GallagherWitt

TITLE: Playmaker
COVER ARTIST: Lori Witt

LENGTH: 90,000 words
PAIRING: Lesbian/Sapphic
GENRE(S): Contemporary, Enemies to Lovers,

Hockey

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BLURB:

Lila Hamilton is thrilled to be joining the Pittsburgh Bearcats, the League’s latest expansion team. She’s rehabbed from her knee injury and ready for a fresh start in a new city.

But did Pittsburgh have to sign Sabrina McAvoy?

Lila’s played with and against Sabrina before. She’s hot and she’s exactly Lila’s type, but she’s also hockey royalty—her father was a generational talent, and her brother is a star in the men’s league. Players, coaches, and sports commentators fawn all over her because of her family name, and Sabrina shamelessly exploits that.

Lila doesn’t care how attractive she is—no, thanks.

But there’s more to Sabrina’s story than Lila realizes.

Sabrina knows what people say. That her journey to professional hockey was an easy one thanks to her dad. That she left her ex-husband and reverted back to her maiden name so she could leverage her family’s dynasty to sign with a team. That she’s nothing more than a nepo baby on skates.

But she knows the truth, and this is her chance to prove she deserves to play at this level on her own merits. Prove it to the haters. Prove it to her father.

And absolutely prove it to Lila Hamilton.

EXCERPT:

Chapter 1
Lila

Pittsburgh Signs Team USA Stars, UFAs for Inaugural Women’s Hockey Season

PITTSBURGH – The Women’s Hockey Professional League expansion is well underway, with all six new teams adding headliner players to their rosters alongside an outstanding draft class from Europe and North America.

In addition to collecting exceptional talent via the League’s expansion draft, the Pittsburgh Bearcats have fared incredibly well in the free agent market.

General Manager Chloe Morin announced last week that the organization had agreed to terms with unrestricted free agent Lila Hamilton, an Olympic medalist and World Junior Women’s gold and silver medalist. Though Hamilton’s three lackluster seasons in Omaha were plagued with injuries—she only played seventeen games last season—Morin stated that the defender’s knee has recovered, and she will go into this season with a clean bill of health.

“It’s impossible to play at your best with an injury,” Pittsburgh Head Coach Hannah Reilly said during yesterday’s media availability. “Her knee is back to 100% after surgery and rehab, and we are fully confident that her hockey will follow suit.”

Yesterday, Morin told reporters that the Bearcats had also signed Sabrina McAvoy to a four-year deal. The decorated forward is a member of the McAvoy hockey dynasty—daughter of legendary Buffalo centerman Doran McAvoy and sister of two-time Cup winner Mark McAvoy, who currently plays for St. Louis. She disappeared from hockey after marrying Houston goalie Ty Caufield, re-emerging last year on a professional tryout contract with the Seattle Winterhawks following her divorce. The PTO turned into a one-year deal, with McAvoy putting up 79 points in 72 games.

“We’re thrilled to have a McAvoy on our team,” Bearcats co-owner Wendy Trusch told a press conference. “Her father and brother are extraordinary players, and so is she. I have no doubt the family’s legacy will continue in Pittsburgh.”

McAvoy is a two-time World Junior Women’s gold medalist. She has played together with Hamilton on Team USA at the Olympic Games, earning silver and bronze medals, and both are thought to be strong contenders for the next team selection.

Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Nashville are the newest additions to the League’s Eastern Conference, with Anaheim, Albuquerque, and Denver joining the Western Conference. The WHPL—once thought to be a pipe dream destined for disappointment—now boasts twenty-four teams across the U.S. and Canada, with several rivaling the men’s hockey league for ratings and game attendance.

Training camps begin later this month, and the regular season commences in October.

 

I rolled my eyes and shoved my phone in my pocket. I needed to finish packing, not grind my teeth over my new team gleefully announcing that they’d signed my favorite player.

I muttered a few choice curses as I opened the curio case to start wrapping up my trophies and medals. The movers would be here later, but there were things I only trusted myself to pack. Lesson learned the hard way after some movers broke my MVP trophy from my junior division finals. At least I’d been able to repair that.

As I carefully slid one of my medals into its box, then started wrapping it in bubble wrap, I couldn’t help thinking about the article I’d just read.

I knew I should’ve felt better than this after reading the article. I was excited to play in Pittsburgh. I’d been frustrated from the start with my team here in Nebraska, and I looked forward to the change of scenery, not to mention playing for Hannah Reilly, who’d been an assistant coach at my first World Junior Women’s. She’d been a great mentor back then; seeing her in a head coach position was no surprise at all, and I was thrilled to be playing for her now.

But did Pittsburgh have to sign Sabrina McAvoy?

My shoulders sagged, and I pushed out a tired, frustrated sigh as I carefully placed the wrapped box inside the larger crate. There were so many top tier players up for grabs right now. As far as I knew, Ella Chambers was still unsigned, and she’d been the League’s top scorer two seasons in a row. Why in God’s name would our GM grab Sabrina while Ella was right there?

Yeah, I knew it was more complicated than that. There were likely other teams vying for Ella, and cap space was an issue, especially for someone who commanded the salary she did. But come on. Sign her along with a bunch of prospects and college players, and build a team around her.

For whatever reason, though, we now had Sabrina. Suddenly Pittsburgh didn’t feel like the breath of fresh air I’d imagined.

And the article itself just pissed me off. I knew better than to read articles mentioning her because they were always stupid and irritating. Of course, the reporter had to talk about both of us. And of course, they had to harp on my knee and how my performance had taken a dive because of it, and like, let’s all hope Lila Hamilton gets her shit together because she can’t use her knee as an excuse anymore.

Did they talk about Sabrina’s injuries? Or how her stats were down last season after she, you know, took four whole years away from hockey? Of course not. But they sure took the time to name drop her dad, her brother, and even her ex-husband. They just rolled right on past the part where she stopped playing for four years and then picked it up again like it was nothing. She didn’t even have to go into the minors. Just strolled on in, got a PTO, and scored a one-year deal as a second line center as if she’d never been gone.

Ugh. Typical. Sabrina’d had injuries too, but she could probably have a shattered knee and be one concussion away from being barred from the ice, and reporters would still ignore all that to talk about her family. The rest of us had to bust our asses to get to and stay at this level, but all Princess Hockey had to do was wave around her family name. She knew it, too; why else had she been so quick to change back to it after the divorce when she wanted to play hockey again?

I’d gritted my teeth through playing with her on the Olympic and World Junior teams because those had been short term. There were practices and all, but it wasn’t protracted like playing a full regular season together. Now we were stuck on the same team for at least two years. Well, unless my knee gave out, one of us got traded, or Sabrina found another sugar daddy from the men’s league and “retired” again. I wondered which of those three was most likely.

I pulled another medal from the case and paused, running my thumb over the cool edge. It was the gold I’d brought home from my second World Junior Women’s. Sabrina had been on my team—it was her first time, since I was a year ahead of her—and I honestly didn’t remember much about her. I didn’t remember much of anything, really. It was all such a chaotic blur of pressure and travel and hockey and adrenaline, and sometimes when I got nostalgic and watched the highlights and recaps, I couldn’t actually remember being there for certain moments.

I remembered Sabrina scoring the game-winning goal. Double overtime against Finland. Clear as day, I remembered watching from the bench as she stole the puck off a forward’s blade. The instant she’d started toward the offensive zone with no one between her and the net except the goalie, we’d been on our feet. I remembered screaming her name, screaming “Go! Go!”, my heart pounding and my head spinning because the defender was coming up on her heels and that netminder had been a brick wall all night, and then—

To this day, I could feel the surge of euphoria that hit me when I’d watched Sabrina tap it in. The red light had come on, the crowd had gone wild, and we’d flown over the boards to celebrate.

And to this day, I vividly recalled the way my heart had sunk a little deeper every time a reporter had asked us a question about what it was like to play alongside a McAvoy. They’d all acted like she’d singlehandedly hauled us all the way through the tournament, as if this same team—minus Sabrina—hadn’t silvered the previous year. Never mind that the reason we’d wound up in overtime in the first place was because of a disastrous turnover from Sabrina that had resulted in a buzzer beater goal against. Or that she’d taken a costly penalty in the quarterfinals that had given Denmark the chance to expand their lead to two goals. Or that it had taken some highlight-reel worthy magic from some of our teammates not named Sabrina to overcome that deficit and pull off a win.

I sighed and closed the box with the medal in it. That was how it was, playing on the same team as Sabrina. All her mistakes and injuries were glossed over. Meanwhile, I would always be defined by my inability to play at my usual level after a torn ACL.