17. Thane
SEVENTEEN
THANE
Winning should have felt better than this.
The scoreboard said we'd beaten Vancouver three to two.
The standings would count it the same as every other victory we'd earned this season.
By tomorrow morning, sports analysts would talk about two points in the standings, another step toward the playoffs, and the resilience of a team that kept finding ways to win.
None of that changed what it had felt like on the ice.
We hadn't beaten Vancouver so much as survived them.
The locker room reflected that reality.
Nobody was blasting music or celebrating. A few players talked quietly while peeling off equipment. Others sat at their stalls staring into space with the exhausted expressions that followed sixty minutes of hard hockey and a result that could have gone either way.
The smell of sweat, damp gear, and melting ice hung in the air.
Coach Reynolds stood near the center of the locker room with a clipboard tucked beneath one arm.
At sixty-three, he had spent more than three decades behind NHL benches.
He wasn't the kind of coach who threw garbage cans or delivered movie speeches.
He had long since learned that professional athletes responded better to honesty than theatrics.
His gaze swept across the room. "We'll take the win."
A few players chuckled. Not because it was funny, but because everybody knew exactly what he meant.
Coach nodded toward the door. "Enjoy the next few days. Get some rest. Spend time with your families. Then come back ready to work because we have plenty to clean up."
Nobody argued. There wasn't much to say. We all knew we'd gotten away with one tonight.
Vancouver had outplayed us for stretches. Our defensive coverage had been sloppy. Our puck management had been worse. If not for a couple of huge saves from our goaltender and some fortunate bounces, the result could have looked very different.
My own game had been solid enough.
Tannen's hadn't.
I hated even thinking it.
The guy sitting beside me had been one of the best centers in hockey for years. I'd watched him take over games, drag teams through playoff series, and make impossible plays look routine.
Lately, though, something was off.
A missed pass here.
A lost faceoff there.
Turnovers that never used to happen.
Little mistakes that kept adding up.
Coach noticed.
The players noticed.
Most of all, Tannen noticed
People had started talking about it. Analysts. Reporters. Fans. Not constantly, not yet, but enough. The questions had begun creeping into interviews and postgame coverage.
Was Tannen playing through an injury?
Was he exhausted?
Had something changed?
Nobody seemed to have an answer.
Before the press conference, I had a feeling those questions would only have gotten louder. Now the media had something else to chase. Something else to speculate about.
I didn't exactly enjoy being the center of that circus. But if it bought Tannen a little breathing room, I could live with that.
Beside me, Tannen was pulling off his equipment with the same quiet focus he'd carried through most of the season. He hadn't said much after the game. Then again, he rarely did when he was unhappy with his performance.
I knew that look. I'd seen it after tough losses. Bad stretches. Playoff exits.
The difference was that this time, there wasn't much I could do about it.
The room gradually emptied around us. Players headed for media obligations, buses, families, and holiday plans. Equipment managers moved through collecting gear. Conversations faded until only a handful of people remained.
Eventually, even those disappeared.
The silence that settled over the room felt strangely welcome.
Tannen sat beside his stall with his elbows resting on his knees. Most of his equipment was gone, but he hadn't made any effort to leave. His gaze remained fixed on the floor as though the rubber matting had suddenly become fascinating.
I recognized the look. I'd seen it after bad losses.
After injuries. After the funeral six months ago.
For a while, neither of us spoke. We didn't need to.
Years of friendship had made silence comfortable.
The kind of comfortable that only existed when somebody knew all your worst stories and stuck around anyway.
Finally, I leaned back against my stall. "You okay?"
Tannen let out a short laugh that contained absolutely no humor. "No."
The answer came immediately. No hesitation. No pretending. No automatic "I'm fine" that everyone knew was bullshit. Just the truth.
I studied him for a moment.
Most people saw the captain. The leader. The guy who wore the "C" on his chest and somehow always found the right thing to say after a loss or before a big game. They saw the player who handled interviews like a pro and carried the weight of the franchise without complaining.
I saw my best friend. And right now, he looked tired. It wasn’t the kind of tired that disappeared after a good night's sleep. The kind that settled deeper than that.
"What is it?" I asked quietly.
Tannen scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck and stared at the floor for several seconds before answering. "I don't know."
The words came out rough. Frustrated. As though he was angry at himself for not having a better explanation.
I frowned. "Don't know what?"
His jaw tightened. "What's wrong with me."
This wasn't a guy fishing for reassurance or having a bad night after a rough game. Tannen genuinely looked like someone trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.
He leaned back against the stall behind him and let out a long breath.
"I watch the game films afterward, and I can see the mistakes.
Every damn one of them. The turnovers. The missed passes.
The bad decisions. I know better. I know what I'm supposed to do.
" His hands spread helplessly. "But then I get back out there, and it happens again. "
I didn't rush to fill the silence. I'd learned that Tannen usually found his way to the thing he actually wanted to say if you gave him enough room.
Eventually, he shook his head. "Maybe I'm just pressing too hard."
"Maybe."
"Maybe I'm overthinking everything."
"Also possible."
A reluctant smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "You're incredibly helpful."
"I try."
That earned a snort.
For a second, the tension eased. Then it returned just as quickly.
"I keep waiting for it to click again," he admitted. "You know? Like one day I'm going to wake up and everything will feel normal."
The words settled heavily between us.
Normal.
I wasn't entirely sure either of us remembered what that looked like anymore.
The last year had been brutal on him in ways most people would never understand. Fans saw statistics. They saw standings. They saw wins and losses. They didn't see the phone calls. The hospital visits. The funeral.
They didn't see a son trying to figure out how to keep moving after losing his mother.
Tannen wasn't the kind of person who talked about those things often. Most of the time, he carried them quietly.
Maybe too quietly.
"You don't have to figure everything out today," I said.
His laugh was softer this time. "Coach would probably disagree."
"Coach would tell you to stop reading your own press."
"Coach tells everybody that."
"Because everybody needs to hear it."
That finally earned a genuine smile. Not a big one. Just enough to remind me that he was still in there somewhere beneath all the pressure he'd been carrying.
The problem was that the smile disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. Then Tannen looked away.
Finally, he let out a slow breath. "You know what the worst part is?"
I waited.
"I can't tell whether I'm struggling because I'm grieving or because my game is actually slipping."
Tannen stared across the room. "I've spent my entire career knowing exactly who I was on the ice." He laughed softly. "It might not have been every night or every shift. But overall? I knew." His jaw tightened. "Now I don't."
I leaned back against the bench and let him talk.
"Everybody says it's temporary. That I'll find my game again. That I'll get through this." He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. "Maybe they're right."
His gaze dropped to the floor. "But what if they're not?"
The question hung between us.
"What if this isn't a slump? What if this is the start of the decline and I'm too stubborn to see it?
I've watched it happen to other guys. One year, they're leading the team.
Then next they're playing fewer minutes.
Then they're fighting to keep their spot in the lineup.
Before long, people are talking about them in the past tense while they're still in the room.
" A humorless laugh escaped him. "I always told myself I'd know when it was time.
But lately I don't know much of anything. "
For the first time since the conversation started, he wasn't talking about a bad game.
Or a bad month.
He was talking about the possibility that the version of himself he'd spent his entire adult life becoming might already be slipping away.
And that was a fear no amount of talent could protect him from.
The silence that followed felt heavier than anything he'd said before.
"I don't want to be the guy hanging on because he can't let go."
The words lingered between us.
Part of me wanted to argue. Part of me wanted to remind him that six months wasn't nearly enough time to recover from losing a parent. Grief didn't care about calendars. It showed up when it wanted, stayed as long as it pleased, and ignored every deadline people tried to give it.
I also wanted to tell him that fear had a way of distorting everything. That maybe the guy who couldn't trust his own game right now wasn't the best person to decide whether his career was ending.