Page 13 of The Rest of the Story
Day by day.
Together.
Thirty-Three
Both the leagueand Winnipeg granted permission to push the next game. Our arena was fucked, and even with repairs going as fast as possible, we wouldn’t be able to play there for at least a month if we, as a team, made it through this first round of playoffs.
Which wasn’t going to happen. We were winding down, and we needed to. We needed to heal, and to recover. All of us, not just Brody and Shea. Coates’ resurgence had ripped open a lot of wounds the guys had tried to papier-mâché over. We needed time, and we needed each other. There were holes in our hearts where Shea and Brody were supposed to be in our dressing room and on the ice, and nothing but the two of them coming back could fix that.
It could have been weird to play again in Winnipeg, at my former arena and against my old team in the playoffs, but it wasn’t. Those guys in Winnipeg were good people, and they bent over backward for our team. My former captain offered to take us out to dinner the night we got into town, but the guys wanted to keep things quiet. Instead, they sent over a full steak dinner, catered from the best restaurant in the city. We ate together in my hotel room, munching on filets and rib eyes and goat cheese mashed potatoes and butter garlic asparagus while we video chatted with Brody and Shea, who had stayed behind in Boulder with their parents.
The questions from the media were relentless. Kathy told the world that the organization would release more information after playoffs, and until that time, our players needed privacy and respect as we dealt with multiple tragedies.
Before our first of two games in Winnipeg, I hunted down our spare jerseys. Brody and Shea weren’t traveling with us, but the same amount of gear is packed every time, and their jerseys were in our trunks. I found them, then tore their nameplates off the backs.
Lawson, more than anyone, was struggling. He was barely eating, barely sleeping. I’d moved him into my hotel room so he wouldn’t be alone, and I heard him toss and turn all night long.
I took those nameplates back to our dressing room and straight to Lawson. I showed him Brody’s nameplate—Zeagler, in our Outlaws font and our Outlaws colors—and then wrapped it around his wrist and tied in a knot. Now he could wear Brody’s name during the game beneath his glove and keep him close, the way he needed.
I needed Shea close to me, too. “Can you tie Shea’s onto my wrist?”
* * *
We lost both games to Winnipeg. Each time, they seemed apologetic afterward, like they’d kicked a kid when he was down, but I gave my former captain a big hug and told them congratulations, then told them this was clearly the only way they could beat us, after a madman had taken out our two best players. He didn’t laugh at my shitty joke.
The next game, and the one Winnipeg had to win to end the series and send us home for the season, was supposed to be played in Boulder, but we didn’t have an arena to play in.
Minnesota’s team offered up their arena.
Our fans drove up in convoys, waving Outlaws flags and spray-painting our names and numbers onto their windows and the sides of their cars and trucks. One long line of SUVs spelled outHooked on an Outlaws Feeling, one word per car. That made SportsCenter.
Minneapolis rolled out the red carpet. Hotel rooms were half-off, and anyone wearing an Outlaws jersey got their coffee or their dinner paid for by a local. Downtown changed their lights, dressed up the city in Outlaws colors.
Our fans were so electric they could have lit up the state. Everyone was on their feet for the entire game. They sang our song multiple times, roared our names, bellowed our numbers. There were signs for Brody and Shea,We Miss YouandWe’ll Be Waiting For YouandOutlaws 4Ever.They loved us, and they wanted us to know exactly how much, how deeply, and how fiercely they did, and even when we lost, and even when our season ended, they stayed on their feet in a standing ovation. Winnipeg stayed on the ice after the handshake, too, and they applauded as we saluted our crowd.
Cinderella had gone to the ball, but now it was time to go home.
We were quiet in the dressing room after our final loss. No one said a word, not until Brody and Shea slipped in. They’d driven up in secret with their families and had watched the game from the owner’s box. Shea was limping on his crutches. That titanium rod down the shaft of his bone was weight-bearing, and he was supposed to put a little bit more weight on it every time he moved around, but he was still in a lot of pain.
Finally, we were reunited, and we came to the middle of the room and stood in a circle with our arms wrapped tight and our heads bent together. Brody tipped his cheek against Lawson’s shoulder. Lawson hid his face in Brody’s hair.
I steadied Shea. He tucked my sweaty strands behind my ear. “So, what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
The memory was sharp, but sweet. I’d known Shea was a hero from that day, that moment. My heart was already lost. “Don’t make me smile,” I said, ruining it by smiling at him.
“Ah, but you have a good one.” He leaned in, kissed my cheek. “I love you.”
This was what we needed. Us, together, united. We were twenty unlikely strangers who had become absolutely essential to each other. We’d been thrown out of the same plane without parachutes, but instead of crashing, we’d learned how to fly. Our wings were bruised and broken, and we were aching in our hearts, but we were also healing. Day by day. Moment by moment. Together.
“Next year,” I said to the circle. “Next year, we’re doing this again. All of us. And we’re going to wineverything.”
* * *
Kathy kept her word, releasing not just a statement after playoffs, but the full investigative report she and the team lawyers had put together. She outlined Coates’ abusive behavior, highlighted the testimony given by our players, and turned the whole thing over to the police and the league. Shea and Brody were already pressing charges against Coates, and now, with this, the rest of the guys were pressing charges, too. Coates was going to spend the rest of his life rotting.
She also told the world that anyone who had a Coates jersey, T-shirt, hoodie, player’s card, photo, hockey stick, puck, Happy Meal toy or even Cracker Jack sticker, should bring that to the arena and trade it in for anything they wanted. Signed stick of Shea’s? No problem. Signed jersey of Brody’s? Here you go. Game puck signed by Lawson? All yours. Coates was being erased, completely, from reality.
Three weeks later, our arena finished repairs, just in time for the Stanley Cup Finals to kick off between Montreal and Las Vegas. We could have been there. We’d beaten Vegas three times. We could have taken Montreal.
