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Excuse the mistakes

dedicated to alwaysfeelhappy for making the picture on the side

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By the grace of God, we’d made it.

Don’t ask me how, because I can’t explain the math, but my team had made it to the championship game. I think there had been an upset with the teams ahead of us, which somehow gave us the highest points in our division. Now, we were being pitted against the winners of the other division, who hadn’t lost a game during the tournament. To say the game had gotten off to a rough start would be an understatement.

The other team, the Peterson Panthers, had gotten their first goal about fifteen seconds into the game, and they’d nabbed one more before the first period ended. They’d skated circles around all of us, and I’m ashamed to say that for the first period, we’d hung Tony out to dry.

However, between the first and second period, in an attempt to get us riled up, Dane had recited the speech from “Miracle”, which he’d apparently had committed to memory since a month after he’d seen it in theaters. During the second period, because we’d been having fun, we managed to keep up with the Panthers, and even get two goals ourselves. They’d scored once, which left us down by one.

That is, until the third period. Six minutes in, Alec had taken a give-and-go down the almost complete length of the ice, and with a beautiful slap shot, he’d scored in the top right corner. We were tied, and now the tension was high. Both teams were playing their hearts out, and if we won, it would be by the skin of our teeth. We only had five minutes left, and it seemed like the seconds were ticking off the clock faster than normal.

“Get it out!” I yelled, banging my fist against the outside of the boards, “Get it out, guys!” We had been in our zone for far too long, and this team knew how to skillfully cycle the puck. It was making me nervous, and the puck was always better off being in the other team’s zone.

As my eyes flickered around the ice, I realized what play was about to unfold. The other team’s center had the puck behind the net, keeping it away from our defensemen. I would bet a hundred dollars that he was going to pass it up to the wing, who was at the hash marks on the circle. Then, that wing would send it up to the defensemen, and a d-to-d pass would ensue. Either, the defenseman would take a slap-shot, or he would pass it down to the center, who would take a shot from close range.

Sure enough, the exact play I’d mapped out began to play out.

“Watch the point!”

The words didn’t come from me, but from Dane. He was standing at the door to the offense end of the bench, ready to go out, and his eyes were glued to ice. Like me, he’d seen what the other team was up to.

Thankfully, our wingers heard Dane, and both of them glued themselves to their respective defenseman. With those outlets blocked, the opponent’s wing had no choice and he sent a weak shot towards the ice, which Tony easily deflected. One of our defensemen picked it up, and seconds later, we were heading down the ice to our opponent’s zone.

“Hey Rogers!”

Reluctantly, I tore my eyes away from the ice, and I glanced towards the back of the bench where Coach Hannover was standing. He looked at me for a moment before gesturing towards the play in the opponent’s zone. Then, Coach Hannover walked the length of the bench and bent down to talk to me.

“The team seems to be back together today,” he said with an arched eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, wondering where he was going with this.

“I’m assuming you sorted your shit out then?” Coach Hannover asked, nodding slightly towards Dane, who wasn’t paying any sort of attention to us. My eyes widened, since I didn’t think Coach Hannover knew anything about us, but before I could speak, he shook his head. “Seriously, Kelsey? My daughter is your best friend, and she’s not quiet when she’s talking on the phone.”

I hesitated for a moment before saying, “Coach, we aren’t even—”

“Save it, Rogers,” Coach Hannover said as he straightened back up, “I don’t care what you do as long as it doesn’t interfere with the team. At first, I was worried, but it seems you’ve figured it out. The rest is history.”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback, “thanks, Coach.”

“No problem, kid,” Coach Hannover replied, and he nodded at me before walking down to the other side of the bench. I watched as he bopped the top of Dane’s helmet without a word to him, and then his eyes returned to the ice and the play. After a moment, I did as well.

It took a millisecond for me to become engrossed in the game. We were in their zone, cycling the puck well, but their defense was strong, and they were keeping us out. Finally, however, one of our wings managed to get a shot off. The goalie caught it in his glove, and the referee blew his whistle. I winced at the shrill noise, and then Coach Hannover called for a change of lines.

As I stepped onto the ice, I glanced up at the clock. We were down to one minute in the period, and I didn’t know if the team had enough in them to go into overtime. That meant that we had to score on this shift. My teammates and I lined up at the faceoff circle, and as my grip tightened on my stick and I crouched into position, I exchanged looks with Owen. I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was, and we nodded at each other.

It was silent, and when the referee blew his whistle as he readied to drop the puck, I bit deeply into my mouth guard. Suddenly, the puck was on the ice, and bodies were smashing into bodies in an attempt to gain first control.

The puck was hit into the corner of the opponent’s zone, and Owen and I immediately backed up to the blue line. I watched intently as the puck went from one corner to the other through a pass between defensemen, and then they passed up to the wing on Owen’s side. I started to back up through center ice as Owen pinched in on the wing, and he managed to send the puck back deep into the zone.

I returned to my spot on the blue line only to have to sprint to my side to step up against the other wing. Without hesitation, I checked the player with the puck, and I kept my footing as he fell to the ground. With the puck on my stick, I glanced up for the open pass, and seeing Dane open, I sent him a smooth pass.

Dane took the pass as a one-timer, but the goalie dropped into butterfly just in time to stop the hard shot from going in the net. The referee blew the whistle, and there was a collective exhale throughout the players on the ice. I glanced back at the bench to see if Coach Hannover was going to change us, but when we made eye contact, he shook his head.

I was happy that Coach Hannover and I had gotten to this point. The season had started out incredibly rocky, with me accusing him of sexism, and him being an actual sexist asshole who didn’t think that I could play hockey. Now, he trusted me to be on the ice in the final seconds of a game we needed to win. I was proud that I had earned his confidence.

The referee’s shrill whistle brought me back to the game, and I let out a deep breath as he dropped the puck onto the ice. Dane managed to get control of the puck now, and he passed it towards the center of the ice, where Alec was waiting. Alec quickly sent the puck on net, but the goalie easily deflected it into the corner.

I skated to the boards as the defenseman sent the puck up to the wing, and I stepped in front of him and intercepted the pass. The kid lost his balance when I pushed past him, causing him to fall on his butt, and that bought me more time. I scanned the ice for an open teammate, but everyone was covered.

“Take the shot!”

“Kels, shoot!”

“Shoot the damn puck!”

I could hear my teammates yelling at me, both the ones on the ice and the ones restrained to the bench. My time waned as I needed to make a decision, and I brought the puck back with my stick. My slapshot was okay, but I was more confident in my wrist shot, and it a moment, the puck was airborne.

Everything seemed to slow down as the puck sailed through the air. My team had everyone covered, and Dane was screening the goalie. I sucked in my breath as the puck reached the net. Just as it sailed into the upper right corner, just above the goalie’s shoulder, the buzzer rang, calling the end of the game.

My goal had won us the game.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by my teammates, and more kept joining the group. They were all cheering me on and patting me on the back and the helmet, thanking me and telling me how pretty the shot had been. I grinned broadly, and I could feel myself bursting with pride.

However, before we could really jump into our celebration, the coach of the other team started yelling angrily. I frowned and looked over to see him arguing with the referee who had called the goal. He was bright red in the face, and he was pointing from me to the goal and then back again.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Alec muttered, shaking his head.

“What?” I asked, since I couldn’t make out really what the coach was saying.

“He’s arguing the goal,” Alec said, and he turned away from the opponent’s bench.

“Wait, why?” I asked, getting angry myself, “That was clearly a goal.”

“My guess,” Dane said grimly, speaking for the first time, “Is that he’s saying that your shot didn’t cross the goal line until the buzzer sounded, which makes it not a goal.”

“That’s bullshit!” I cried, and Alec and Dane nodded.

“We all know that,” He stated.

I clenched my jaw with nothing more to say, and I glared the coach, who finished up yelling g at the referee. Then, Coach Hannover called the referee over, and they started talking. Coach Hannover looked calm, but still irritated, and he started to smoothly make hand movements towards me and the net, which looked quite different from the other coach’s erratic ones.

After a minute or two, the referee nodded at Coach Hannover, and then he crossed to center ice where the other referee was. They started talking intensely, and I pursed my lips. My goal was fair, and all I could do was hope that the referees would see that.

“Alright,” Dane said from right behind me, “Here we go.” He pointed at the referees, who were nodding at each other. The referee who had made the original call faced the benches, and in a loud, clear voice, he announced their verdict.

“The goal is good!”

My team interrupted into cheers, and we resumed our celebration. I could faintly make out the other team’s coach yelling and swearing at the referees, and I smirked. I welcomed my whole team into the huddle we had formed, and a few seconds later, someone yelled “Incoming!”

Tony slammed into our mosh pit, and he elbowed his way to me. “That’s my girl!” he yelled, and he threw his arms around me and squeezed me hard. I grinned and hugged him back. Throughout my entire time on this team, Tony had constantly supported me. That meant a lot to me.

As we cheered for our win, we started throwing off our gloves and helmets, since we were going to have to take them off for the medaling ceremony. I dropped my stick on the ice, and I put my helmet down next to it. Then, I turned around, and my eyes met Dane’s.

His hair was sticking up in a bunch of random places, slick with sweat, and his cheeks were flushed from the adrenaline that was probably plumping through his veins from the intensity of the game. Dane’s helmet was gone, as was his stick and gloves. After a moment of awkward staring between us, he skated over to me.

“That was a nice shot, Rogers,” Dane said, nodding his head in mock authoritative approval.

“Why, thank you, Captain Sir,” I replied with a mock salute.

Dane laughed and then put his hand on my shoulder. “You played great today, Kels,” he stated with a smile, “We wouldn’t have won without you.”

“Thanks,” I replied, and then I shrugged. “You weren’t too useless, yourself.” Dane’s grin widened, and he shook his head slightly.

Suddenly, someone patted me on the back from behind with some comment about my goal. However, I wasn’t prepared for it, and I lost my balance and pitched forward.
Dane let out a sound of surprise, and in a second, he caught me by putting one hand on my side and the other catching my elbow.

When I looked up, my eyes were locked in Dane’s, and the world suddenly slowed down again. Dane opened his mouth, like he was going to say something, but no words came out. He helped straighten up, but Dane still didn’t let go.

We both knew what he wanted to do, but it was obvious Dane wasn’t going to unless I said something. The question was; was I going to say something?

Well, we’ve come this far, I thought to myself.

“Go for it, Champ,” I whispered.

Without hesitation, Dane pulled me close and pressed his lips against mine. The sensation was familiar but exciting, and I didn’t stop myself as I wrapped my arms around his neck. We stayed like that for a long moment, and then I pulled away.

“Well, good game to you, too,” I whispered, and Dane chuckled.

It was then that I realized that we were still surrounded by our team, and from the look on Dane’s face, he was having the same realization. We separated immediately, and that’s when I heard the single, slow clap coming from my left. I glanced that way to see that it was Tony doing the clapping, and he had a smirk on his face.

“Fucking finally, you two!”

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Here's an update.

Asking me to update pisses me off in every capacity. Like, great that you like my story, but I hate it. Don't ask me. Don't comment things like "update!" or "update plz". Also, don't fucking send me messages or comment with lectures about how I should be flattered and shit. It just makes me angry.

Go look up The Head and the Heart. They're a kickass band. I went to a Death Cab for Cutie concert recently with my boyfriend and a bunch of friends, and they opened, and I personally liked them and their vibe better than Death  Cab.

Next chapter is the epilogue. I think in the last chapter, I said that there was another chapter after this, but I misspoke. This is the last chapter before the epilogue.

Bye.

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