9 - Haven
HAVEN
The rink felt wholly different on game night. It was louder, more boisterous. The air felt charged and alive. Even the ice seemed to glow beneath the overhead lights, reflecting the millions of open-ended possibilities spread out before us over the next three periods.
I was only interested in the ones that left us victorious.
I stood just off the bench, tablet in hand, watching warmups as the guys took their laps. Their skates carved fresh lines in the newly-shaved ice, pucks snapping off sticks with practiced ease.
Damn, they looked good. They always looked good.
Looking good wasn’t the problem.
I tapped the screen a few times, marking things more out of habit than actual necessity. Movement patterns. Line rotations. Small tendencies that already jumped out to my hyper-analytical mind, and started repeating before the game had even begun.
Mercer stood on my left, arms crossed, his face grim. He looked like he was posing for a sculptor to chisel a statue of him.
“You got anything?” he grunted, without looking at me.
“Yes,” I told him. “They’re going to overload the puck side early. From the tapes I’ve watched, they’ve done it for the last three games.”
“And?”
“And it leaves the weak side open, if we move fast enough.”
Mercer grunted again. He was exceptionally good at it.
“Tell them.”
Right.
Moving to the boards, I caught Grayson as he came off his last warmup pass.
“Hey,” I told him. “Watch their left side on entry. They collapse early. If you shift—”
He didn’t stop walking. Shit, he didn’t even slow down.
“Got it,” he said.
His tone was flat. Dismissive. Totally not listening.
Sighing, I turned and found Ares staring at me. He pushed past as well, without breaking stride.
“Ares…”
He whirled on me, jerking his arm away violently. I hadn’t even noticed I’d placed my hand on him.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he growled.
I swallowed, dryly. “Get what?”
Stomping forward on his skates, he leaned deep into my space, looking directly into my eyes. It was like staring down a dragon.
“You really think numbers fix this?”
His nose drifted to within an inch of mine. I could smell the salt and sweat on him. Feel the heat of his breath.
“N—No,” I stammered, cursing myself for it. “But I think patterns do.”
He snorted — also like a dragon. Not that I’d seen a dragon snort.
“Yeah,” he snarled. “Good luck with that, Spreadsheet.”
He stormed off for the bench, as a couple of the guys laughed. I didn’t respond. I didn’t chase it.
I just stepped back and let them take the ice.
“How’d that go?” Mercer asked, as I returned to his side.
“Great.”
His mouth twitched from a scowl to a frown, just for a moment. The man knew bullshit when he smelled it. Thankfully, he didn’t chase that, either.
A minute later the whistle blew, and the action began.
The first period started hard and fast. Too fast.
They were flying out on the ice; speed, strength, raw ability — all of it, truly a sight to behold. There were hard hits and aggressive entries. Shots came from all angles, including some that shouldn’t have worked.
But it just wasn’t clean.
My fingers flew over my tablet, marking trends and taking notes. There were passes that came a second too late. Coverage a step off. Players overlapping, well out of position. Gaps opened, where they shouldn’t be.
I tracked everything, making notes of timestamps and issues as they unfolded. Two minutes in, there was an overcommit on the left side. The defense collapsed. A wide lane opened.
Shot on net… saved.
Thankfully.
I tapped the screen in frustration, harder than I meant to.
“Right there,” I murmured.
Mercer didn’t even look my way. I saw a shift in his posture, though.
He saw what I was saying.
The boys kept pushing. For a while, it worked. Raw skill carried them forward, and Ares forced a turnover with a brutal hit along the boards. Caleb snapped off a shot before the defense could set, and Grayson threaded a pass through traffic that shouldn’t have made it at all.
Goal.
The crowd behind us roared. I’d forgotten they were even there. When the bench erupted in celebration, I was still taking notes.
The team was winning, and that was good.
But they weren’t in control.
By the second period, the other team had made adjustments. They tightened up, and closed lanes. They forced our guys into tighter spaces, where individual skill mattered less and structure mattered more.
That’s where everything started to break.
Ares chased a hit he didn’t need to make. He left his lane open, which created an opportunity…
Goal.
Tie game.
I watched as he cracked his stick hard against the ice. He slammed the boards as he came off, his breath heavy, his eyes sharp.
I didn’t say a word, though.
I didn’t need to.
Three shifts later, Caleb hesitated when he had the shot. He waited too long, lost it, and the puck was stolen from the end of his stick.
The breakaway resulted in a nail-biting one-on-one. Sebastian did everything he could, but it wasn’t enough.
Goal.
We were down by one.
I exhaled slowly, tapping the screen in a few more places.
“They’re doing exactly what I said they would,” I said quietly.
Mercer’s iron jaw tightened.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
He shifted forward, barking orders and making adjustments. And while Grayson might’ve been listening to the coach’s words, his cold gray eyes were still fixed on me.
The third period started, and the captain addressed his team. Some of them listened. Some of them didn’t.
That much was obvious, in just the first couple of minutes.
Play was tight, and the Reavers clawed their way back on pure talent and refusal to quit. That was good to see. Either a team had that or they didn't; it wasn’t something you could really teach. You could fan the flames, but the initial spark had to be there.
Their tying goal woke the crowd up again. It got the bench going as well.
But then, with the clock winding down, things changed again.
They were falling apart, slipping out of position. Anxious to fix it, I moved closer to Mercer.
“They’re still collapsing early,” I told him. “We can’t let them set. We need to shift the puck faster on entry, and tell Ares to stop chasing contact. He’s opening that lane every time.”
This time the coach shifted his eyes my way. He nodded once.
“GRAYSON!” he barked.
Grayson skated over immediately, helmet off, breathing hard.
“Move the puck faster on entry,” Mercer ordered. “Weak side’s open. Use it.”
The center’s eyes flicked over to me, then back to the coach. It all happened in less than a second, but it was enough.
“Yeah,” he said.
But there was something in the way he said it. And I knew exactly what it meant.
In the last minute, the teams were still tied. The rink was charged with an unseen energy that only the final few seconds could generate. Everything was on the line. The crowd wasn’t just on its feet, they were on their toes.
I watched as the boys pushed up the ice again. My arms were at my sides. My tablet, forgotten.
They had good entry, good pressure. Then Ares veered off, to chase a hit…
… and a lane opened.
Exactly where it always did.
Shit.
By then it was too late. Everything happened in slow motion. The puck got turned over, and skated back. There was a brief two-on-one, resulting in a shot Sebastian had no chance to fight off. The shot came. The back of the net exploded outward…
My heart sank.
The roar of the other team’s bench was deafening.
DAMN.
The bitter taste of defeat began filling my mouth, for the first time in ages. I wanted to spit it out, to reject it. But I also needed to remember what it tasted like.
With thirty seconds left, I didn’t hold much hope. But then the Reavers tried to answer. They almost did.
God, they almost did.
Grayson cut through two defenders like they were glued to the ice. His look was fierce, his eyes determined. He passed to Caleb, who got a clean shot off. It slammed into the post with a high-pitched ring, bounced a few times, and landed directly in front of the net…
The ensuing scramble was unbridled chaos. Yelling. Shouting. A pile of bodies.
Then… the buzzer. Loud and obnoxious.
Game over.