The Centerman's Obsession

Forty-five minutes until puck drop. That is the whole agreement he has with himself, renewed every game night: forty-five minutes to get his head straight, and nobody ever has to know what it costs. The loading dock door groans shut behind Connor MacKinnon and the smell arrives first. Ice, sweat, Zamboni exhaust, the particular chemical sting of the floor cleaner every rink in North America uses. Home, except that his hands are already shaking, and he cannot remember the last time coming through these doors felt like anything other than walking into a cage. He nods to Gary at the security checkpoint. The old man barely looks up from his phone, just waves him through like every other night, like Connor is not two bad periods from being scratched for the second time this season, like he did not spend the morning in a hotel room staring at the ceiling and counting his breaths until it was time to leave. The corridor stretches ahead, cinderblock painted in team colours, the muffled thud of pucks against boards vibrating up through the concrete. He has done this a thousand times. Tonight the air is heavier and the walls are closer and his own heartbeat is loud enough to drown out the rest of the building. Brynn sees it from the observation deck before anyone in the organisation does, and what she does with that is the actual story. What follows: a scar that will not stop bleeding, the weight of a letter stitched on a chest, a first crack, a sister in the stands, a voicemail he has never played, a coffee worth the walk, and a wall of scarves that means more than any of them will say out loud. *I've loved you since the coffee shop. I've loved you since—* Tomorrow his mother goes under the knife: the woman who left, who lied, who came back. Tomorrow his sister either gets an answer or does not. Brynn has to decide whether a man who has been managing this alone since he was nineteen is worth the thing she would have to give up to stand beside him while he stops.