Page 138 of The Off Limits Captain
Habits.
Extra tape disappearing after practice. Players asking for tinted visors after hits they swore were shoulder injuries. A rookie sitting in a dark equipment room because the hallway lights made him nauseous, everyone calling it nerves.
I write none of it as fact yet.
I make a second column instead.
Observed pattern.
Unverified allegation.
Potential harm if published wrong.
Potential harm if not published.
By the end of the week, I need three things I can defend without private access: the retired player on record, the funding trail Marcus is building, and one source willing to attach a name to the culture instead of the rumor.
If I get those, the piece moves whether the Stampede like the timing or not.
The last one sits there, ugly and necessary.
I open a clean document and write the working spine at the top.
The story is not the hiding.
It is why hiding feels safer.
Ryan
The thing about Finn is that he is good at being fine.
He looks fine in the media scrum. He looks fine in his stall, with a protein shake and his phone, watching film with the dead-eyed focus of someone trying to learn from a season he is still inside.
I know what being fine looks like.
I also know what it covers.
After video review, when most of the room has thinned toward treatment or the player lounge, I walk back toward the equipment hallway for no reason I have named out loud yet.
I find Finn in the corridor near the tape station.
One skate off. Just one.
He is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his chin down, like he needs to get horizontal and the floor is the fastest option from where he is standing.
I stop.
Finn looks up. “I got dizzy.” Quick. Like he is practiced at saying it before someone can ask.
“When?”
“Coming off. It’s nothing.”
“How long has it been nothing?”
Finn looks at his half-removed skate. “Couple of days.”
“Couple of days.”
