Post Olympic

Break It.

Oh baby

MUSIC: whiplash - Black Math

Yeet

-rabid

******************

"Game time," Hadley mumbles under his breath.

"Game time," I confirm.

Except it's literally the game. Like, we could win it all right now, and the guys know it. They can feel it, I can feel it. Everything they did in warmups was so stressful and so tense, stiff. I kind of wanted to hype them out of their nerves, but let's face it, I probably couldn't do that if I had all the time in the world, or all the rhetoric.

"God, this is awful." I bend over, hands on my knees, watching Fenrir line up for the drop. The arena is howling with noise. Howling for the Wolves, for the Avalanche. What's for sure is that I've never seen this many Von Albrecht, Douglass, Rex and Paxton jerseys in my life.

"Gah," Jorgen rubs his eyes to get the stress out and I tap my clipboard rapidly against my leg. Tap tap tap tap tap tap

Tap

Tap

Tap

Tap

Tap tap tap tap tap taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTPATAP

And they're off.

And we get stiff on the bench. Jorgen goes rigid, watching every single movement. Hadley starts to sweat everywhere. I start to pace on the bench, back and fourth, tap tap tap tap tap.

Up the ice, down the ice, up the ice, down the ice.

Back and forth. Sloppy plays, clean plays.

I zone out, hyper-focused on the game.

Von Albrecht to Douglass back to Rex. Rex to Williams, Williams to Langley. Shift change. Langley to Parker, Parker turnover, shot on Paxton, glove save, drop. The screaming in the arena's din doesn't phase me anymore.

I force myself to breathe for a moment.

Colorado scores with five minutes left in the first.

We score with a minute. Greenie is up one on the game.

"Tied, we're tied." I take a deep breath in the locker room. "You guys need to play more chill. I get it, really stressful game, I mean, I'm freaking out, but, Take a deep breath. There are two more games in the series if we lose this, we just have to get our act together, you're playing anxious."

The team shifts in their gear and I shake out my arms, it's like all my muscles got really small and don't fit anymore. I'm restless and flipping out.

Period two. It holds even. I can't breathe while they're playing, it's actually a miracle I didn't die of oxygen deprivation, I can only relax when they stop the play. I shake out my arms again and run my hands through my hair. Come on, come on, you got it.

TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP

"Nico, you're going to break that thing," Hadley's chewed his fingernails down to nothing at this point.

God. This is the worst. Can I fast forward to when we know who wins?

"Alright, I can't even talk right now, we're all flipping out. Just remember, salsa, okay? Play for each other, not your tomatoes." I get a whole body shake of nerves.