Chapter Eleven #2
The shrill blast of Dad's whistle echoed down the corridor, signaling that warmup preparations were beginning.
Mason adjusted the strap across his shoulder, gave me one last look that lingered just long enough to say what neither of us could risk expressing in public, then headed toward the locker room without another word.
I remained where I was until the door closed behind him.
Only then did I turn back toward the ice, hoping the next few hours would give him something else to think about besides the friend who still hadn't found his way back. He needed his head in the game.
***
The giant video board cycled through its final pregame sequence as the arena lights dimmed, plunging the building into near darkness before brilliant white spotlights swept slowly across the ice.
Thousands of phones lit the stands like scattered stars while the public-address announcer welcomed everyone to another season of Evergreen hockey.
The anticipation building throughout the crowd had become almost tangible, the sort of electricity that seemed to vibrate beneath the roof before a single puck had been dropped.
Standing near the resurfacer entrance, ready to climb onto the Zamboni between periods, I found myself smiling despite the nervous energy that had followed me throughout the afternoon.
Hockey had always possessed that effect on people.
Complete strangers arrived carrying different worries, different jobs, and different lives, yet for the next few hours they would all become part of something much larger than themselves.
The arena transformed into its own small world, bound together by shared hope, superstition, and the belief that tonight might become one of those games people talked about for years afterward.
My thoughts drifted somewhere entirely unexpected.
When I was five, Dad had taken me to one of those enormous traveling ice skating shows that had stopped in Spokane for a weekend.
I remembered almost nothing about the story itself, but one image had remained with me ever since.
A huge bear had skated into the spotlight as though the entire performance depended on him, waving enthusiastically to the crowd before pretending to lose his balance and spinning into an exaggerated recovery that had children laughing so hard they could barely stay in their seats.
Dad had laughed just as much as I had, and afterward he'd bought me a stuffed bear wearing tiny red hockey skates that still sat on the shelf in my bedroom.
Looking back, I realized it hadn't really been about the show at all.
It had been about sharing an evening with Dad before life became more complicated than either of us could have imagined. Sometimes the memories that stayed with us weren't the dramatic ones. They were the ordinary moments that became precious.
The house lights brightened again as the visiting team completed its introduction, and the arena announcer's voice rose another notch in anticipation.
"Ladies and gentlemen...your Evergreen Red Cedars!"
The response shook the building.
Players burst through the tunnel one after another beneath flashes of green and silver light, sticks raised toward the crowd as the student section answered each introduction with deafening approval.
Ryan emerged first as captain, followed by the defensive pairings, the remaining forwards, the newcomers, and finally Mason.
His introduction generated another roar that rolled around the arena before gradually settling into a rhythmic chant of his name.
He skated a slow circle through the neutral zone before glancing toward my end of the rink. He lifted his stick a fraction. It was such a small gesture that nobody else would have noticed but I did.
I returned the tiniest nod.
Then the officials called both teams toward center ice, the music faded, and the opening night of another season finally began.
From the opening faceoff between Ryan and the Portland captain it became obvious the Northern Wolves intended to impose themselves physically.
Each trip through the neutral zone came with stick lifts, hooks that flirted with penalties, and heavy shoulders finishing every check they could.
They weren't interested in matching the Red Cedars' speed.
Their entire game plan centered on slowing Evergreen down, forcing turnovers along the boards, and turning the contest into a grinding sixty-minute battle.
The Red Cedars refused to be drawn into it.
Coach Callahan's message throughout the week had been straightforward.
Let Portland chase bodies while Evergreen chased the puck.
Ryan reinforced the same point between shifts, reminding everyone to keep moving the puck, trust their speed, and make Portland skate instead of standing still looking for the next hit.
Clean breakouts frustrated the Wolves a little more, and every crisp passing sequence drew another roar from the home crowd.
The breakthrough came midway through the opening period.
Sustained pressure deep inside Portland's zone ended with Mason slipping a perfectly weighted pass into the high slot, where Ryan buried a quick wrist shot inside the far post to give Evergreen a 1-0 lead.
Portland answered before intermission after capitalizing on an odd-man rush created by a turnover at the offensive blue line, sending both teams to the locker rooms tied at one goal apiece.
The first intermission passed in a blur for me.
I climbed onto the Zamboni, resurfaced the ice as thousands of conversations echoed around the arena, then guided the machine back to the garage before hurrying to my usual position nearby.
By the time the officials called the teams back onto the ice, the surface gleamed beneath the lights as though nobody had touched it with skates.
The second period belonged to Evergreen. Our puck movement became sharper, our transitions quicker, and Portland struggled to contain the speed developing through the neutral zone.
Mason created the second goal by drawing both defensemen toward him before sliding the puck across to Ben for a one-timer that restored the lead.
A power-play rebound later in the period extended the advantage to 3-1, but the Wolves refused to disappear.
A determined shift late in the period ended with a scramble around Oscar's crease, allowing Portland to pull within one before the horn sounded.
Once again, I resurfaced the ice while the players regrouped in their locker rooms. The student section never stopped chanting, convinced another victory was only twenty minutes away, while I concentrated on laying down another flawless sheet of ice, knowing the smallest imperfection could change the path of a puck.
The opening ten minutes of the third period became exactly the battle we'd expected.
Portland committed completely to their forecheck, finishing legal checks with punishing force and attempting to wear the Red Cedars down through sheer persistence.
Evergreen answered with discipline rather than retaliation, clearing rebounds, blocking shooting lanes, and refusing to abandon the structure that had carried them through the preseason.
Every successful defensive-zone exit, completed line change, and shift that ended deep inside Portland's end brought the crowd to its feet.
Ten minutes remained. Evergreen still led 3-2.
Ryan won a defensive-zone faceoff cleanly back to his defenseman, who banked the puck along the boards to Mason accelerating through the neutral zone. He gathered it in stride, crossed the blue line down the right wing, and protected the puck as he tried to drive around Portland's left defenseman.
The defender skated into his path.
The collision echoed through the arena with a sickening force that silenced more than four thousand people in an instant.
Mason's stick spun away across the ice as his body collapsed awkwardly against the boards.
Another Portland player, unable to avoid the collision, went down beside him, one skate blade catching Mason high along the hip before they separated.
Mason slid motionless onto the surface, and within seconds blood began staining the ice beneath him. Nobody cared about the puck anymore.
Players from both teams abandoned the play and converged from every direction, Ryan dropping to one knee beside Mason while Oscar skated the length of the ice from his crease.
Dad was already vaulting over the boards with the medical staff only a stride behind him, trainers carrying emergency bags as they hurried toward the growing circle of players shielding Mason from the crowd.
I didn't register that I was moving. One moment I was standing beside the entrance. The next I was over the boards.
My boots slipped beneath me as I landed awkwardly on the ice. I caught myself with one hand, scrambled upright, and stumbled the remaining distance, barely aware of the players stepping aside to let me through.
Mason hadn't moved. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow beneath the rise and fall of his chest.
I dropped to my knees beside him and reached for his hand without thinking. His fingers felt frighteningly still inside mine. I didn't care that I'd possibly just outed us to both teams and an arena full of fans and I hoped Mason wouldn't either.
One of the team physicians glanced at me briefly but didn't tell me to move.
Instead, he focused entirely on Mason, speaking calmly to the athletic trainers as they stabilized him and began their assessment.
Another physician carefully cut open the side of Mason's jersey to expose the injury beneath.
My stomach lurched.
There was a long, ugly gash high along his hip where the fabric had already become soaked with blood.
The physician immediately pressed a thick trauma dressing over the wound before looking directly at me.
"Jack."
I looked up.
"Keep steady pressure right here."