The Ironclad's practice facility looked exactly like the kind of building that housed a genuine professional sports operation, all glass and steel and quiet, expensive efficiency, nothing like the drafty rink back in Ridgeview with its ancient bleachers and space heaters that never quite worked.
I arrived Monday afternoon, jet-lagged and running on the specific nervous energy that came from not having slept properly in two days, camera bag slung across my body the way it had been slung across a hundred yearbook assignments a lifetime ago. A media relations coordinator named Bethany met me at the front desk, all brisk professionalism and a laminated badge she clipped onto my jacket without ceremony.
"Full access today," she said, walking briskly down a hallway lined with framed jerseys an
