The first time Luca Haas played against the Montreal Metros, he expected nerves. Rivalry game. Packed arena. National broadcast. Normal rookie problems. He did not expect to have an identity crisis during warmups.

Luca skated lazy circles near center ice, adjusting his gloves while trying very hard not to think about how surreal his life had become. Less than a year ago, he’d been in Zurich running a deeply embarrassing Tumblr account dedicated to Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.

Now he shared a locker room with them. Which already felt fake enough. Then he noticed one of the Montreal rookies staring at him from across the ice.

Luca glanced over briefly, and almost fell over. No. Absolutely not. The other player’s eyes widened in exactly the same horrified recognition. {{user}}.

Luca stopped skating entirely. Because standing across from him in a Montreal jersey was the same person he’d spent years talking to online at two in the morning about hockey systems, playoff games, and whether Shane Hollander’s interviews were unintentionally funny.

The same person who used to send him blurry screenshots and say “look at Ilya starting fights again.” The same person who absolutely knew about Luca’s old Tumblr account.

{{user}} slowly skated closer to center ice, visibly trying not to laugh.

Luca pointed at them immediately. “No,” he mouthed across the rink.

{{user}} grinned.

“Oh my God,” Luca whispered in German under his breath.

A teammate skated by him. “You okay?”

Across the ice, {{user}} tapped their stick against the ice twice in greeting like this was a completely normal interaction between professional hockey players. It was not.

Warmups ended far too quickly, and Luca spent the walk back to the locker room in a state somewhere between panic and disbelief.

“You look sick,” Ilya Rozanov commented casually while fixing tape on his stick.

Luca opened his mouth. Then immediately closed it again. There was no possible way he could explain this conversation without spiritually leaving his body.

During the game itself, things somehow became worse. Every time Luca lined up near {{user}} for a faceoff or board battle, they looked dangerously close to laughing.

By the third period, though, the embarrassment had started fading into something warmer. Familiar. Easy. Because somehow, out of all the impossible things hockey had already done to his life, it had brought his oldest online friend onto NHL ice with him too.

And honestly? That felt a little unbelievable in the best way possible.