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"I don't know yet," I say.

He doesn't push. He just holds on.

21

THEO

The conference semifinal is against St. Anselm, and Kettle is so loud I can feel it in my teeth.

St. Anselm are the Foxes. They're big and slow and they hit everything that moves, and they beat us twice in December when I was sitting at the end of the bench. Their top line has a defenceman named Brekke who's six-five and skates like a refrigerator on wheels and has been talking to me since warmups.

"Hey, Lindqvist. Hit anybody from behind lately?"

I skate past him. "Not yet, big guy. Night's young."

"Big talk for a guy who⁠—"

"Brekke," I say, "I've been chirped by a whole locker room for five months. You're going to have to work a lot harder."

He's still trying to think of something when I'm already gone.

First period, nothing. Zero–zero. Dane stops eleven shots and looks like he's barely breathing.

Second period, Brekke catches me in the neutral zone with my head down and I go into the boards hard enough to see stars. The crowd boos. The ref doesn't call it. I get up. I look at the bench. Halvorsen's yelling at the ref. Wes is standing up, white-faced. And down at the other end of the ice, in his crease, Dane's taken a step forward. Out of his paint. Toward me.

One step. He stops. He goes back.

But he took it. I saw him take it.

Two shifts later, I get the puck on the half wall on the power play, and Okoye goes to the net and pulls their goalie's eyes, and I put it short side, low, so fast their goalie's still looking at Okoye when it's in.

The building explodes.

It's the first goal I've scored in a playoff game since I was a sophomore. I go to the glass with my arms up and Okoye crashes into me and Wes crashes into him and Petey jumps on top of everybody from the bench, which isn't allowed, and the ref gives us a look, and nobody cares.

I look down the ice.

Dane's standing in his crease with his stick up over his head. Not banging it on the ice the way goalies do. Just holding it up. At me.

Third period. One–nothing, and they've been pressing for ten minutes. Dane's made two saves I don't even understand. With four minutes left, Brekke pinches at the blue line, and the puck squirts past him, and I'm already gone.

It's a breakaway. All alone. The whole length of the ice.

And for a second, coming down on their goalie, I'm on the ice at Kettle at six in the morning, coming down on Dane.

I know what to do. I give the goalie the shoulder. He bites. I pull it to my backhand and tuck it under his pad, far side.

Two–nothing.

I don't even celebrate. I just stand there by the end boards, out of breath, and look up into the stands, at all of it, at eight thousand people yelling my name. My name. Not coward, not chicken. My name.

The guys swarm me. Somebody's hitting my helmet. I can't hear anything.

We win 2–0. Dane gets the shutout. In the handshake line, Brekke shakes my hand and says, grudgingly, "Nice hands." Behind me, Dane snorts.

He's waiting outside the room.

Not Dane. A guy in a suit. Fifties, gray at the temples, a team jacket over his suit with a logo I've seen on TV my whole life. He's standing in the hall by the door with Halvorsen, and when I come out with my bag, Halvorsen nods at me.