The whistle blows.
The puck drops.
The fight begins.
Foster lunges, his body snapping forward, and he wins it clean before drawing it back to his D-man Smithy.
Stormhawks take control. Immediate. No hesitation.
Dupree, a fast little bastard, bursts up the left wing. I track him, matching stride for stride, ready to angle him off.
He doesn’t keep it.
Drops it behind him to Vanek.
Shit. I know that setup as it clicks half a second too late.
CRACK.
The sound splits the ice.
The puck screams past McAvoy’s glove and slams into the back of the net.
“BRRRROOONNNK!”
The horn detonates. The scoreboard changes—0-1, Stormhawks.
We skate back. Silent, controlled, and fucking pissed.
McCullum paces behind the bench. Stone cold. “Shake it off. We hit them back. Hard.”
Danny slaps my helmet. “Get in their lanes, Mitchell. Cut off their passing game.”
No one argues. We nod. Reset.
Faceoff.
Thumper’s turn, a clean win. He flicks it to Peters. We go.
I race up the left wing, carving the ice, looking for the lane, but the Stormhawks swarm Bishy fast. He sees me and sends it across.
It’s tight.
I catch it, redirect to Brody.
Quick snapshot, goalie sprawls.
Rebound loose!
Thumper dives in—
CLANG!
The puck pings off the post, and chaos breaks loose. Skates, bodies, sticks. We fight to stuff it in.
Midway through the first, Peters rotates off. Dan Mercer jumps the boards. He’s calm, calculated, eyes scanning like radar.
Stormhawks regroup and push.
