As soon as Abel was close enough, he took a shot and sent the puck through the top left corner of the net.
The light lit up.
The siren blared.
The arena erupted.
And that was the beginning of the end of the game.
Not another puck got by me.
We attacked them hard.
The game ended up being an eight-to-one blowout.
The exact kind of game we wanted to have.
When it was over, I skated toward the bench and pointed at Mike Jr.
I held up my goalie stick and his face lit up with excitement.
I made sure he got my goalie stick and I made sure Lizzy got Abel’s hockey stick.
As we walked toward the locker room, Coach stopped us in the hallway.
He put his arms up and waved at us as he whistled.
“I know what that was tonight,” he announced. “What you all did for me. What you all did for my family. There’s probably a whole lot more I should say right now. I should talk about the intensity of the offense and the damn near perfection in goal tonight. I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to say thank you to you all.”
Abel was the first to whistle and cheer.
Then we all did.
We continued to make our way to the locker room.
I spotted Madison down another hallway, standing there alone.
Her back against the wall.
Her head back.
So that’s where I went.
“Hey, sweetie,” I said.
She gasped and jumped. “Maverick.”
She hurried to wipe her cheeks.
She was crying.
I walked right up to her and touched her cheek.
“Oh, Mav,” she whispered. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to push me away.”
“I’m sorry for being mean.”