I pass Finn on the way.
Finn straightens. Gloves flexed.
“You good?” I ask. Casual. Already moving.
“Fine.”
I do not slow down.
I drink my water, watch Finn rejoin the drill, and file it away. I do not like what I have.
The kid laughs two minutes later when Colt chirps him about his tape job. Loud. Too loud. The laugh men use when they want everyone to know nothing’s wrong.
I have heard that laugh from myself at twenty-four. After the hit in Calgary. After the trainer asked if lights looked weird and I said only when the power was out, because concussion protocol was a perfect time to become a comedian.
I played the next night.
I do not remember the second period.
The memory slides in before I can stop it. Remembering would require admitting the room has been teaching this lesson longer than Finn has been in the league.
Finn takes another rep and comes off blinking hard.
My first instinct is to call Maren.
My second is to wait.
I do not trust the second one.
At the bench, I snap my stick.
Bad angle off the boards, leverage wrong, shaft cracked clean through. Loud. Stupid. I have to skate all the way to equipment while two of the younger guys watch with their eyebrows up.
“Happens,” Roman says, not looking up from his stretch.
“I know it happens.”
“Just saying.”
I take the new stick and do not say anything.
Sully catches me near the tunnel on the way in. He walks alongside me for four steps without talking, which is Sully’s version of an announcement.
“Finn’s been taking hits different,” Sully says.
“I noticed.”
“And?”
I look at the tunnel ahead. “Medical cleared him after the Phoenix game.”
“Medical cleared him for the playoffs. Not for whatever’s happening with his equilibrium on contact.” He looks at me sideways. “You want the room to trust you, keep your temperature readable.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
I keep walking.