SKY’S POV
The arena in Chicago holds twenty-two thousand people, and every single one of them seemed to know exactly what happened to me six weeks ago.
I’d played road games my whole career. You learn to tune out the building, the noise, the chants that try to get inside your head before the puck ever drops. This one felt different before I even stepped on the ice.
I could feel it in the tunnel, in the way the sound carried differently, in the way our own equipment guys kept glancing at me like they were waiting for something.
Warm-ups went fine. Shots felt normal. My glove did what it was supposed to do, my legs moved the way they always moved. I told myself that was the whole test, and I’d passed it, and the rest was just noise.
Then I skated out for the anthem and the crowd started
