17. FINN #2
A bad game has obvious problems. Bad passes. Dumb penalties. Guys reaching instead of skating. You can point at the mess and say, "There, that’s why this got away from us.”
This isn’t that.
This is the kind of game where both teams are doing enough right to make everything harder. Every pass has traffic. Every shot has a body in front of it. Every loose puck turns into a fight along the boards before anyone can breathe.
We’re down 3-2 with eight minutes left, and the other team knows exactly how to protect a lead.
They keep sending the puck deep into our end, forcing us to chase it.
Every time we try to break out, they slow us down and make every loose puck feel like a fight we have to win before we can even think about scoring.
I love games like this when we’re winning.
When we’re not, they feel like knowing exactly what needs to change and not being able to force it.
Coach taps my line for the next shift, and I swing over the boards with Ty and Jace. My shoulder pulls when I push off, a hot little reminder from the first-period hit, but I ignore it. Nothing’s wrong. Nothing that matters right now.
We get one good chance when I fight the puck loose along the boards and slide it to Ty before their guy can trap me against the glass. Ty cuts toward the middle and snaps a shot low.
The goalie drops.
The puck kicks loose.
Jace crashes in, stick down, and for one second, I think we’ve got it.
Then their defenseman ties him up, the puck skitters wide, and the whistle blows because the goalie has fallen on it.
The crowd groans.
I tilt my head back for half a second, breathing hard.
So close.
Ty skates by and bumps my glove. “Good play.”
“Would’ve been better if it went in.”
He grins, but even Ty’s grin has an edge now. We want this one because it’s right there. Not out of reach. Not handed to them. Just sitting close enough that every missed chance feels like one we should’ve buried.
Five minutes.
Four.
Three.
We get another chance when Nico steals the puck near their blue line and sends it across to Dylan. Dylan shoots fast, before the goalie can settle, but the puck rings off the post with a sharp metallic crack that makes the whole arena react at once.
Dylan turns away, jaw tight.
Knox says something to him, short and low.
Dylan nods.
Keep going.
That’s all there is.
With a little under two minutes left, Coach pulls Gavin for an extra attacker.
Gavin skates hard to the bench, mask tilted down.
He taps his glove against the boards as he passes, and I hop over as the extra skater, the crowd already on its feet because everyone in the building knows what this means.
Empty net.
One goal needed.
No room for mistakes.
We throw everything at them in those final minutes.
The puck moves around the outside, every pass trying to force open a lane.
To a hockey person, it’s structure. To everyone else, it probably looks like six desperate men trying to thread a needle while five desperate men try to break the needle in half.
Ty sends it up to Knox. Knox walks the blue line, patient, waiting for someone to bite. When their forward steps toward him, Knox slides it to me near the right circle.
I don’t shoot right away.
Their goalie shifts.
Their defenseman drops to block.
There.
I fake the shot, pull the puck around him, and send it hard across the front of the net.
Jace gets a stick on it.
The puck changes direction.
For half a heartbeat, the entire arena holds its breath.
Then it catches the outside of the post and spins wide.
No.
The sound that comes out of the crowd is almost painful.
I chase the puck into the corner, take another body against my sore shoulder, and keep it alive. My skates scrape hard against the ice. Someone’s stick catches my glove. Ty yells. Knox yells. The bench yells.
The puck comes free again.
Ten seconds.
Dylan fires from the point.
Blocked.
Five seconds.
It drops near my feet.
I turn, get one last shot off through traffic, and watch the goalie’s glove flash up.
He catches it.
The horn goes.
Final score, 3-2.
For a second, nobody moves.
Then the noise changes.
Their bench erupts. Our crowd gives that disappointed, loyal cheer that says they wanted a win but know we left everything out there. I skate a slow turn away from the net, breathing hard, sweat cooling beneath my gear, shoulder throbbing with every pulse of blood.
Jace skates by and taps my shin pads with his stick. “That last pass was nasty.”
“Would’ve been nastier if it tied the game.”
“Yeah,” he says. “But it was there.”
He’s right.
That’s the thing about a loss like this. It doesn’t give you anywhere clean to put the anger. We had our chances. They had theirs. Their goalie made the save. We didn’t get the bounce.
That’s hockey.
We skate toward Gavin first because that’s what you do. Doesn’t matter if the loss is on him or not, and tonight, it sure as hell isn’t. He kept us in it twice when the game could’ve opened wide.
Knox taps his pads. “Good game.”
Gavin nods once.
Ty bumps his glove against Gavin’s pad. “You gave us every chance.”
Gavin looks at him. “Didn’t give you enough.”
“No,” Knox says. “We didn’t finish enough.”
Gavin holds his gaze for a second, then nods again. That’s as much agreement as we’re going to get from him right now.
As we head off the ice, I glance toward the friends-and-family section before I can stop myself.
Bailey is standing now.
The women are around her, jackets on, gathering drinks and bags, talking the way people do after a close game. Emerson says something to Jade. Maren looks toward the ice. Sienna has one hand tucked into her coat pocket.
Bailey isn’t talking.
Her eyes are on me.
Her face is calm at first glance, but I know better now. The tightness around her mouth. The way her hand is wrapped around the railing.
She saw more than the game.
She saw the hit. The way I rolled my shoulder. The way I took another shove in the corner and came up slower than usual.
Bailey’s nurse brain.
The part of her that knows too much about bodies and pain and how fast something can go wrong.
I want to smile at her. Something easy. Something that says I’m okay, don’t worry, it’s part of the job.
But from this far away, with glass and crowd noise between us, easy feels wrong.
So I just lift my glove once.
Then I’m through the gate and into the tunnel, the noise fading behind me.
The locker room after a loss has its own kind of quiet.
Not silent. Never that. Gear still comes off. Tape still gets ripped. Showers still run. Trainers still move through asking questions nobody wants to answer.
But the jokes take a few minutes to come back.
Guys sit with the game still on them. Missed chances. Good plays. Bad luck. The shift they want back. The shot that kissed the post instead of the net.
I drop onto the bench in front of my stall and pull off my gloves.
Coach comes in after a minute.
He doesn’t yell.
That tells us plenty.
“You played hard,” he says. “You gave yourselves chances. Their goalie made the saves he needed to make, and we didn’t finish when we had openings. Next time, we’re cleaner through the middle, we make his job harder sooner, and we move on.”
Short. No drama.
Nobody argues because we all know he’s right.
Knox leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Next one.”
Dylan nods. “Next one.”
It moves around the room in small ways. Not a chant. Not a big speech. Just guys accepting the truth and letting it settle.
I peel my shoulder pad back and wince before I can stop myself.
The trainer catches it immediately.
“Shoulder?”
“I’m good.”
He gives me the look.
I sigh. “Sore. Not broken.”
“Let me decide that. Arm up.”
I lift my arm because arguing with a trainer is a losing game, and also because Bailey would be pissed if she knew I didn’t get checked.
The trainer moves my shoulder carefully, tests strength, rotation, and pressure. It hurts, but not in a way that worries me. It’s just bruised and tomorrow, it’s going to suck.
“You’ll ice it,” he says.
“Sure.”
“Finn.”
“I’ll ice it.”
Ty catches enough of the trainer’s lecture to smirk. “Should I let Bailey know you survived medical review?”
“Not if you want to keep all your teeth.”
That gets a few tired laughs, and the room starts to loosen. Not because the loss stops stinging, but because there’s nothing cheap to hang it on. We played hard. They played hard. Their goalie made the last save, and we didn’t get the bounce.
I can live with that.
By the time I shower and get dressed, my shoulder is wrapped, my hair is damp, and Ty has already declared The Thirsty Raven mandatory because mourning a loss requires nachos.
Nobody argues.
I check my phone when I pull it from my locker.
One text.
Bailey: You get checked, right?
I stare at it for a second longer than necessary.
I type back.
Me: Yes. Bruised, not broken. I’ve been medically bullied into icing it.
Her reply comes fast.
Bailey: Good. Listen to them.
I smile before I can stop it.
Me: Bossy.
Three dots appear.
Then disappear.
Then appear again.
Bailey: Accurate.
That one gets a low laugh out of me.
Knox looks over. “Bailey?”
I shove my phone into my pocket. “None of your business.”
Ty appears beside him like he’s been summoned by the scent of gossip. “That means yes.”
***
The Thirsty Raven is already loud by the time we get there.
Not game loud. Bar loud. Post-game loud. The kind that comes with too many bodies, too many opinions, and half the town deciding a one-goal loss permits them to explain hockey to men who just spent three periods getting slammed into boards for a living.
I’m used to it.
A replay of the game runs on the TVs over the bar, which feels unnecessary and personally rude, but nobody asked me. Fans look up when we walk in, a few clapping anyway because Santa Rosa loves us best when we’re winning and loudest when we’ve almost won.