Page 69 of The Callahan Effect

The Red Cedars refused to be drawn into it.

Coach Callahan's message throughout the week had been straightforward. Let Portland chase bodies while Evergreen chased the puck. Ryan reinforced the same point between shifts, reminding everyone to keep moving the puck, trust their speed, and make Portland skate instead of standing still looking for the next hit. Clean breakouts frustrated the Wolves a little more, and every crisp passing sequence drew another roar from the home crowd.

The breakthrough came midway through the opening period. Sustained pressure deep inside Portland's zone ended with Mason slipping a perfectly weighted pass into the high slot, where Ryan buried a quick wrist shot inside the far post to give Evergreen a 1-0 lead. Portland answered before intermission after capitalizing on an odd-man rush created by a turnover at the offensive blue line, sending both teams to the locker rooms tied at one goal apiece.

The first intermission passed in a blur for me. I climbed onto the Zamboni, resurfaced the ice as thousands of conversations echoed around the arena, then guided the machine back to the garage before hurrying to my usual position nearby. By the time the officials called the teams back onto the ice, the surface gleamed beneath the lights as though nobody had touched it with skates.

The second period belonged to Evergreen. Our puck movement became sharper, our transitions quicker, and Portland struggled to contain the speed developing through the neutral zone.

Mason created the second goal by drawing both defensemen toward him before sliding the puck across to Ben for a one-timer that restored the lead. A power-play rebound later in the period extended the advantage to 3-1, but the Wolves refused to disappear. A determined shift late in the period ended with a scramble around Oscar's crease, allowing Portland to pull within one before the horn sounded.

Once again, I resurfaced the ice while the players regrouped in their locker rooms. The student section never stopped chanting, convinced another victory was only twenty minutes away, while I concentrated on laying down another flawless sheet of ice, knowing the smallest imperfection could change the path of a puck.

The opening ten minutes of the third period became exactly the battle we'd expected. Portland committed completely to their forecheck, finishing legal checks with punishing force and attempting to wear the Red Cedars down through sheer persistence. Evergreen answered with discipline rather than retaliation, clearing rebounds, blocking shooting lanes, and refusing to abandon the structure that had carried them through the preseason. Every successful defensive-zone exit, completed line change, and shift that ended deep inside Portland's end brought the crowd to its feet.

Ten minutes remained. Evergreen still led 3-2.

Ryan won a defensive-zone faceoff cleanly back to his defenseman, who banked the puck along the boards to Mason accelerating through the neutral zone. He gathered it in stride, crossed the blue line down the right wing, and protected the puck as he tried to drive around Portland's left defenseman.

The defender skated into his path.

The collision echoed through the arena with a sickening force that silenced more than four thousand people in an instant.

Mason's stick spun away across the ice as his body collapsed awkwardly against the boards. Another Portland player, unable to avoid the collision, went down beside him, one skate blade catching Mason high along the hip before they separated. Mason slid motionless onto the surface, and within seconds blood began staining the ice beneath him. Nobody cared about the puck anymore.

Players from both teams abandoned the play and converged from every direction, Ryan dropping to one knee beside Mason while Oscar skated the length of the ice from his crease. Dad was already vaulting over the boards with the medical staff only a stride behind him, trainers carrying emergency bags as they hurried toward the growing circle of players shielding Mason from the crowd.

I didn't register that I was moving. One moment I was standing beside the entrance. The next I was over the boards.

My boots slipped beneath me as I landed awkwardly on the ice. I caught myself with one hand, scrambled upright, and stumbled the remaining distance, barely aware of the players stepping aside to let me through.

Mason hadn't moved. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow beneath the rise and fall of his chest.

I dropped to my knees beside him and reached for his hand without thinking. His fingers felt frighteningly still inside mine. I didn't care that I'd possibly just outed us to both teams and an arena full of fans and I hoped Mason wouldn't either.

One of the team physicians glanced at me briefly but didn't tell me to move. Instead, he focused entirely on Mason, speaking calmly to the athletic trainers as they stabilized him and began their assessment. Another physician carefully cut open the side of Mason's jersey to expose the injury beneath.

My stomach lurched.

There was a long, ugly gash high along his hip where the fabric had already become soaked with blood.

The physician immediately pressed a thick trauma dressing over the wound before looking directly at me.

"Jack."

I looked up.

"Keep steady pressure right here."

He guided my free hand onto the dressing.

"Don't let up."

My world narrowed to that single instruction.

Everything beyond Mason disappeared.

Voices blended into meaningless noise. Someone called for additional equipment. Someone else spoke into a radio. The officials stood well back while the crowd remained eerily silent, the only sounds inside the arena came from hurried footsteps and the practiced communication of the medical team working around us.