Chapter Text
May 25th 2026
“Good evening, and welcome back to MLH After Dark. I’m Callum Reeves.”
“And I’m Nadia Laurent, and if you’re tuning in tonight expecting a polite bit of pre-game chatter, turn it off now. Because this is Ottawa Centaurs versus the Montreal Metros and at this point, it’s barely about hockey anymore.”
“Barely. This matchup has turned into a referendum on loyalty and on accountability. On what kind of league the MLH wants to be.”
“And on who controls the narrative.”
“This is history and grievance and seven years of resentment that hasn’t cooled a single degree. Montreal versus Ottawa always matters, but when Shane Hollander is involved? It turns radioactive.”
“Montreal was his home for a long time. A decade as a Metro, with seven of them as captain. Back-to-back Cups. A franchise player who didn’t just lead on the ice, but defined the room. And then the relationship with Ilya Rozanov was outed and Montreal showed exactly who they were willing to protect.”
“Not their captain.”
“Exactly. Hollander didn’t leave because his play declined. He was pushed. Bullied out of the only organisation he’d ever known, weeks after securing them a third cup. But Ottawa didn’t just sign him, they enveloped him in.”
“And they made a point of it. Ottawa is a team built on family in a way you don’t often see at this level. Charity nights where players look genuinely enthused to be there, kids at practice and family dinners, social media that feels genuinely human. And every single one of those things quietly reminds Montreal of what they lost.”
“And Montreal hasn’t forgiven Ottawa for it. Or themselves. Or Hollander. Pick one.”
“Which is why even seven years later, this matchup still crackles. Because Montreal lost more than a player. They lost their captain and their identity, and eventually two more pieces of that core when J.J. Boiziau and Hayden Pike took voluntary trades.”
“That move said everything. When Montreal started talking about ‘fresh blood,’ Bozieu and Pike read the room. They chose distance. They chose Ottawa and ultimately, Hollander. And for the Centaurs? That wasn’t just emotional. It was strategic.”
“Absolutely. Those trades carried Ottawa through Hollander’s medical paternity leave. But beyond that? It reunited fragments of Hollander's old family with the one he was building now. That matters in a locker room.”
“And it shows. This team chirps relentlessly but it’s internal, affectionate, and viciously unified when pointed outward. Especially when Pike and Rozanov get going.”
“Toronto Thunderstorms?”
“More like Category 1 disappointment.”
“Power play is when you score, yes?”
“Don’t confuse them, Roz, they already look stressed.”
“I still cry laughing every time that clip resurfaces.”
“And then you watch them dial it up to eleven the further the match goes. Ottawa doesn’t fracture. It consolidates.”
“And Ottawa didn’t just benefit from Montreal's mistakes. They built a culture that openly contradicts everything Montreal tried to sweep under the rug. Family first and visibility, loud and entirely unapologetic.”
“Which is why the press has never left them alone.”
“No, it hasn’t. And this season especially, the media pressure has escalated into something ugly. Ongoing lawsuits against The Toronto Star and The Montreal Messenger based on defamation, libel, false reporting about Hollander’s health, his body, his ability to play.”
“And that’s before we even talk about the intrusion into his daughters’ private lives. Photos and speculation. Commentary that should never have left an editor’s desk.”
“The legal filings alone read like a catalogue of crossed lines. And yet the stories kept coming. You could feel the appetite for a downfall.”
“Which makes the off-ice fight from a couple of months ago feel almost inevitable in hindsight.”
“It shook the league. Hollander, Pike, Haas and Barrett versus Drapeau, Comeau and Fredrikksen. No buffer of boards or helmets. And the shock wasn’t just that it happened but that it was Shane Hollander throwing the first punch. It took four others to finally have him relent.”
“That clip detonated across hockey media. Canada's 'sweetheart,’ the ‘quiet genius.’, the MLH's 'golden player of virtue'. Suddenly recast as volatile, aggressive and dangerous?”
“And it left a sour taste on both sides of the fanbase. Montreal fans saw confirmation of every bitter narrative they’d been clinging to. Ottawa fans saw their restraint weaponised against them.”
“And then there’s the bigger picture. Because it hasn’t just been Montreal.”
“No. This season, it’s felt like alliances have shifted. Montreal Metros and Toronto Thunderstorms historic rivals in their own right have found common ground in one thing: Ottawa.”
“Canada against Canada. Night after night. You almost forget the American teams are still in the league.”
“It’s been relentless. Shared press angles and mirrored commentary. Analysts repeating the same talking points across markets. Ottawa framed as disruptive and controversial. As ‘too much.’ ”
“Too queer, too visible, too successful and– ”
“– and yet despite the vitriol the Centaurs just kept winning.”
“And let’s not pretend Toronto’s resentment only started this season.”
“No. Because before Zhang, before the shared anti-Ottawa press cycle, there was Troy Barrett.”
“Exactly. Years back, Toronto threw Barrett to the wolves. Officially it was a money move, a clean bit of restructuring, cap management, future planning. All the usual language teams hide behind when they want the story to sound bloodless.”
“And unofficially?”
“Unofficially, Barrett became inconvenient. He spoke too publicly, and too early about the Dallas Kent allegations against women. Toronto didn’t want a conscience problem in the room, so they solved it the way legacy franchises often do. They shunted him.”
“And they did it thinking Ottawa was a dead-end solution.”
“A low-ranking team, a soft landing, somewhere you sent a player to disappear quietly.”
“Instead he lands in Ottawa the same year Rozanov does, and suddenly what Toronto dismissed as disposal becomes part of a foundation.”
“And my, how they’ve been proven wrong.”
“Barrett didn’t disappear. He got louder, better, more settled. He found a room that backed him, a team that let him be sharp-edged and honest, and now Toronto has to watch one more player they underestimated thrive in Centaurs colours. Then he's proven vindicated when Kent was later arrested and charged.”
“And Toronto, of course, has one more reason to be furious now.”
“Exactly. Noah Zhang. Transferred in from the Thunderstorms beginning of the season and somehow that move managed to pour accelerant on an already ugly fire.”
“The official line was roster strategy. The unofficial line from certain corners of Toronto and Montreal media was that Hollander personally poached him.”
“Which very quickly curdled into something nastier.”
“Much nastier. The implication wasn’t just favouritism, it was legacy-building. That Hollander was hand-picking players who ‘looked like him,’ which is such a transparent dog whistle it’s embarrassing.”
“And let’s call it what it is. Veiled racism. Shane Hollander and Noah Zhang are both mixed-race, both visibly read through that lens by the press when it suits them, and suddenly Ottawa’s diversity becomes suspicious instead of admirable. Yet when Nathan Vassa was drafted a few years ago no one batted an eyelid.”
“The reality, according to Zhang himself, is far simpler and far more damning of the league around them. He wanted a team where diversity wasn’t just tolerated in a press release, but actively lived.”
“And Hollander mattered there. Not because he was building a vanity project, but because he existed visibly. Because he made this league look survivable for players who’d spent their whole junior and pro careers being told to keep their heads down and be grateful.”
“That’s what makes this current Ottawa core so interesting. It isn’t just talented. It’s symbolic in ways the rest of the league still doesn’t know how to handle.”
“And every time Toronto or Montreal tries to frame that as corruption or favouritism, Ottawa just keeps skating out and making it look like culture.”
“And suddenly, it feels like two legacy franchises circling the same target.”
“Montreal has been in Ottawa’s lane all season. And yet, you watch Rozanov being this captain, this anchor and you know he’s proud.”
“He really does have it all. Leadership and loyalty. A family. A team that would burn for him.”
“Now, Ottawa’s roster construction over the years has been fascinating under the guidance and leadership of Coach Wiebe and Rozanov. They’ve taken some risks bringing in veteran presence instead of constantly drafting young blood. Cliff Marleau coming over from Boston Raiders, Rozanov’s former team, raised eyebrows.”
“Was it sentimental? Maybe. Was it tactical? Also maybe. Veteran players bring composure. They bring experience in pressure games like this. But the question is always longevity.”
“And yet Ottawa keeps finding the balance. The old guard stabilises. The younger players sharpen their teeth underneath them.”
“And then there’s the heart of it all: Hollander and Rozanov. On the ice and off.”
“Hollander is a hockey obsessive in the purest sense. His general IQ and passion for patterns and probabilities, for plays and stats is unrivalled. If he’s not carrying a notebook, it’s because it’s already memorised. People joke he has his own annotated MLH rulebook and honestly, it’s probably accurate.”
“And somehow, he’s also a parent of two young children. Alongside Rozanov. Two elite athletes with relentless schedules, two careers that never slow down.”
“How Hollander continues to manage it remains one of the league’s great mysteries. Especially when you factor in pregnancy. With his last, he was back skating small minutes before two months. By three months? Full quarter play. The dedication and ruthless conditioning to make it possible should be lauded alone.”
“That kind of physical resilience would be remarkable on its own. Add the social pressure of being the only openly revealed male carrier in the league and it becomes historic.”
“And he isn’t alone, but he is singular. Hollander, Rozanov, Hunter, Barrett, Price, Haas, LaPointe and Bennett only some of the few publicly out players in the MLH. And Hollander still carries the most scrutiny.”
"Ottawa protects its own though and they have been nothing but supportive and protective through it all. Rozanov of course leading at the helm in publicly defending his team and Hollander."
“But we of course have to mention the contrast between these franchises, despite the media storm. The differences couldn’t be starker. Montreal, the Canadian legacy team. Ottawa, historically the underdog that barely sniffed playoffs until Rozanov arrived. Until Hollander followed.”
“Since then? Nine seasons, eight playoff appearances. Four cups. Consistency that Montreal would kill for ever since Hollander's reign.”
“And tonight decides everything. Ottawa wins, they lock in second seed and fight towards their fifth cup. Lose, and they’re scraping first wildcard. Montreal wins? They secure third wildcard otherwise they're out of the playoffs.”
“There is no margin for error.”
“So what do we see on the ice? Does Ottawa stick with what’s worked in utilising the Rozanov-Hollander dynamic that still reads telepathic? Or do we see something new?”
“And then there’s the newer blood also. Not just Vassa, Figueroa and Mercer, but Zhang. Zhang ives them speed, bite and a different kind of edge. He came out of Toronto’s system with a point to prove and Ottawa’s been more than happy to hand him the knife.”
“And he fits them. That’s the thing. He doesn’t feel borrowed, he feels absorbed. Like Ottawa took one look at Zhang and said yes, you’re one of ours now.”
“And that matters when we talk lineups, because the lineups are lethal. Haas, Boiziau and Boodrum driving forward pressure. Barrett, Pike and Hollander slicing through neutral ice. Rozanov, Hollander and Marleau as the nuclear atom bomb of power, speed and force.”
“And then you’ve got the flexibility Ottawa loves to weaponise. Zhang can slide in and turn a clean top six into something meaner, faster, more reactive. He’s one more reason Toronto’s been up Ottawa’s ass all year, because every good shift from him reads like confirmation that they let something valuable walk straight into a rival barn.”
“On defence Dykstra, Chouinard, Vassa and LaPointe. All equally dominating and powerful. Especially when LaPointe goes caveman if anyone targets Haas.”
"Ottawa really is the poster team of couples that play together, stay together "
“And in net Wyatt Hayes with his ninth season also. The Maple Tree of shutouts himself. Backed up by Tanner Dillon, still remembered for that iconic save against New York. And lets not sleep on those rookies, Figueroa and Mercer, already making waves this year, proven loyal members of the team and out for blood, for ice and definitely the ones to watch.”
“This is not finesse hockey. This is survival hockey.”
“And whatever happens, it will leave scars.”
“Strap in. Puck drop is coming. Tonight is going to be a bloodbath.”
“Or an explosion.”
Later that night.....
The frenzy started before Shane even cleared the doorway.
The second he stepped out of the media room, his words were already breaking containment. No doubt being clipped and captioned, shoved onto timelines by people who’d only heard the last fifteen seconds and didn’t give a damn about the rest. Phones buzzed in pockets. Producers hissed into headsets. Somewhere behind him, someone was saying “legal’s on the line” and someone else was saying “it’s already trending.”
But all of that might as well have been underwater.
Shane walked.
The corridor felt too long and narrow, the fluorescent lights overhead too bright and humming at a pitch that drilled straight into his skull. The world had gone oddly flat and sharp at the same time: colours and edges too defined, like his brain had turned everything up to maximum resolution without asking him first.
His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Fine tremors at first, then bigger. He shoved them into his pockets, but even there they twitched, fingers buzzing like they were full of static. His heart thudded unevenly, heavy and off-beat, as if it couldn’t decide between sprint or stall. His mouth tasted metallic. His stomach reeled.
You told him to sit. You told Ilya to sit like a dog. On live TV.
The thought went through him like a knife.
He saw Ilya’s face in his mind, the shock, hurt and fear, all in one frame before it was swallowed under the stoic, controlled persona of Ilya Rozanov everyone knew. He saw the flick of his eyes down to Shane’s stomach just after.
Heard his own voice saying I’m pregnant like a confession under interrogation.
He had embarrassed him. Embarrassed his parents, his family and his children. He’d embarrassed his team.
His stride faltered for half a second.
He saw Coach Wiebe’s expression in his mind’s eye: horror, quickly schooled into blankness. Harris with his hands over his mouth. The junior reporters staring at him like he’d grown fangs. Every single worst-case scenario they’d managed together for a year, and he’d just handed it to the world in a ten-minute meltdown.
This is what they expected. He had just proven everything they had said. Of him being volatile and emotional. Unfit and unpredictable. A liability. They were waiting for this.
The thought wedged itself into his chest, jagged and immovable.
The fabric of his shirt rubbed wrong against his skin with every step, too coarse and too tight around his neck and wrists. His tie felt like a noose. He tugged at it with clumsy fingers, but the friction of cloth-on-skin made him want to crawl out of his own body.
He could hear again now, and that was somehow worse.
A burst of laughter from a passing staffer. The high-pitched squeal of a cart wheel. A door slamming somewhere back down the hall. Every sound stacked on top of the last until it was just noise, one continuous wall of too much.
By the time he reached the locker room door, his breathing was shallow, quick. His chest hurt. The buzzing under his skin had become a roar.
He pushed the door open.
And up on the wall, mounted above the stalls, the TV was still on.
A delayed feed of the media room, of him, leaning forward, eyes blazing, mouth twisted around the words you are the load your mother should have swallowed.
Hayes stood with his arms folded, jaw clenched. Bood was motionless, helmet forgotten in his hands. Hayden sat perched on the edge of the bench, elbows braced on his knees, eyes locked on the screen like it might bite him. JJ had gone completely still, mouth pressed into a hard line. Dykstra, Chouinard, Vassa, Mercer, Figueroa, Marlow, rookies and veterans alike were fixed in the same stunned tableau.
Noah Zhang was halfway out of his stall, one skate still unlaced, staring at the screen with a look of naked fury that made him seem suddenly older than he was. His face had gone white around the mouth. One hand was braced flat against the wood beside him so hard his knuckles had blanched.
Time slowed.
“Fuck,” Troy blurted, sprinting across the room. He grabbed the remote, slamming his thumb on the power button like he could erase the last ten minutes by hitting it hard enough.
The screen went black and no one moved.
Troy, panicking, flung the remote away as if getting it out of sight might somehow prove they hadn’t all just watched Shane verbally decapitate a reporter live on national television, reveal on air that he was pregnant, and torch the entire media room.
The remote arced through the air in a sad, useless curve. It landed at Shane’s feet with a cheap plastic clack and spun once before settling, right between his shoes.
A collective, horrified groan went up around the room.
“Aw, fuck,” Hayes muttered under his breath.
“Jesus Christ,” Bood said, dragging a hand over his face.
“Troy,” Nick said weakly, like he genuinely did not know where to begin.
“I know,” Troy snapped, already pale. “I know, I know, that was objectively the worst possible choice, thanks.”
Shane stared at the remote.
It was such a small, stupid object. Cheap plastic. Sticky buttons. A hairline crack in the casing. In any other moment he might have laughed at the pathetic symbolism of it. That this flimsy thing was sitting at the feet of the man who’d just smashed his entire public image with his bare hands and mouth.
Right now, he couldn’t think at all.
His vision tunneled. The locker room blurred at the edges, colours smearing, as if someone had smudged reality with their thumb. The white noise in his head spiked, flattening everything into a single overwhelming roar of voices, the hum of the vents, the lingering sounds of flashing cameras and the echo of his own voice shouting still ringing in his bones.
His ears hurt. His head pounded. The lights overhead felt like knives.
And the silence in the room wasn’t really silence. It was shock. Anger. Grief.
Because they had seen it.
Not just the explosion or the insult.
The questions.
They had watched Shane stand there while reporters circled him with that same old poison in a shinier bottle. Asking whether he deserved to still play. Whether carrying a child made him unreliable. Whether he was the “mother” of the household now, as if fatherhood could be stripped from him and relabelled because it fit easier into someone else’s small, ugly worldview. As if being pregnant made him lesser. Softer. Less captain, less player, less man, less parent.
They had heard him say it.
I’m pregnant.
Not the way he should have had to.
Not ripped out of him under lights and cameras and the stink of people treating his body like public property.
“Those fucking animals,” Dykstra said, low and shaking with fury.
“They knew exactly what they were doing,” Nick added. His voice had gone flat in the way it only ever did when he was beyond anger and into something colder. “Every one of those questions was bait.”
“No,” Noah said, abrupt and fierce. “It was worse than bait.”
Everyone looked at him for half a second and Noah’s jaw was clenched so tight it jumped. “They wanted him to say it. They wanted him cornered enough that they could make his body the headline instead of his game.”
A muscle ticked in Hayes’ cheek. “Yeah.”
“They don’t do that to straight dads,” Mercer said, voice small with rage.
“No,” JJ said, still staring at Shane, not the dead screen. “They don’t.”
“Or to women properly either,” Hayden bit out. “Not like that. Not without couching it in concern. This?” He laughed once, sharp and joyless. “This was humiliation as a sport.”
“They asked him if he was still the ‘mother’ in the house,” Vassa said, like he still couldn’t believe he’d heard it. “Who the fuck says that?”
“Cowards,” Bood answered instantly.
“Misogynistic cowards,” Tanner added.
“Lazy ones too,” Dykstra said. “They can’t process a man carrying a kid without reducing him to some bullshit box they already recognise.”
“He’s a father,” Figueroa snapped. “He’s their dad. That should be the end of it.”
“He’s also still one of the best players in the league,” Marlow said. “As if pregnancy somehow erased his stats.”
“Or the fight at Christmas,” Troy said, voice high with anger now. “They’ve been waiting to use that too. Like that somehow means he’s unstable instead of pushed way too fucking far by people who keep treating his family like content.”
Hayes let out a harsh breath. “They’ve been trying to build a fucking case file on him all year. Fight. Pregnancy. kids. marriage. body. Anything that makes him look like a spectacle instead of a player.”
“And God forbid he be angry about it,” Hayden said. “God forbid the man they’ve hounded all season finally says enough.”
“Hey, Hollzy,” Troy said, softer now, stepping around the bench, palms out. “It’s okay, alright? We got you, man. It… it was a lot, but you weren’t wrong.”
“She had it coming,” Hayden added, more firmly. “Every fucking word. You just said what we all wanted to say.”
“Yeah, and you did it prettier than any of us could’ve,” JJ tried, tone halfway between joking and gentle. “You verbally cross-checked her into the fucking sun, bro. Iconic, honestly.”
“Shane,” Hayes said, steady, anchoring. “Look at me, yeah? Hey. Eyes up.”
Shane tried.
He really did try.
His gaze lifted a fraction. The faces in front of him swam: Hayes’s worried frown, Troy’s wide eyes, Bood hovering just behind them, jaw tight with anger that wasn’t directed at Shane at all. He'd barely paid any attention to their furious conversation.
“It’s okay,” Bood said quietly. “We’re here. You’re not alone in this.”
“You embarrassed them, not us,” Marlow added. “Don’t twist that around.”
“Shane?” Vassa’s voice, small but sincere, threaded through the noise. “It’s okay that you’re not okay, man. We got your back.”
“We’re still your team,” Mercer added. “Whatever happens. You know that, right?”
Figueroa nodded hard from the end of the bench, dark eyes blazing. “They wanted a reaction. They kept pushing. That’s on them.”
“And if the league has a problem with it, they can start by answering why they keep letting this happen to you,” Nick said flatly.
Noah had moved without Shane seeing it. One second he was by his stall, the next he was there on Shane’s left, close enough to help but not touching. His face was stricken now, furious and scared all at once.
“Hey,” Noah said, voice low and careful, the rough edge of Toronto still in it. “Hollzy. Don’t look at the room. Just look here, okay? Just here.”
Shane’s eyes flickered, failed to land.
Noah swallowed hard. “You didn’t make this happen. They did. You hear me? You didn’t start this.”
He looked wrecked by it, more openly than some of the others. Maybe because he knew, in a way the rest of them only partly could, exactly what it felt like to have the media decide what your face meant before you had even opened your mouth. Exactly what it felt like to have visibility treated like provocation.
“They don’t get to do that to you,” Noah said, the words breaking a little now. “They don’t get to make you answer for existing.”
That one lodged somewhere, but not enough.
Not nearly enough.
He realised dimly that his hands were now up, pressed flat against his ears. His fingers were splayed, nails biting into his scalp. He hadn’t told them to move; they’d gone there on their own, chasing instinct. The feel of his own hair between his fingers and the seams of his sleeves on his wrists were too much. The stretch of his shirt across his chest was too much.
Breath in. Breath–
He couldn’t get a full lungful. His chest just fluttered, shallow and tight, the way it always did when everything tipped too far. His skin felt too small, his body too loud, every signal screaming at once.
The guilt hit like a wave and didn’t recede.
He could feel the meltdown rising in him, familiar in a way he hated, that sick, helpless sense of being swept past the point of coping. The part of him that could manage and control, perform and mask had burned itself out out there under the cameras. There was nothing left to hold the line.
The floor seemed to tilt under his feet.
Someone said his name again. He couldn’t tell who.
“Get his tie off,” Dykstra said sharply, already moving.
“No, wait– don’t crowd him,” Hayden shot back, rising from the bench in one fast motion.
“Water?” Mercer asked, too loud, panicked by his own uselessness.
“No water yet,” JJ said instantly. “Just– fuck– give him space, but not too much space.”
“Hollzy, listen to my voice,” Hayes said, dropping into a crouch a few feet in front of him, making himself smaller, steadier. “You’re in the room with us, okay? You’re here. Locker room. Ottawa. You’re safe.”
Shane’s mouth opened, but the only sound that came out was a thin, wrecked breath.
Bood’s face changed.
“Oh, fuck,” he said under his breath. “He’s really gone.”
Noah flinched like he’d been hit. “I’m getting Roz.”
“He’s already coming, no doubt.” Figueroa said, though his own voice shook.
“Hollzy,” Troy whispered, too soft now, like he was talking to something already breaking. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t check out on us.”
The remote still sat there, a stupid little black rectangle at the centre of his collapsing world.
Shane’s stomach lurched. His knees went soft, then boneless.
For one awful second there was a look on his face that hit the room like a weapon. A look of pure, naked terror, not of them, but of himself. Of what his body was doing, of what he could not stop and being being seen like this.
It wrecked them.
Hayes actually swore.
Troy took a half-step forward and then stopped himself so violently he almost stumbled, both hands clenched uselessly at his sides.
“Hollzy,” he said, voice cracking. “Hey, hey, you’re okay. You’re okay, baby, come on– ”
“Easy,” JJ said, but his own voice was breaking now too.
Shane dropped, just like a marionette whose strings had been savagely cut.
There was no graceful stumble, no attempt to catch himself. His body simply shut off. One second he was standing, the next his legs gave way and he folded straight down, hitting the floor hard on his side. It had happened so fast no one could even reach him in time to break the fall.
“Shane!” Troy shouted.
“Fuck– ” Tanner vaulted over the benches.
“Get medical!” Hayes yelled.
Bood was already moving towards the door, intent to get medical. Figueroa swore and bolted for the door with Mercer on his heels, both of them shouting for Ilya.
JJ’s voice cracked on “Hollander!”
Noah didn’t run.
He dropped straight to his knees on the floor beside Shane with a sound that was half impact, half panic, one hand hovering helplessly over Shane’s shoulder and not daring to touch until he knew whether he should.
“Hollzy, hey– hey– ” His voice broke clean down the middle. “Fuck, no, come on. Come on.”
Hayden was there a second later, grabbing one of the spare towels off the bench and shoving it under Shane’s head with shaking hands that did not look like Hayden Pike’s hands at all.
“Careful, careful,” he muttered, like maybe gentleness could undo gravity. “Jesus Christ. Jesus, Shane.”
Tanner crouched hard at Shane’s other side, jaw clenched so tight it trembled. “Medics are coming. Roz is coming. Stay with us, yeah? Stay with us.”
Hayes had one hand braced on the bench, breathing hard, eyes huge and furious and frightened. “Why the fuck was he allowed out there like that?”
No one had an answer.
The room had gone from loud panic to something rawer. The kind of fear men got when someone they loved broke in front of them and there was nothing glorious or useful to do with it. No play to run or hit to take. No puck to chase. Just waiting, helpless and human and terrified.
Shane didn’t hear any of it.
The lights went out all at once. Sound compressed into nothing. The last things his body registered were the cold shock of the floor against his cheek, the taste of sugar and yoghurt still faint at the back of his throat, the distant shape of hands and voices reaching for him, and the echo of his own voice telling a roomful of cameras he was done.
Then everything went blissfully, mercifully dark.