Page 18 of Rookie Rules

Because he wanted to feel the moment Rowan saw him coming and put the puck exactly where he would be.

Chapter 4: Tape Doesnt Lie

Tape did not care who had been right in the room.

It kept the puck, the clock, the open lane. It preserved every choice after adrenaline had finished editing the memory.

Rowan trusted it for that.

He sat in the second row of the video room with Finn on his left and Luca two seats to his right. Vale stood beneath the screen. Morning practice had ended forty minutes ago, but Rowan's body had already begun objecting to the chair. A band of stiffness pulled from his lower back into his hip.

He shifted once.

Owen would have called that information.

Rowan called it sitting down.

Vale played the top line's first failed entry.

On screen, Luca left the right wall early. The defense followed. Finn lost his lane. Rowan received the puck with two options collapsing at once.

Vale froze the frame.

"What is gone?"

"The weak side," Eli said from the back.

"Middle support," Finn added.

Vale looked at Luca.

Luca's boot moved beneath the chair. "The part where I was becoming open."

A few men laughed. Rowan did not.

"You were bringing your defender into the same space as Hale's," Vale said. "The ice does not get larger because you want the puck."

Luca glanced toward Rowan.

Checking.

Rowan kept his eyes on the screen.

Vale advanced to the next failure. Luca delayed at the blue line and lost possession. Then the near breakaway created by slipping behind the defender. The pass missed him by less than a stick length.

"Wrong route," Rowan said.

Vale rewound.

The frame showed Luca accelerating behind Nolan while Finn held the puck along the left side. Rowan was below the play, ready for the designed support.

"Is it?" Vale asked.

Rowan looked again.

The route abandoned their shape. That remained true.

It also forced Nolan to turn. Mateo had shifted toward Finn. For six frames, the middle opened from the top of the circles to the net.