Page 1 of Chasing The Goal
Part One
The Chicago Blade
by Ava Bennett, October 2017
Opening Night Blues —Hellblades Take the Win, But Lose a Key Player
There’s nothing like opening night at United Arena. The buzz in the air hums in your bones before the puck ever drops. You can taste the adrenaline, sharp as cold metal. The crisp snap of skates on fresh ice sounds like a promise. And when the Hellblades burst from the tunnel, swallowed in smoke and drenched in red light, the crowdgoes feral. It’s not just a hockey game here. It’s a ritual. A baptism. We do hockey big in Chicago—loud, brutal, and with our whole damn hearts.
Last night should have been a celebration. The start of a new season, a fresh slate. Jaymie Prescott—our human firecracker on left wing, the chaos engine of the infamous Bennett Line (no blood shared, just bruises and years of war stories)—came out like he had something to prove. Like the puck insulted his mother and he was out for revenge.
Fast.
Sharp.
Electric.
A blur of black and red and purpose.
Watching him and Logan connect on those first shifts—it was like seeing two halves of the same storm reuniting. Their chemistry doesn’t just click; it detonates. And I felt it in my chest, like pride and fear tangled together. Logan had told me they were ready this year. Focused. Hungry. But seeing it play out live? It felt like magic.
This game wasn’t just about points on the board. It was a declaration. After last year’s soul-sucking implosion—when they dropped so many games I stopped opening the sports alerts on my phone—this was a team clawing back from the edge. And that shift didn’t come from new gear or fresher legs. It came from a change in heartbeat.
Enter Eliza Tucker. The new assistant coach with a clipboard sharp enough to slice egos in half and a hockey IQ that commands the room. First woman behind the Hellblades bench in franchise history—and already, she’s changed everything. Gone are the days of Glen Riker’s bark-and-break approach. Tucker listens. She leads. She teaches. And the guys? They’re skating like they trust her. Like they believe again.
But hockey is a beast with teeth. It gives, then rips it away.
Midway through the second, the score tied 1-1 and the air in the arena turned electric—just the way you want it. Jaymie took the puck in the neutral zone and shifted into a gear most players only dream of. He was flying. And then—God, I can still hear it—that hit.
From the blind side. Legal by the rulebook. But cruel by every other measure.
Jaymie slammed into the boards with a force that made the glass quake. And then… nothing. No scramble. No groan. Just silence. The kind that presses on your ribs.
I’ve been around this team long enough to see it all—jaw wires, surgeries, careers teetering on the edge of a scan. But this? This was different. The way the crowd went quiet, like a single breath held by twenty thousand people. The way Logan dropped to the ice beside him, glove to Jaymie’s chest, his helmet resting against his. That’s the part that gutted me.
Jaymie didn’t stand. He couldn’t.
He was helped off, weightless on his left side. The early word from Coach was careful: lower-body injury. But I’ve learned to read the language of injury updates like a second dialect. What they say and what they mean are never the same. And what I heard between the lines was this: six weeks. Minimum.
Six weeks without our speed demon on the wing. Without that sparkplug who can change a game with a single rush. Six weeks of rehab, ice packs, and likely rage. Because Jaymie Prescott doesn’t sit still. He doesn't coast. He reloads.
And I know this kid. I know he’ll come back. Stronger. Meaner. Hungrier. Because he doesn’t know how to stay down.
For now, the Blades are 1-0. But the locker room felt like a wake. No music. No yelling. Just tape being peeled off in silence and that hollow thud of skates on rubber mat.
Victory’s supposed to taste like champagne and sweat. Last night, it tasted like iron.
But this is Chicago.
We bleed.
Then we bite back.
Jaymie
The chair in CoachTucker’s office was less a seat and more a medieval torture device. I shifted for the third time in two minutes, the edge of my quad burning against the cracked vinyl, my injured leg stretched awkwardly in front of me. Across from me, the office was a strange mix of minimal and cozy—framed game pucks from her assistant coaching days in the minors lined one shelf, a beat-up Stanley Cup playoff cap hung off the corner of awhiteboard, and there was a small potted cactus on her desk that looked half-dead but stubbornly alive. A metaphor for the team after last season.
"Prescott," Tucker said, her voice less icy drill sergeant and more big sister who didn’t have time for your crap but still cared, "you’re looking at a six-week rehab minimum. Partial tear in your left hamstring. Good news is, it’s clean. No fraying, no retraction."
