The third game of the series did not feel like a continuation.
It felt like a referendum.
The opposing barn was louder than the first two buildings combined, the kind of sustained, personal noise that lived in the boards and the glass and the space between your helmet and your skull. Their crowd had decided we were the villain of the story and committed to the bit with religious intensity. Warm-up carried an edge that made even the simple act of retrieving a dumped puck feel like a territorial negotiation. Damian skated through it like weather he had already forecasted. I skated through it like weather I was still learning how to name.
We won.
Not cleanly. Not with the kind of narrative clarity that made highlight packages easy to edit. We won in a 3–2 act of sustained refusal that req
