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Putting on his uniform always made him realize how damn lucky he was to be able to do what he loved the h to toddle His father had loved hockey and had encouraged Trick to play, and he’d taken to it as if he’d been born to do it He wished his dad were still alive to see him play now He missed the enthusiasames Trick always took a few seconds before the start of every game to focus on his father, to reeiven hiood

He still had his mom back in Milwaukee, and saw her as often as he could She called and texted hi a hockey fan as his dad had been She came out to New York a couple of ti her

He sht, and as he took the ice and heard the cheers of all the fans, wished he could see hisface there But he rounded the corner out of the box and saw Stella grinning down at hiood way

That woht away for later, because he had to concentrate on this ga he wanted to do was suck as bad as he had at practice today So he shut out all the otherhis brain and focused on his teaood teaot into position, there was only one thing on his mind--the puck

After the face-off, Drew had the puck and Trick followed Drew’s lead on the other side of the ice It was a lot of volleying back and forth at the beginning of the gaot a feel for each other Trick took the pass and skated to the Nashville net, his teaht on his skates He passed it and the defenseman intercepted

Shit It went like this for a while, but they played a lot at the Nashville net, keeping the puck away fron It took patience and concentration, and Trick had plenty of that He waited for another chance, which he got several minutes later, then passed the puck to Dreho breezed past the defender

Trick aiting for the puck, fought the defender for it, and moved to the net

Dreas there, and Trick shot it over Drew slid it right in past the goalie

The lamp lit

They’d scored

A ain on a pass from Drew to Trick The Travelers were the only ones to score in the first period, because Avery was on fire in the Travelers’ net, fighting off oal

In the second period, both Drew and Boyd scored, with one assist fro after the second period, but Nashville scored a minute and a half into the third period