The team took him out after the game, or at least some of them, Kurmazov shaking him by the back of the neck, grip firm and warm, Eisler ordering David a shot for every goal, Benson taking them with unusual equanimity when David nudged them in his direction as soon as Eisler stopped looking. David had a couple beers, though, felt he deserved it, and he’s a little loose, warm from the beer, the hats on the ice, the stupefied goalie, the crowd lit up for him, chanting his name, when he turns on the TV to find the recaps.

They don’t show his hat trick, just slide right into a horrorshow, the worst kind of spectacle. The Penguins versus the Flyers, always good for a brawl and some bad blood, though this was just bad luck, the worst kind of luck, a hard one-timer and a body at the exact wrong angle to take it.

The remainder of the show is replays in increasingly slow motion, at every single possible angle, talking heads discussing the potential fall-out, but all David needed to see was the full-speed replay to know right in his gut: that career was over.

They keep lingering over the details like they enjoy them: the full volume replay where you can hear Petersen scream, the distraught Penguins bench, the white-faced Flyers, some unaffiliated doctor guessing what the damage is, the Penguins captain shaky and pale in front of the outstretched hands of reporters, recorders running.

It makes David sick, the way they suck every moment dry, but he can’t stop watching, frozen with the remote still by his hand, the whole thing a waking nightmare.

Once they’ve spent a good twenty minutes on it, they wrap up the rest of the night in the briefest of snapshots. David’s hat trick is mentioned, but there’s no footage, just an afterthought in the broadcast. It’s an afterthought for him too, at that point.

He sleeps like shit.

*

Is he okay?, David sends Jake the next morning, early, because he woke hours before his alarm and couldn’t will himself back to sleep. When he did sleep it was fractured, anxious, and he woke up in a cold sweat.

The only time David met Petersen, he was hanging along with Jake and his friend, introduced to David as Markson’s little lady. He helped David lug Jake to bed, and seemed as unimpressed with Jake as David was. David liked him for that.

no not rly, he gets back ten minutes later.

Tell him I’m sorry., David sends back immediately, because he wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not the person he hated most in the world.

Injuries happen every day, but not that kind, the kind that end a career in a second, the kind where all the rehab in the world won’t put you back together, make you a hockey player again..