Page 3 of Hearts on Ice
“Una por la familia, una por mí,” I whispered—one for my family, one for me.
Then, softer: “Vamos.”
Not a shout. A promise.
Chapter 2
Drew
Morning light slanted through the high windows, washing the rink in pale gold. I stood behind the bench with a clipboard under my arm, coffee cooling in my hand. The scrape of blades across fresh ice carried through the boards—a sound I’d never stopped feeling in my chest. I’d lived half my life to that rhythm. Some days it was the only thing that still made sense.
JB had run them through warm-ups, lines stretching and bending in sync. Now came the real test—our first scrimmage of camp. New faces to size up. Veterans to remind of the standard.
When they gathered at center ice, I kept it simple. “Quick shifts, clean plays. Move your feet, move the puck.”
No speech, no theatrics. A team learns who it is by playing.
The puck dropped. Devin Carter—our newest left wing—showed the speed JB had promised. He tore down the boards, stickflashing, shot pinging off the post. Raw talent, no control yet. Speed gets you on highlight reels. Discipline wins you games. He’d learn—or he wouldn’t. That was what camp was for.
Trembley played quieter hockey. He didn’t chase, didn’t force. He read the ice, let the puck come to him. You can build a line around a man like that. Not sure yet if he wants the weight that comes with it.
Tank anchored the defense like he was twice his twenty-two years. Jester joked between shifts, grin as quick as his feet, but his eyes missed nothing. Every team needs a glue guy. He was ours.
I watched them battle along the boards—Tank muscling his way into position, Carter scrambling to keep his balance—and my chest pulled tight. It was too easy to see myself there, six years younger, chasing a puck into the corner.
I’d been thirty-four, older than most men skating in the naff, and I could feel time catching up. Every bruise took longer to fade, every bus ride felt longer. Still, I’d wanted to end it on my own terms. Fate had other plans.
The play had started like a hundred others—a puck dumped deep, a chase into the corner. I reached it first, the defenseman closing fast. He hit a split-second later, driving through my shoulder and into the boards. My skate caught in a groove in the ice, locking in place just as his weight slammed into me. My knee twisted hard under both of us, and the sound it made wasn’t a pop so much as a rip—sharp, final—and then nothing but pain.
The crowd roared for the play, not realizing I couldn’t get up. The trainers were already moving, one under each arm, half-carrying me off the ice while I gritted my teeth and tried not to scream. The applause that followed wasn’t for me—it was thekind of reflex cheer crowds give when an injured player manages to stand. They didn’t know they were watching the last shift of my career.
I thought rehab might bring me back. It didn’t.
Before I could even wrap my head around losing the game, I lost more. A month after the injury, my wife Laura and our daughter Ellie boarded a short flight to visit her father after emergency surgery. It should have been routine—one of those quick trips you don’t think twice about. Planes take off and land every day. Except theirs didn’t.
One loss took hockey. The other hollowed out the rest of my life.
After that, I spent a year doing nothing but breathing and trying to fix what couldn’t be fixed. Rehab, grief counseling, empty days that started and ended without meaning. I didn’t plan on coaching. It just happened—one favor, one practice, one phone call at a time. The Grizzlies needed a temporary goalie coach, and I’d said yes because saying no meant sitting alone with the silence.
That was five years ago. Somewhere along the way, temporary turned into home—or as close as I’ll ever get again. I still haven’t figured out how to grieve properly. I just work—practice, film, late nights at the rink when I should be home. Buthomeis a place that doesn’t exist anymore, and the ice is the only ground I still know how to stand on.
“Change it up!” Jamie’s whistle cut through the memory.
I blinked and dragged myself back to the present. Devin came off gasping, sweat darkening his collar. On the other end, Miguel dropped to one knee, glove snapping shut around a puck that should’ve found the net. He stayed low for half a beat, then rose,tapped each post in his usual ritual—one, two—and reset. Ten years in this league and still chasing the call that never came.
He was built like the position demanded—broad through the shoulders, compact through the core, quick where it mattered. Even under layers of pads, you could tell he moved with purpose, a study in balance more than brute strength.
His dark hair was damp under the edge of his mask, olive skin flushed from the cold. His eyes were sharp behind the cage, his expression unreadable. Calm radiated off him—the kind that steadied a bench before any speech could, the kind that made shooters hesitate without knowing why.
He’d never wear a C or an A—rulebook didn’t allow it for goaltenders—but leadership didn’t always come stitched on a jersey. It was in the way Miguel filled silence. In how he directed traffic with a tap of his stick or a few clipped words that carried over the scrape of blades. The rookies listened; the vets trusted him to hold the line.
The scrimmage ended scoreless. I liked that better than a sloppy high score. It meant structure. Discipline. A base to build on.
They circled at center ice, helmets pushed back, sticks resting on knees. I let my gaze move around the ring.
“Good first day,” I said. “You don’t win camp in one skate. What you do is show habits. Show me you’re willing to do the small things right, over and over. That’s how we build.”
Eyes met mine. Some defiant, some eager, a few already tired. I didn’t need them to love me. I needed them to listen.
