The inaugural professional women's league game in franchise history was scheduled for a Thursday night in early October, and Reese had never, in her entire life, felt pressure quite like the specific weight of representing something that had never existed before — not just a team, not just a season, but proof, concrete and undeniable, that an entire league could actually work.
The arena sold out three weeks in advance, a fact the front office kept repeating in every internal meeting with a kind of disbelieving pride, as though even they hadn't fully trusted the demand would materialize. Reese stood in the tunnel before warmups, lacing her skates with hands that shook slightly despite years of practice steadying them before big games, and thought about every version of herself that had led
