Page 87 of Pucking the Single Dad
"Hey." Theo grabbed my jersey. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. We need you."
"You need someone who can actually skate."
"We need our captain."
Captain. The C on my jersey felt heavier than usual, weighted with responsibility I wasn't meeting. In the stands, Finn held his inhaler to his mouth, his little shoulders working too hard. Stress trigger—watching his dad fall apart on ice.
Between periods, I sat in my stall and closed my eyes, trying to find the zone that had carried me through hundreds of games. Instead, I found Serena's voice from this morning:"I can't do this."Neither could I, apparently. But I had to. For twenty more minutes, I had to.
Third period became french warfare. Every shift was a battle for inches. Carolina trapped us in our zone for a two-minute stretch that felt like hours. I blocked three shots—one with my face that opened a cut above my eye, painting my white jersey red. The crowd loved it. Blood and hockey—America's real pastime.
With five minutes left, still tied, Troy caught me flat-footed again. He burned down the wing while I limped after him like a three-legged dog. His shot beat our goalie clean, but the post saved us—that beautiful, musical ping that means you're still alive.
Coach shortened my shifts—thirty seconds max, just enough to win a faceoff or clear a puck. But even that was agony. The numbing agent was wearing off, and every stride sent lightning from my ankle to my hip.
One minute left. Coach called timeout.
"We survive, we get overtime," he said, but his eyes were on me. "Wilder, you're done."
"Coach—"
"That's what they want you to think. That you're a liability. But I don't give a damn about what they think. Your teammates don't give a damn about what they think." He gestured toward the huddle. "Look around at your teammates—they need you, they believe in you."
He was right. But being right didn't make it easier to watch my team struggle because of my knee. From the bench, I could see everything—how they covered for my absence, Theo playing both wings, our defense stepping up.
The horn sounded. Overtime.
"Brad." Coach's hand landed on my shoulder. "One shift. Opening faceoff. This is your last game, your last chance to prove everyone wrong who doesn't believe in you."
One shift. One last dance with the game that had defined me.
The crowd was standing, eighteen thousand people screaming themselves hoarse. I saw Finn on the jumbotron, holding that sign—"MY DAD IS A WARRIOR"—tears streaming down his face. Sarah's mother had her arm around him, but he looked lost, incomplete.
Then I saw her. Serena stood at the tunnel entrance, chest heaving like she'd run there. Security was trying to stop her, but she wasn't backing down. Our eyes met across the ice. She pressed her hand to her stomach—a gesture so quick I almost missed it—then mouthed: "I'm sorry."
The puck dropped.
Overtime is binary. Win or die. No middle ground. At 8:47, after both teams had traded chances that stopped hearts, their defenseman—a rookie, nervous in his first Game 7—tried to sauce a pass through the neutral zone.
Bad decision.
The puck hit Theo's shin pad and bounced toward their zone. Everyone was changing, exhausted from the long shift. Everyone except me, because I'd been floating, conserving what little I had left.
The puck was mine.
I couldn't accelerate—my knee wouldn't allow it—but gravity and desperation created momentum. The breakaway opened before me like destiny. Their goalie—Andy, six-foot-four of Danish determination—came out to challenge.
Time crystallized. I could hear Finn's wheeze from a hundred feet away. Could see Serena pushing past security. Could feel every eye in the building willing the puck forward.
Andy expected speed I didn't have. He cheated forward, anticipating a deke. Instead, I did the only thing my body would allow—a simple snapshot, no fancy moves, just precision. The puck caught the microscopic gap between his pad and the post.
Red light. Horn. Pandemonium.
I collapsed more than celebrated, my knee finally admitting defeat. My teammates piled on, a mass of sweaty joy and disbelief. Through the chaos, I searched for them.
When I saw them coming—Serena in heels she couldn't run in, slipping on the ice, Finn being passed over the glass by security—nothing else existed. Not the Cup waiting to be lifted, not the cameras tracking every move, not the twenty thousand people losing their minds. Just this: the woman who'd left me gutted three hours ago and the boy who'd asked six times where she'd gone.
"You came." The words scraped out raw, accusatory and grateful simultaneously.
