Captain, Portland Wolves
He spent twenty years controlling who got close to what.
Declan Rourke has spent twelve years building a reputation for invincibility. As captain of the Portland Wolves, he's the player who holds the room together, who leads by example, who never shows weakness. But when a Grade II labral tear threatens to end his season, he's forced to confront a terrifying truth: he's been carrying everything alone, and the weight is finally breaking him.
View ProfileAlternate Captain, Portland Wolves
He is the funniest person in most rooms and the saddest person in all of them.
Ben Kowalski is the funniest person in every room he walks into. The Portland Wolves' alternate captain has spent eight years perfecting the art of deflection: jokes that land, grins that disarm, a performance so polished nobody notices what's underneath. But when a journalist starts seeing through the mask, he's forced to confront the inheritance he never asked for: his father's pattern of carrying everything alone, smiling until the end.
View ProfileSenior Sports Journalist
Precision personified: every word placed like a tile in a floor.
Renee Lavoie didn't become the best reporter in the league by falling for surfaces. She sees the blocked calendar entries, the three-second pauses after questions about fathers, the way Ben Kowalski performs his own personality like it's a second job. What she can't figure out is why she's still watching, and why, when her own professional ethics are tested, he's the only one who understands the cost of telling the truth.
View ProfileDirector of Sports Medicine, Portland Wolves
She measured everything, until someone measured her.
Elena Marlowe is the best shoulder specialist in North America. She's rebuilt Olympic athletes and NHL stars. She doesn't do emotional involvement; her own trauma taught her that professional distance is survival. But Declan's shoulder isn't the only thing that needs rebuilding, and the vocabulary they develop to track his recovery becomes the language of something neither of them planned.
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