It wasn’t exactly the footage that the Glaciers had been asking for, but she was going to send it to them, and she hoped that they would show it. If they wanted fans to fall in love with their new player, this was going to do it. Yes, Connor was good-looking, and this was a shot that captured that, but they were going to fall in love because of what it made them feel. This image and this seven seconds of footage had the potential to go viral. If it did, it wouldn’t just be Glaciers fans who would fall in love with him— the whole country would.
When she finished all of her edits of Connor and his teammates working with the flowers in her apartment, she had taken her thirty-two minutes of footage and gotten it down to three files to send to the Glaciers. A ninety-second version that included all five players, a two-minute version of just Connor, and the seven-second clip of him holding out the flower. All three videos captured the mood in the room as the big athletes tackled a delicate project that wasn’t so common for them to tackle, experiencing joy and a sense of fulfillment doing it that maybe they hadn’t expected to experience. It made them relatable. It showed their vulnerability. It captured their humanness.
It was, quite possibly, her best work.
She sent it off to the Glaciers, her chest buzzing with the thrill she always got when she created something, multiplied so many times by what it was that she created. That Connor was the focus of her creation.
She took a moment to stand and stretch, and then she got started on the hay ride footage. Once she finished that, she needed to edit her own family’s video with the activities they’d done this season and the interviews with her family members— the one they’d watch tomorrow, on Christmas Eve. She’d have to work quickly to finish all of it in time and still go to bed at a decent hour.
And she had a hockey game to watch.
fourteen
CONNOR
A strong mixof emotions hit Connor as the Glacier’s team bus pulled into the parking lot of the Thunderstorm stadium in North Carolina where he’d spent his career playing. Loss and longing, a bit of regret, some sadness and exclusion, happiness at the memories he’d made in this place. Plus so many things he felt intensely but couldn’t begin to name. Counting back the days, he realized it had only been a week since he’d last been there. It was simultaneously as if no time had passed and that weeks had. Maybe even months.
It didn’t help that all day long, the sports commentators had been donning their Santa hats and talking about this final game before the league’s three-day Christmas break. They played up the rivalry between the Glaciers and the Thunderstorm and how the Thunderstorm’s D-Man, Ackerman, was very recently on the Glaciers’ team and that the Glaciers’ right wing was quite recently on the Thunderstorm’s.
They kept talking about how Ackerman had been a big source of the rivalry between the two teams, especially after last year’s playoffs and wondered how it would all turn out. Were the two of them going to go easier on their old teams? Harder? Make mistakes? Play their best to show their old teams what they gave up? Had they gotten a chance yet to bond with their new teammates? Was swapping players going to be like an olive branch to soften the rivalry between these teams? The only thing they could all agree on was that emotions were going to run high on the ice.
The commentators also talked about the fact that since Ackerman was on defense and Connor on offense, and that they played on the same side of the rink, they were going to be matching up a lot. They were no strangers to playing toe-to-toe against each other; they’d just never done it before with their jerseys swapped.
Connor wanted to call Katie and talk it all out with her. He knew she would keep a level head, bring out the best in the situation, keep him grounded and focused on the right things, and leave him pumped up and ready to take on the world. Not only would the guys razz him and his coach get after him for it, but it was Connor’s job to ignore all the voices outside of his team and to get his head in the game.
So he did, even though the response of the fans toward him being back in town seemed to be a mix of support and resentfulness, leaving him feeling like he’d lost a sense of home and belonging. He got off the bus with his team, grabbed his gear, and headed inside. It felt strange to head to the visiting team lockers instead of the home team ones.
It was strange to put on a different team’s jersey inside this particular arena.
It was strange to go onto the ice and warm up on the opposite half of the ice.
And it was strange lining up at center ice for the faceoff against his friends and very recent teammates.
He made eye contact with the Thunderstorm’s new goalie. He gave the player a nod— an acknowledgment that they both got traded to new teams and had to move eight days before Christmas and that it was hard.
He found the camera, sent a little wave and a wink to Katie, and then turned his focus to the game.
It was clear from the moment the puck was dropped onto the ice that it was going to be a tough game. And it was clear from the moment Ackerman body-checked him into the boards— a short twenty-three seconds into the game— that his opponent was going to play hard and that the game would get physical. Any time Connor had the puck, Ackerman hit into him. It was all a legal, if exhausting, way to play.
As the game went on, Ackerman’s hits became even harder and of the less legal variety, including a penalty for boarding, when he came from behind and hit Connor in the back, pushing his face into the boards when he didn’t have the puck, slashing at his stick, and, in the third quarter, grabbing him by the jersey and punching him. They both spent time in the penalty box, but Ackerman got three times the number of minutes that Connor did.
Connor gave his all at every single game he played. But knowing that Katie was watching made him give more of himself than he thought he could. It was a hard-fought game from every single player on the ice— not just from Ackerman and Connor— from beginning to end. It was as if every one of them was looking to be at the top of the leaderboards on body checks. As hard as every one of them played, though, when the end-of-game horn sounded, the scoreboard showed the Glaciers down by a goal.
Connor and his teammates headed off the ice and toward their locker room. As soon as they were away from the view of the cameras and the fans, Calloway took off his helmet and chucked it down the hallway, letting out a string of swears. Connor got it. The loss felt personal.
Even still, he couldn’t pass up the chance to see his old teammates off the ice once the meeting with the coaches to review the game was over. He headed toward the Thunderstorm’s locker rooms, his body already aching from the beating it had taken. He was about to text Vaughan to see if he could meet him in the hall so he didn’t have to risk a possible incident with Ackerman when he rounded a corner in the corridor and saw his friend walking toward him.
“Hey,” Vaughan said. “I was just coming to find you.” He and Vaughan greeted each other with a half-handshake, half-hug and chatted about the game for a few moments, just like they used to after games. It was bittersweet to talk to him in the same way they did when they saw each other daily, knowing they were going home to separate states tonight and he wouldn’t see him again until their teams played each other again in April.
“I have an old teammate who plays for the Explorers now,” Vaughan said, “and he told me there are rumors that they’re looking to trade their right wing.”
Connor’s eyebrows raised.
“Ohio’s only an hour-and-a-half flight from here, and they’re a great team. You should consider talking to your agent about that possibility.”
He imagined what that might be like all the way back to the locker room. It would be nice to be closer to home. But today only left him feeling pulled between conflicting desires. He missed Charlotte. He missed this stadium, this team, these fans. At the same time, though, he couldn’t wait to get back to Colorado to see Katie again.
* * *
