Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HALEY
The press box was cold, the air conditioning working overtime to combat the heat rising from the audience below. I’d pulled on my hoodie and zipped it up to my chin.
Tuesday night and the guys were warming up for an exhibition game. A home game, as was the final one tomorrow night. Regular season started in a week.
My tablet sat in front of me, connected to the live feed. Three monitors displayed different angles of the ice. The tagging software ran in the background, logging sequences in real time. This was my workspace, the corner of the press box I’d claimed as mine when I joined this team.
Nothing about this should feel different, yet everything was.
The puck dropped and play started, Crim taking the opening faceoff. Our forwards pushed into the offensive zone while I tracked the entry pattern and logged it.
Then Tolrek’s line took the ice.
My fingers paused on the keyboard before I forced them to keep moving. Tag the sequence. Log the deployment. Watch the full ice, not just one player.
The opposing team’s forward drove toward our zone, cutting through the neutral area with confidence. He’d identified a gap in our coverage. A dangerous play was developing in real time.
Tolrek didn't just read it, he'd already moved before the forward committed. He adjusted his position, putting himself exactly where he needed to be to cut off the passing option and force the play wide.
The forward tried to go through him anyway. Tolrek absorbed the hit and stripped the puck in one motion, sending it up ice to our winger who received it cleanly and skated into their zone.
The crowd roared.
That read had come directly from our tape session. I’d shown him footage of himself doing exactly this, three seasons ago.
He’d done it perfectly now.
Because of me.
I’d given him something, and he'd used it. That shouldn't feel like anything. It felt like everything.
My hands moved, identifying the sequence with fingers that shook, applying labels that didn’t capture what I’d witnessed.
Play continued, and I tried to track all six players and log the patterns that mattered. Do my job the way I’d been doing it for years.
Instead, I found myself pulling up the isolated camera angle on Tolrek to review the sequence and make sure I’d tagged it correctly.
That was professional, right? It was part of the job.
The footage showed him tracking the developing play, his timing exact.
Frame by frame, I could see the moment he committed to contact without the half-second hesitation that had been present in every practice sequence I’d pulled from the past three weeks.
The hesitation was gone.
I rewound the tape and watched it again.
Then again.
The third time through, I realized what I was doing and forced myself to close the isolated feed. This wasn’t professional anymore. It was something else entirely, and I couldn’t afford to let it show.
The period continued. Tolrek’s line cycled through twice more. Both times he made reads that were cleaner than anything I’d seen from him in recent footage. Both times I did my job and tried not to linger on the isolated angles longer than I should.
Each time, I failed.
Between periods, I ran my standard cleanup while the arena sound system played music loud enough to rattle my bones. The press box had mostly emptied, analysts and reporters heading to grab a drink or use the bathroom before the second period started.
I stayed in my seat and pulled up Tolrek’s tapes again.
My tablet chimed with a message from one of the assistant coaches asking for the neutral zone transition stats. I compiled them quickly and sent them, proud of myself for remembering to include the full roster instead of just the sequences I’d been rewinding for the past twenty minutes.
The second period started, and I made myself focus.
Tolrek took the ice midway through the period. The other team’s power play unit deployed, running the setup I’d identified in my scouting package. Our penalty kill read it perfectly, positioning themselves to cut off the passing lanes before the play could develop.
Tolrek’s voice carried through my headset feed, cutting through the arena noise to direct the other defenseman into position. This was the kind of on-ice leadership that didn’t show up in stat sheets but made everyone around him better.
The power play collapsed without a shot on goal.
My father would use this footage in tomorrow’s team meeting. He’d pull my breakdown and show the players exactly how the read had worked. He’d probably mention Tolrek specifically, praising what he’d done today.
Pride hit me all at once, sudden, total, and with nowhere to go.
Tolrek deserved the recognition, though my father had no idea why Tolrek was playing better or what I’d done to help him get there. Let alone what we’d done together in a hotel gym while the rest of the team slept.
The third period blurred. We won by two goals. Both were scored off plays that started with defensive positioning—Tolrek's positioning—creating offensive opportunities. This was the kind of textbook hockey my father loved to see.
After the final buzzer, I stayed in my seat, running through my logs and compiling the breakdown. The press box emptied around me. Down on the ice, the team celebrated, slapping hands and helmets.
Tolrek stood near the bench, his helmet off, his hair damp with sweat.
He was talking to Brashe, probably reviewing something from the third period.
When he glanced up at the press box, his gaze met mine.
I felt his attention in the same place I’d felt everything else about him for the past three weeks.
The eye contact didn’t last long. He returned his attention to Brashe.
I'd watched hours of footage today. Those three seconds were the only ones I kept coming back to. But I knew what I’d seen in his face. I knew because it matched whatever was on mine.
I closed my computer.
The bathroom near the press box only had three stalls and two sinks with taps that ran cold no matter how long you waited. I’d been using it for over a year and still couldn’t get warm water.
I was washing my hands when Simone walked in. Fedor’s wife. Fedor was one of the forwards. They’d been together for at least five years. Tall, she had dark hair and the kind of put-together look most people only managed after a full night's sleep.
“Haley.” She smiled. “Great game tonight.”
“Sure was. Fedor was amazing.”
“He said you’re the one who spotted their power play tell.” She moved to the sink beside me. “He’s been raving about your scouting packages all week.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
We stood side by side, washing our hands.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Simone asked, her gaze meeting mine in the mirror.
The question hung in the air between us.
A completely innocent smile crossed her face. Just being friendly to the coach’s daughter who probably seemed lonely. I was always working and in the press box by myself.
“No.” The lie came out smooth. “I don’t really have the time for it with the season starting.”
“I get that. Fedor and I barely saw each other his first few years in the league.” She dried her hands with a paper towel. “But you should make time when you can. This job will eat your whole life if you let it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She left, and I stood at the sink, staring at my reflection.
Someone was going to notice eventually. Maybe they already had. Simone’s question may not have been as innocent as it seemed. And I was probably being paranoid, but paranoid was the appropriate response for a person hiding something this big.
I left the bathroom, heading back to collect my gear from the press box.
The other video analyst, Mark, was still there. He’d been with the team two years longer than me. He sat at his usual station, reviewing footage on his tablet.
He looked up when I entered. “Good game.”
“Yeah.”
“Your defensive zone package was spot on. That power play kill was textbook.”
“Thanks.”
He returned his attention to his screen, pulling up a sequence. “I noticed you’ve been spending a lot of time on Nosh’s footage.”
My hands froze on my laptop bag. “He’s new. I’m building his baseline.”
“Right.” Mark didn’t look up. “Makes sense. Gotta understand the tendencies.”
Everything about the exchange was completely professional, but it still felt like I was being exposed.
“I’m compiling the post-game breakdown now,” I said. “I should have it to the coaches within the hour.”
“Same. See you tomorrow.”
I grabbed my bag and left the press box, taking the stairs down to the main level. Most of the crowd had already made it out to the parking lots. Staff moved through the corridors, cleaning up the debris that came with almost twenty thousand people crammed into one space.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Mark’s comment and Simone’s question and the way Tolrek had looked up at me.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from my father. Great work tonight. That power play breakdown was perfect.
Thanks, Dad.
Three dots appeared and disappeared twice.
Then nothing.
On Wednesday morning, I arrived at the rink early to finish the breakdown from Tuesday’s game. The analyst office was empty and quiet, exactly the way I needed it.
I sat, turned on my computer, and pulled up Tolrek’s sequences first.
This was professional interest. I needed to build the report and make sure I had all the angles tagged correctly.
That was the story I told myself while I watched him make the same read three times from different angles. I noted his improved control and the absence of hesitation before contact, showing why it had worked.
The door opened.
I minimized the footage quickly, pulling up the full-team overview.
Mark walked in with a foam cup of coffee and his laptop bag. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
He sat across from me at the table. We’d shared this room for three years, working in silence most days. Today everything felt different.
He opened his laptop and started working. I returned to my breakdown, making sure I cycled through all the defensive pairings instead of the one that happened to include Tolrek.
Ten minutes passed.
“You know what’s interesting?” Mark said.
I looked up. “What?”
“Nosh’s positioning reads have improved significantly in the past week. Like, dramatically. His gap control last night was the best I’ve seen from him all preseason.”
“He’s settling in.”
“Yeah, but it’s more than that.” Mark frowned at something on his screen. “His decision-making is sharper. He’s anticipating plays before they develop. That’s not just system familiarity. That’s confidence.”
I took a careful sip of my coffee. “Maybe he needed time to adjust after the trade.”
“Maybe.” Mark grunted, still staring at the screen. “Or maybe someone showed him something on tape.”
My pulse kicked up. “That’s what we do here.”
“It is.” He got back to work.
I stared at my screen and tried to focus on the neutral zone patterns that had nothing to do with Tolrek.
My hands shook when I reached again for my coffee.