Epilogue #3
Somewhere beyond the pile of green jerseys I caught sight of Coach.
He didn't leap into the air.
He didn't pump his fists.
He folded both arms across his chest, smiled with unmistakable pride, and gave the smallest nod in my direction.
That single gesture meant as much to me as any celebration ever could.
The scoreboard changed.
Evergreen 4.
Lake Superior 1.
Three minutes and twenty-two seconds remained.
The celebration lasted only a few seconds before Coach's voice cut cleanly through the noise surrounding us.
"Back to work!"
None of us needed reminding.
Championships had been lost because players celebrated too early, and nobody wearing Evergreen colors intended becoming another cautionary tale. Ryan pointed toward our end of the ice, reminding everyone the game still had to be finished, before we separated and skated back toward center.
Across from us, the Lake Superior players gathered around their captain with expressions that told the story without a single word being spoken.
They'd emptied everything they possessed into the previous fifty-seven minutes and now found themselves three goals behind with barely enough time remaining to score once, let alone three times.
The faceoff confirmed what everyone inside the arena already knew.
They attacked immediately, throwing caution aside completely as their defensemen joined every rush and forwards abandoned any thought of protecting against a counterattack.
Coach responded by rolling four lines through the remaining shifts, demanding fresh legs and disciplined hockey rather than chasing another goal that no longer mattered.
"Nothing cute," he called as our line changed. "Win your battles. Get pucks deep. Make them earn every inch."
Ryan acknowledged him with a quick nod before hopping over the boards again.
Nobody argued.
Nobody freelanced.
We played exactly the way Evergreen hockey had been built to play.
The final two minutes disappeared one clean shift at a time.
Connor cleared the puck the length of the ice after blocking another point shot.
Ethan won a battle along the boards that had everyone on our bench pounding the dasher in appreciation.
Oscar calmly gloved a harmless wrist shot through traffic before freezing the puck long enough for another twenty precious seconds to disappear from the clock.
I found myself looking upward.
Ninety seconds.
Then sixty.
The arena announcer called the final minute, and every Evergreen supporter rose as one.
The sound hit us like a wall.
Twenty thousand people counted down together as though they could will the final seconds away through sheer volume alone.
Every completed pass drew another roar. Every clearance beyond our blue line sounded like another step toward history.
Lake Superior continued battling with the pride worthy of a championship team, but even they understood the outcome had slipped beyond their reach.
Ryan collected one final loose puck behind our net before banking it safely off the glass and into neutral ice.
Five seconds.
Four.
Three.
Nobody on either bench moved.
We simply watched.
The horn exploded through the arena.
For one suspended heartbeat the entire building seemed to stop breathing.
Then everything erupted.
Gloves sailed into the air. Sticks bounced across the ice as players abandoned every ounce of composure we'd maintained throughout the game.
Ryan reached me first, wrapping both arms around me before spinning me completely off my skates, and a heartbeat later the rest of the team crashed into us from every direction until we became one laughing, shouting pile of green jerseys sprawled across center ice.
"We did it!" Luca yelled somewhere beneath the celebration.
Ryan laughed so hard he could barely answer.
"We actually fucking did it!"
The championship trophy waited near the blue line, but for those first precious moments none of us cared about silverware or photographs.
We celebrated each other.
Every early-morning practice.
Every bus trip.
Every conditioning session.
Every injury.
Every sacrifice.
Everything that had led us here.
When I finally looked toward the stands, I found Jack with my parents, Emma, and Corey.
They'd been there through different parts of the journey that had brought me to Evergreen and eventually to this championship game and having all of them together for the moment we'd spent an entire season chasing made winning feel even better than I'd imagined.
One by one we were congratulated by Mariners, most admitting they’d been well and truly outplayed.
The trophy presentation passed in a blur of flashing cameras, television interviews, and teammates determined to make certain nobody escaped without being drenched in water, sports drink, or whatever happened to be within reach.
Ryan accepted the championship trophy from a tournament official and raised it above his head to another deafening roar from the Evergreen supporters before lowering it and passing it along the line.
During my year playing beside him, I'd learned that Ryan never treated leadership as something that placed him above the rest of us, and even in the biggest moment of our season, he wanted every player who'd helped earn the championship to have his turn holding it.
When the trophy reached me, I wrapped both hands around the polished silver handles and lifted it above my head.
I'd imagined this moment countless times during years of practices, games, conditioning sessions, and sacrifices, but I'd never imagined the route I'd take to reach it.
I'd transferred across the country to a program where nothing had been promised, found teammates who became friends, suffered an injury that took almost three months of my season, fought my way back onto the ice, and somehow finished the year standing beneath the championship banners with the trophy in my hands.
I lowered it eventually and passed it to the teammate waiting beside me, knowing the photograph of me holding it would probably follow me for years but already certain it wouldn't be the image I remembered most clearly.
The season had given me far more than the championship I'd come to Evergreen hoping to win, and as the celebrations continued around me, I knew there wasn't another place I would rather have spent the past year or another group of men I would rather have shared it with.
The celebrations continued long after the final horn, with television crews, photographers, tournament officials, and Evergreen players crowding the ice for interviews and photographs.
Eventually we were directed toward the tunnel and back to the locker room, where the celebration erupted all over again before Coach finally reminded us that our families were waiting.
By the time I’d showered, changed, and emerged into the concourse, Mom was already hurrying toward me with Dad close behind her.
She wrapped both arms around me before I had the chance to say anything, and Dad followed with an embrace strong enough to remind me exactly where I'd inherited my size.
Emma waited approximately three seconds before throwing herself at me, and Corey joined the congratulations with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested he'd personally contributed to all four goals.
Jack hung back long enough to let my family have their moment before I reached for him and pulled him against me.
He'd watched every minute of the game from the stands, endured the final ten minutes with my parents, Emma, and Corey, and somehow understood without being told that I needed him beside me now that the noise and pressure of the championship were finally beginning to ease.
Corey waited until Jack and I had shared a kiss and separated before clapping me hard on the shoulder. "For the record, transferring to Evergreen turned out to be an acceptable life decision."
I laughed at the deliberate understatement. "Acceptable?"
He shrugged. "You won a national championship, found the man you love, and somehow survived living without me. I suppose you've done all right."
"Generous of you."
"I thought so."
I held Jack's hand firmly in mine as we made our way through the crowded concourse with my parents, Emma, and Corey.
Coach was still tied up with the team, tournament officials, assistant coaches, and the seemingly endless stream of people wanting to congratulate him on another national championship, but Jack had already arranged for us to catch up with him once his responsibilities were finished.
Corey continued insisting that my success could be traced directly back to years of having him as my best friend, becoming increasingly creative about his supposed contribution until even Dad was laughing at him.
By the time we reached the main exit, Corey had apparently decided that taking credit wasn't enough and he deserved some form of compensation as well.
"I believe you're buying dinner tonight.
Winning a national championship has to be worth at least one decent meal for the people who traveled all this way to watch you. "
"You flew here to watch hockey and now you want me to feed you?"
"I flew here to support my best friend. The hockey was a bonus."
“You did it,“ Jack said proudly.
"We did," I insisted, because Jack had been part of everything that brought me back from the injury and onto the ice for the most important game of my college career.
He hadn't scored the goals or worn the jersey, but he'd been there through the rehabilitation, the frustration, the setbacks, and every milestone that eventually returned me to the player I'd been before the accident.