10. Thane
TEN
THANE
The arena felt different that night.
By the time warmups ended and both teams cleared the ice, the energy inside the building had shifted. Sharper. Louder.
I waited in the tunnel with the rest of the starters as the names echoed through the arena one by one.
The crowd responded to each player in turn, some louder than others.
Briggs drew one of the bigger ovations of the night.
Tannen's introduction earned an even louder reaction, and I found myself smiling despite everything.
Of course it did. He was the captain. The face of the franchise.
Half the city would probably have followed him into battle if he'd asked.
Then I heard my own name.
I pushed off from the tunnel and onto the ice.
The noise hit me all at once. Cheers rolled down from every section of the arena.
Applause followed. Mixed in among them were a few scattered boos.
I heard all of it and acknowledged none of it.
By the time I reached my position, the familiar rhythm of the game had already begun to settle over me.
The puck dropped.
For the next two and a half hours, hockey took over.
Vancouver played exactly the way Vancouver always played. They clogged passing lanes, finished every check, and turned every inch of ice into a battle. Nothing came easily. Every shift felt like work.
Tannen struggled from the beginning.
Nobody in the building would have noticed all the details, but I did. We've played together for years. I knew the rhythm of his game the way musicians know a familiar song.
Tonight the rhythm was off.
A pass skipped over his stick early in the first period. Later, a turnover at the offensive blue line led to an odd-man rush the other way. He won faceoffs, blocked shots, and kept battling, but frustration followed him from shift to shift.
Every mistake seemed to make the next one harder to shake.
The crowd saw a captain grinding through a difficult night.
I saw my best friend trying to carry too much weight.
Fortunately, hockey is a team sport.
When T-Mills couldn't find his game, the rest of us stepped up.
Wayne spent the night creating chaos in front of Vancouver's net. He took cross-checks, absorbed punishment, and somehow kept smiling through all of it. The veteran looked like he was having the time of his life.
I found mine.
Midway through the second period, Tannen fought through traffic along the boards and slipped a pass into open ice. The play wasn't flashy. Most fans probably remembered the shot more than the setup.
I’d remembered both.
The puck hit my stick.
I released it without thinking.
A split second later, the goal horn exploded.
Thunder crashed through the arena speakers.
The familiar Halestorm graphic flashed across the jumbotron while turquoise lights pulsed around the building. The crowd erupted to its feet.
The cheers carried more meaning because I knew some of those people weren't only celebrating a goal. They were telling me they were still here.
By the third period, the game had become exactly what rivalry games always become.
Ugly.
Scrappy.
Exhausting.
Vancouver refused to go away. We refused to give them anything easy. Every shift mattered. Every blocked shot drew a roar from the crowd.
When the final horn sounded, Seattle had the win. It wasn't pretty. Nobody would be framing it as an artistic masterpiece. But two points counted the same whether they came from brilliance or stubbornness.
As we gathered near center ice for the customary handshakes and stick taps, I glanced toward Tannen. He looked exhausted… and relieved.
Some nights, your best hockey isn't enough. Other nights, your team carries you. That's what teammates do. And tonight, despite everything that had changed over the last twenty-four hours, we were still a team. Unfortunately, hockey wasn't the only thing waiting for me after the final horn.
The moment we stepped off the ice, the requests started.
Television interviews.
Radio interviews.
League media.
Local media.
National media.
Requests that would have been routine under normal circumstances suddenly multiplied into something else entirely.
By the time I finished showering and dressing, a member of the communications staff was already waiting outside the locker room. "They've added two more interviews."
I stared at him. "I already did four."
"I know." The sympathy in his voice wasn't encouraging.
Twenty minutes later, I found myself standing beneath bright lights, answering variations of the same questions I'd been hearing since yesterday.
How are you feeling?
What has the response been like?
Have your teammates been supportive?
What message do you hope this sends?
Most of the reporters were professional.
Most were respectful. A few even seemed genuinely interested in having a conversation rather than collecting a quote.
Others were hunting for something more dramatic.
One reporter asked whether I was worried about losing endorsements.
Another wanted to know if I thought my announcement would affect ticket sales.
One of them somehow turned a question about hockey into a question about my dating life. "Thane, are you seeing anyone?"
I got a couple more questions: "Was there a specific person who inspired your announcement?" and "Do you have a message for young LGBTQ athletes?"
I answered what I could.
Deflected what I couldn't.
Repeated myself more times than I could count.
By the end of it, I felt less like a hockey player and more like a public relations campaign wearing a suit. For years I'd imagined what would happen if the truth became public. I'd worried about teammates. Sponsors. Fans. The league.
What I hadn't anticipated was how exhausting it would be to have complete strangers suddenly feel entitled to pieces of my life that had never belonged to them.