Cole sat in his stall in the locker room, his left leg was shaking a little, skate tapping impatiently on the padded floor. This would be his first full game in months, and the nerves were definitely getting to him. The preparation was done, all that was left was the performance. His stall was next to Sam’s. The two of them had gotten pretty friendly over the last week. Between them and their line mate Whitmore, they had worked out how the others liked to play and developed at least a bit of chemistry in that regard. Gelinas could see the nervousness on his face and shot him a reassuring wink. Apparently it was tradition that no one spoke in the Raiders locker room until the coaching staff arrived.

Cole took a deep breath and tried to settle down a bit. The fact that Alex was there to cheer him on was a calming factor that he centered on. His phone buzzes next to him, (the ringer was silenced). He took a look to see a text from one of his best friends, teammates, and confidantes from back home.
[i]‘Good luck today buddy. Remember, hockey is supposed to be fun, the score will take care of itself :)’[/i]
He quickly typed in a thank you and sent it off. The words were a callback to a tough conversation the two of them had not all that long ago, when his budding career was on the downswing. He made a snap decision and motioned to Sam to hand him a marker. Most of the players put a small touch of personalization to their gear, or the tape on their stick as identifying markers. Cole usually just had his number in between two dash marks on the butt-end of his sticks (-50-) but with the marker, he quickly put a little smiling face on the corner of the white fabric in the palm of his left glove. The door of the locker room opened up and the coaches walked in.

[i]’Let’s have some fun’[/i] Cole thought.

“Alright men” coach started “there’s nothing more I can tell you than what you already know. We’ve done our pre-scout, you all know your assignments, let’s get this year started right boys! Starting lineup: between the pipes, Tyler Julian!”
Everyone clapped and cheered as each name was read out.
“On defence, Ricky Wolf….. Rich Highmore. Left wing, Brenden Brake! Right wing, Johnny Locke! And center ice, our captain for the year, Mr. Greg McCullough!”
The loudest cheers of all as the boys started clapping in time chanting ‘speech, speech, speech’

“Settle down, settle down!” Greg said as he stood up “I’m not saying anything coach didn’t already say. We’re ready for this, we’re here to win, let’s get after it boys” he stuck out his hand to the coach “cheer for these guys now, they’re the reason we’re gonna win tonight! Thanks coach Bombay”
The team cheered and clapped one final time, then Greg led them out of the locker room, they walked single file and as they walked into the spotlight, and one by one stepped onto the ice, the crowd roared. Cole didn’t know what he expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. The arena was packed. The crowd was raucous and Cole couldn’t help but beam as he skated around, going through the motions of warm-up. He found where Alex was sitting and waved as he skated by, still unable to wipe that silly grin off his face. 

Soon the game was ready to begin. The in-arena announcer welcomed the fans, covered all the standard housekeeping and ran through the opening lineups. Cole took his place on the bench and watched as it started. Greg and the top liners dominated the opening shift, winning the puck back to their defencemen, charging into the offensive zone and putting the Anaheim guys on their heels. The puck eventually found its way into the goalies glove and coach Bombay called for a full line change. The second line and defence pairing hopped over the boards and Cole’s heart started pounding. They’d be going soon. Nathan Brooks, the second line center and his linemates Shelby and Paulsen, had a good shift of their own, though it wasn’t quite as one sided.

Finally, coach called for a change on the fly and before he knew it, Cole was rolling over the boards. Anaheim was advancing up the ice with the puck, so he picked his man to cover and skated back, ready to play. He blocked a pass to his man using the blade of his stick and tried to chip the puck out of their zone, but Anaheim’s defenceman managed to hold the line and slid it across to his partner. A shot careening towards Julian was deflected away and Tyson LaRusso, the Raiders defenceman closest to him gained possession for their team, he made a crisp pass to a streaking Gelinas and Cole got his feet moving to join the rush, trailing his Centerman just enough to enter the offensive zone cleanly, Anaheim’s big burly defenceman bared down on Sam, who slipped the check and dropped the puck to Cole. He cleanly handled the puck around to his backhand, slipped around the defenceman, slid back to his forehand, gripped down hard on his stick and ripped a shot towards the net. The goalie made the save, but the shot earned him a pat on the shoulder from both Sam and the coach as they got back to the bench.
“9 times out of 10 that’s going in” Sam was saying as they sat on the pine “Guy just got lucky”

All in all, a pretty successful first shift.

From there the game settled into a groove, more or less uneventful until late in the period when a perfectly executed play by the second line resulted in Adam Shelby scoring the first goal. The bench erupted when the lights went on and everyone in the building, supporting the home crowd at least, were on their feet. Cole and his mates stepped out to take the next shift once the celebrations had died down. The period ended shortly afterwards.

The message in the locker room during first intermission was clear- keep the foot on the gas, don't give them an inch. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as planned. Anaheim tied the game early in the second off a penalty shot, then took the lead off a heavy slapshot from one of their defencemen a few minutes later. Anaheim hadn't just turned the tables, they were dominating possession and putting the pressure on. Over halfway through the frame, a strong shift from Cole, Gelinas and Whitmore led to them breaking out into Anaheim's zone and cycling the puck as they waited for the perfect play or shot to materialize. Cole was tripped by one of the opposing players and he heard the ref blowing the whistle as he pushed himself back to his feet. The Raiders primary power play unit converted that penalty into a game-tying goal. Once again, the building lit up, and Cole got some minor props for drawing the penalty out of them.

Disaster struck at the start of the third period, a broken play resulted in Cole's line getting trapped in the defensive zone long after their shift should have ended. Cole, completely exhausted, mishandled the puck under pressure and passed it to the wide-open Anaheim center, who put it into the net. Cole's face fell as he realized what he'd done and he labored over to the bench, head down, looking completely dejected. Coach patted him on the back, told him to relax, that it was okay, but Cole felt like shit and he could feel that under the surface, Bombay was pissed.

They didn't play much more that period, it was starting to feel like he had benched them, or at least bumped up the 4th line to take their shifts in the normal rotation. Anaheim scored again to make it 4-2, Locke and Brake teamed up on a nice play to get them back within one. And, with under a minute to go in regulation, their goalie pulled for an extra attacker, McCullough banked in a tying goal to send the game into overtime!

After several chances back and forth for the first few minutes of the 10 minute overtime period, Coach patted Cole on the shoulder as he walked by.
"Shake it off Cross, you guys are up next" he said lowly.
Cole looked at his hand, saw the smile there, and nodded as he remembered the words his friend had told him.

The third line jumped over the boards, they'd be taking a face-off in the offensive zone, if they could win it, they had a chance to finish. One shot is all they needed.

Sam won the face-off, Wolf and Highmore were the defencemen on this shift. Wolf picked up the loose puck and sent it up the side-boards to Cole, he wheeled quickly, slipping a check from an Anaheim defender in the corner and passing the puck to Sam in the center-slot. He was too well-covered to make a clean shot so he slid it out to Highmore. Everyone rotated into place for the developing play, Highmore passed to Wolf, who was sneaking into the left wing territory, he sent the puck all the way around the back of the net, Whitmore checked the Anaheim defender’s stick, and the puck rattled around to Sam, who had vacated the slot, Cole slid into the center-ice area, stick on the ice, ready to take the pass. He picked his spot as the puck came to him, he gripped, shot and watched as time slowed down, his follow-through suspended in the air as the puck soared up off the ice, above the goalie’s shoulder, and hit the back of the net.

Pandemonium ensued. The goal horn blaring, the crowd screaming, Cole’s arms shot into the air, he screamed triumphantly. Suddenly he was almost knocked over as Sam nearly crashed into him, racing over to celebrate the victory, three more thumps quickly followed as the defensemen and Whitmore joined the scrum. In between the cheering and repeated shouting of expletives, the rest of the team joined them and mobbed Cole. He honestly lost track of where he even was on the ice by the time the music died down. Cole got one more slap on the back as the horns blared out one final time and en masse, the entire team raised their sticks in a celebratory salute to the crowd.

The mood in the locker room was much more jovial than it was before. The guys were still hyped up, dancing and laughing. Someone was playing music and Cole was starting to remove his pads when the coaching staff walked in. The music died down as Bombay took the center of the room.
“Great job out there boys, great effort, Cross, excellent goal, keep that up. I think it’s only fitting we name you player of the game, which means you better hurry and get dressed, there’s a young lady from the school paper waiting out there for a quote. Oh and here” he held up a puck and tossed it over, Cole caught it, immediately noticing the tape around the edge with the words ‘First NCAA goal’ and the date written on it “one for your trophy case kiddo. Gents let’s give him one last round of applause, and we’ll see you Tuesday for practice!”

Cole had a funny feeling he knew who was waiting. He hurried up and got out of his gear, deciding he’d shower back at the dorms. As others started to leave they congratulated him one final time and made him aware of an after party later that night. He pulled on some street clothes branded with the team logo and headed out into the hallway, grinning widely as he spun the game puck in his hands, looking around for the reporter, hoping it’d be Alex.