At the start of the third period, I try not to let my nerves get to me. I am on point, but with four minutes to go, they pull the goalie, leaving it with six against five. They come into the zone, and our team makes good, blocking and not giving them a chance to shoot the puck. But one gets past, and after I block it, they scramble in the front for the rebound. I put my blocker down on the puck, and then one of the other team members slashes my hand twice. The referee blows the whistle while Viktor goes after the guy who hit my hand. Evan pushes him away from the guy while the referee picks up the puck. He skates to the side where they have a face-off. The hits are harder, the puck is all over the place, and I try to control my breathing while looking at everyone on the ice as they scramble for the puck. St. Louis does what they need to do to keep it in the zone, and luckily, the defenseman misses the pass, and it goes out of bounds, giving everyone a chance to change. Lucky for us, they have one player causing an offside so the face-off is taken in the neutral zone. I get down and ready for whatever is going to come, but we win the face-off. Evan just shoots at the net, and it slides into the open net. I put my stick up and look at the clock, seeing that there is twenty-five seconds left. I skate to the blue line and wait for the guys to come over and smack my glove and get ready for the face-off. With five seconds to go, the guys are already climbing over the bench. My mask is thrown off my face, I drop my stick and my blocker, and when the guys finally get to me, I’m pushed against the glass, and the guys just jump all over each other. I don’t know what is said, and I don’t know who I hugged and who I didn’t. “We fucking did it,” one person says.

“Holy fucking shit, we fucking did it,” another one says, and then we skate to the middle of the ice and get in line to shake the other team’s hands. The volume in the arena is almost deafening, and I can’t wipe the smile off my face. When I get to the bench, Matthew is there standing next to Max, and he’s already wearing the New York Stinger Champion hat.

He comes up to me and pulls me into a hug. “We couldn’t do this without you,” he says, and I just smile at him.