Chapter 37 Denver Nights
Junior year at the University of Denver brought Lily Kane something she hadn’t expected: a real social life.
The first two years had been all hockey and classes—early mornings on the ice, afternoons in lecture halls, evenings in study carrels or the team film room. Friendships were deep but mostly confined to teammates: bus rides, locker-room laughs, late-night pizza after road trips. She’d gone to a few parties, danced awkwardly at a couple of formals, and enjoyed the quiet rhythm of it all.
But this year felt different.
The Pioneers had a new assistant coach, Coach Ramirez—a young former pro who believed in balance. “You’re only in college once,” she told the team on the first day of fall camp. “Work hard on the ice, but live a little off it.”
Lily took it to heart.
It started small: coffee with classmates after her sports marketing lecture turned into study groups that turned into grabbing burgers at a campus spot famous for its green-chili cheese fries. She joined a business club that met Thursdays at a downtown brewery (non-alcoholic for her, but the conversation was intoxicating enough). She discovered she liked live music—small venues with local bands where she could stand in the back, tap her foot, and feel the bass in her chest.
Her roommate Sophie dragged her to a Halloween party in LoDo. Lily went as a “retired hockey player” (jersey, eye black, and a fake knee brace), and ended up laughing until her sides hurt while playing flip cup with a group of engineering majors who had never seen a slap shot in person.
She made friends outside the team bubble: Maya from her ethics class, who loved hiking and always had the best playlists; Jonah, the quiet photography major who started showing up at games to take action shots and quietly became Lily’s favorite person to text memes to; Aisha, a grad student in sports psychology who helped Lily navigate the occasional anxiety that came with higher stakes on the ice.
Weekends opened up in new ways. Road trips still dominated, but home weekends meant freedom. Friday nights: team dinners that sometimes turned into bowling or karaoke. Saturday mornings after games: brunch with whoever was awake, wandering Cherry Creek for coffee and people-watching. Sunday afternoons: pickup soccer in the park with international students, or lazy library sessions that dissolved into gossip and laughter.
Lily learned she was good at making people feel included. She organized a monthly “rookie dinner” for the freshmen on the team—taking them to her favorite taco truck and listening to their wide-eyed stories about college life. She hosted study breaks in her dorm lounge, supplying snacks and moral support during finals week.
Dating flickered in and out. A few coffee meetups, one very nice dinner with a guy from her leadership seminar that ended with a sweet but awkward good-night hug and mutual agreement they were better as friends. Nothing serious, but the flutter of possibility was fun.
The social highlight of fall semester was the team’s formal in November. Held at a downtown hotel ballroom, it was the one night the Pioneers traded helmets for dresses and ties. Lily wore a simple black dress that made her feel tall and confident, her hair down for once. She danced with her teammates, slow-danced with Sophie to a cheesy ballad while they laughed about goalie fashion disasters, and ended the night on the balcony with a small group watching the city lights.
Winter brought holiday parties and secret-Santa exchanges. Lily drew Sophie and spent weeks crafting the perfect gift: a custom goalie mask decal with inside jokes from their two years rooming together.
Spring semester shifted gears. With conference play heating up, social time tightened, but the friendships held. Study groups became lifelines during midterms. Team bonding trips to the mountains for snow tubing turned into epic snowball fights and hot-chocolate-fueled confession sessions.
One warm April weekend, after a big series win, the team rented a house on a lake an hour outside Denver. No coaches, no curfew—just the twenty of them, a dock, kayaks, and a bonfire. Lily spent the day paddling with Maya and Aisha, jumping off the dock into cold water that made them scream and laugh. That night around the fire, stories flowed: first crushes, worst injuries, dreams after hockey. When someone pulled out a guitar, Lily sang harmony on an old country song her dad loved, her voice carrying soft over the water.
She felt, for the first time, the full shape of her college life: the grind of early practices balanced by the warmth of friends who knew her beyond the jersey number, the pressure of exams eased by late-night talks and shared snacks, the thrill of competition softened by quiet moments under Colorado stars.
The semester ended with finals and a deep playoff run that fell just short of nationals. Lily finished with thirty-two points, academic honors, and a circle of friends she knew would last a lifetime.
On the flight home for summer, she looked out the window at the Rockies shrinking below and felt a swell of gratitude. College wasn’t just classes and hockey—it was late-night laughter in dorm hallways, spontaneous road trips, learning how to be alone in a crowd and still feel connected.
But as the plane began its descent into Minnesota, something shifted.
Her phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: “Hey Kane—this is Connor Reid (scout with the new Boston pro team). Saw your playoff run. Coffee when you’re home this summer? We’re building something big.”
Lily stared at the message, heart racing.
Pro hockey. Real pro hockey. The new women’s league was expanding fast, and Boston—her dream city since childhood—was launching a franchise.
She typed back a careful yes, then looked out the window again.
The plane dipped through clouds, and suddenly everything felt wide open: summer in Evergreen Hollow with her family, one more college season to chase a championship, and now—the faint, thrilling outline of a professional future.
When the wheels touched down, Lily smiled.
The mistletoe bet had started it all.
Now the ice was calling her farther than she’d ever imagined.
And she was ready to answer.