and from that angle Belov wouldn’t have time to slide across.
I had maybe a second to decide.
I dropped into a slide, angling my body to cut off the passing lane. The ice was fast tonight, and I picked up speed as I went down, stick extended, trying to get my body between the puck and the winger.
Their center released the pass. Their winger readied for the slap shot.
And I got there just in time.
The puck never made it to the winger’s stick. It hit my foot instead.
At one hundred miles per hour.
The pain was immediate and absolute. White-hot agony shot up from my skate through my entire leg, stole my breath, and wiped out every thought except oh God, oh God, that’s bad.
I heard the crack. Felt something give way inside my skate that shouldn’t have given way.
Broken. I knew it instantly, with a certainty that came from thirteen years in the NHL and enough injuries to recognize the difference between pain that would fade and pain that meant something was fundamentally wrong.
I couldn’t get up. Couldn’t even think about getting up because my entire world had narrowed to my right foot and the fire radiating from it.
The whistle blew. Somewhere far away, I heard the ref’s voice, heard skates cutting ice as players converged.
Then étienne was there.
I didn’t see him coming. One second, I was alone on the ice, trying to breathe through the pain, trying not to black out. The next second he was on his knees beside me, helmet off, his face pale and terrified in a way I’d never seen before.
“Marco. Marco, talk to me. Where—”
“Foot,” I managed through gritted teeth. “Right foot.”
He reached for my skate, and I couldn't stop the sound that came out of me—halfway between a gasp and a scream, a pure animal reaction to even the thought of someone touching it.
étienne snatched his hand back like I’d burned him. “Putain! Get the fucking trainer! Now!”
His hand found mine instead, squeezing hard enough to hurt. I squeezed back because I needed something to focus on besides the pain, something to anchor me.
“You’re okay.” His voice shook. “You’re okay, just breathe. Trainer’s coming. You’re okay.”
I wasn’t okay. My foot was broken. And broken meant possible surgery, meant recovery time, meant weeks—maybe months—on the sidelines watching the team play without me.
The failure of it hit almost as hard as the pain. I’d been playing well this season. Really well. Best plus-minus on the team, leading defenseman in blocked shots, finally feeling like I’d found my rhythm in Colorado after years of working for it.
And now this.
All because I’d committed to the slide, because I’d done my job, made the right play at the wrong cost.
Chuck, our head trainer, was on the ice now.
He was talking to me, asking questions—“Can you move it? From one to ten, how bad is the pain? Did you hear anything break?”—but I couldn’t focus on him.
All my attention was on étienne, still kneeling beside me, still holding my hand like letting go would mean I’d disappear.
“Broken.” I turned my gaze to Chuck. “I heard and felt it crack, even over the noise of the crowd.”
Chuck’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “Okay. We’re going to get you off the ice. Don’t move it.”
Chuck and étienne got on either side of me, carefully helping me onto my one good foot. The movement sent fresh pain shooting through my broken foot, and I couldn’t stop the hiss that escaped through my teeth.
“Easy,” Chuck said. “We’ve got you. Don’t put any weight on it.”
They lifted me, taking my weight between them, and started gliding me toward the tunnel on my left skate. étienne’s arm was solid under my shoulder, his grip firm and steady around my back.
The arena erupted. Eighteen thousand people were on their feet, applauding, cheering. The sound washed over me—supportive, encouraging. Sticks tapped against the ice and the boards as both teams showed their respect.
I hated needing the help, hated the weakness of being unable to skate off under my own power.
But the crowd’s response—their understanding that I’d sacrificed my body making the right play—made my tight chest loosen slightly.
étienne squeezed me as we reached the tunnel, his presence the only thing keeping me grounded through the pain and the noise and the crushing disappointment.
“Savard, get back to the bench,” Coach Wilson called.
“I’m not leaving him.”
“Savard—” Coach Wilson started, sharp with authority.
“I’m not leaving him,” étienne repeated, and there was something fierce in his voice that I’d never heard before. It said he’d fight anyone who tried to make him.
We made it to the medical room—me hobbling between étienne and Chuck—and the head team physician arrived with efficient urgency. They unlaced and removed my skate, and I had to bite down on my mouth guard to keep from screaming as they peeled off my sock.
My foot was already swelling, the skin discolored. Even I could tell it looked wrong.
“We need X-rays.” Dr. Bergan gently palpated my foot while I bit back a curse. “But based on the mechanism of injury and presentation, I’m thinking metatarsal fractures. Plural.”
Plural. Multiple broken bones.
“How long will I be out, doc?”
“Six weeks minimum, maybe more, depending on severity. Physical therapy. Then a slow, gradual return to skating.”
The disappointment was worse than the pain, somehow. This was supposed to be my year. The year I made a run for the Norris Trophy.
And now I’d be watching from my couch while someone else took my ice time, my role, my spot on the depth chart.
“Marco.” étienne’s voice pulled me back. He was still there, still holding my hand, his other hand now resting on my shoulder. “You’re going to be okay.”
“It’s broken.”
“I know. But you’re going to be okay.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe this wasn’t catastrophic, career-altering, or the beginning of the end.
But I’d seen how this went. I’d seen guys come back from injuries like this changed—slower, less confident. One bad break in the wrong place had derailed careers.
The portable X-ray machine was wheeled into the medical room. Dr. Bergan positioned it carefully, took multiple angles. Each adjustment sent fresh waves of pain through my foot, but I gritted my teeth and bore it.
When the doctor finally pulled up the images on his laptop, I didn’t need his medical degree to see the problem. Three clean breaks across the long foot bones.
“Three fractures across the metatarsals,” Dr. Bergan confirmed.
“The good news is there’s no displacement—the bones are still aligned.
That means you most likely won’t need surgery.
” He paused. “But I want to send you to the hospital and have orthopedics take a look, just to be certain. They’ll do a more thorough evaluation and make the final call. ” I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“You should be back on the bench,” I told étienne, forcing the words out. “Game’s still going.”
“I don’t give a shit about the game.”
“étienne, the trade rumors—”
“I’m not leaving.”
“The league is going to fine you for this.”
“I don’t care.”
My chest cracked open at the fierce certainty in his voice. At the fact that he’d choose me over the game, over following orders, over avoiding consequences.
“The ambulance is waiting, and the replacement ambulance is on its way,” Chuck said. “As soon as that arrives, we’ll get you transported to the hospital, get you settled. étienne, you really should—”
“I’m going with him.”
“The ambulance won’t—”
“Then I’ll meet him there. I’m not letting him go alone.”
Dr. Bergan and Chuck exchanged glances, some silent communication passing between them. Finally, Chuck sighed. “Fine. But you’ll need to change first. Can’t go to the hospital in your gear.”
étienne was gone maybe five minutes. Longest five minutes of my life, lying there with my foot throbbing on ice—like my career—and nothing to distract me from either.
When he came back, dressed in a hastily pulled on, crooked cashmere sweater that highlighted the gold in his hazel eyes, he looked wrecked.
Over me.
The paramedics arrived, got me loaded onto a stretcher, and started an IV for pain management. The drugs hit fast, taking the edge off the agony but leaving me floaty, disconnected.
“I’ll be right behind you,” étienne said as they wheeled me toward the loading dock. “Twenty minutes, tops. Don’t do anything stupid without me.”
I wanted to tell him this was stupid, that he should stay for the game, but the drugs were making me loose, making it hard to remember why I should push him away instead of being pathetically grateful that he was coming.
“Okay,” I said instead. He disappeared as the ambulance doors closed.
The ER at the hospital was a chaos of coughing patients, crying kids, and the general mayhem of people demanding to be seen. But apparently, being a professional athlete got you triaged faster than the guy with the bandaged finger arguing with the nurse.
They got me into a room, took more X-rays, and called in the team’s orthopedist. Dr. Chen—young, efficient, and with a calm competence that made me feel slightly less like my life was ending—confirmed what I already knew.
“Three metatarsal fractures,” Dr. Chen said, pulling up the new X-rays on the computer screen. “Clean breaks across the second, third, and fourth metatarsals. But there’s no displacement—the bones are still properly aligned. See here?” She pointed at the screen. “That means you won’t need surgery.”