Chapter 3
Three
Cassie had joined the Renegades beat eight seasons ago, a twenty-two-year-old with a degree from Point Park and a passion for hockey that predated her memories.
From day one she learned that she would be the only woman in most rooms she entered.
The press box at Allegheny Arena was a sea of gray heads and polo shirts, the hotel bars where postgame gatherings happened were full of veteran columnists trading war stories.
Cassie knew she stood out, not only because she was one of the youngest ones on the beat, but because she wore eyeliner and a ponytail in a world of scruffy chins and baseball caps.
Being the only woman came with a constant, low hum of self-consciousness.
She was hyper-aware of how she laughed, how she dressed, how she asked questions.
If she lingered too long near a player’s stall, she worried someone would misinterpret.
If she pushed a source too hard, she fretted about being labeled difficult.
She had learned to calibrate her tone and posture, to lean just far enough forward to project confidence without being accused of flirting.
The men around her could afford to be sloppy.
She could not. She knew any misstep would be magnified, catalogued, and remembered.
In her second season, the Renegades drafted a Czech winger named Michal Dvo?ák.
He was twenty and earnest, with halting English and a wicked wrist shot.
His locker was tucked near the door, away from the veteran leadership.
Cassie gravitated to him in those first weeks because his quotes were unvarnished, and felt as if they were going through a similar experience as they learned to work in the best league in the world.
She wrote stories about his adjustment to North America—the pierogi he loved, the way he FaceTimed his mother after games despite the time difference.
It was innocent and, from her perspective, part of the job.
An older columnist, a man who had been covering hockey since the Renegades’ early days and who had never quite warmed to the idea of sharing the beat with a younger woman, decided otherwise.
Cassie overheard him speaking with another reporter in the locker room one night, his voice pitched just loud enough: “Our girl down there is always at Dvo?ák’s stall.
Must be more than quotes she’s getting.” The implication stung.
She flushed, anger and humiliation warring in her chest. The rumor slithered through the press box, no matter that it was baseless.
Michal was cute in a boyish way, but Cassie felt more like his translator than any kind of partner.
Besides, he wasn’t her type—if she had time for dating at all.
Still, the damage was done. She pulled back.
She stopped going to Michal’s stall unless in a group.
She told herself it was temporary, but the self-censorship gnawed.
Eventually, the rumor died off. When Michal was traded to Ottawa the following season, she felt a pang of guilt for being relieved.
Not that she had anything against him—he deserved to thrive somewhere he could get more ice time—but without him, she no longer had to calculate how often she spoke to a player lest someone speculate about her motives. It was a lesson she wouldn’t forget.
Those early scars made Cassie cautious to a fault.
She watched male colleagues banter with players about fantasy football and thought about the double standard.
She reminded herself she wasn’t there to be friends; she was there to chronicle games and lives with fairness and accuracy.
And yet, every so often, she longed to lower her guard.
To talk to a player without counting the seconds.
To sit at a stall and swap stories without worrying about who was watching.
That tension—between professionalism and humanity, between perception and reality—was part of what made Luke Anders’ presence so disorienting.
Her instincts, honed by years of rumors and whispers, told her to keep distance.
Her curiosity, the part of her that had once connected with a Czech rookie over homesickness and schnitzel, wanted to know the person behind the contract.
Being the only woman on the beat meant she could never forget those past lessons.
It also meant she had to decide, over and over, how to walk the line between doing her job and living her life.