I'd never have written this fic, or survived the writing of it, without a lot of help. I can't possibly express in plain text how much help I got and how much I appreciate it. Y'all know I love you.
Heuradys singlehandedly jumpstarted writing on this project last March, and continued to cheerlead (and bribe) me all the way through. My girl Iulia did a great job of comma-wrangling and first-reading, and somehow managed to carry on betaing and keep me within shouting distance of sanity despite being in her first year of law school. Brooklinegirl was an absolutely invaluable beta whose comments kept me running throughout the last several months, and made many things very much better. Kat Allison read the final product, made many helpful comments, and approved it for final release.
Lamardeuse checked all the French that's correct. The rest of it, I foolishly didn't ask her to check. Queue contributed a few more important bits of French, via her sister's un-boyfriend's Mom, which was also enormously helpful. Mer talked me through a freakout regarding nurse verisimilitude, and she and the rest of the Write Clubbers kindly permitted me to rabbit on (and on and on) about this story during Write Club and on retreat. My big brother Dave corrected my trading card syntax without, I hasten to add, reading a word of the fic. Many, many other people encouraged me in many other ways. Thanks to all of you.
According to some notes in the bottom of my outline file, parts of the story belong to various people. Ray's use of the word "assault" is for Iulia. Ray's hands are for Brooklinegirl. Bully is, obviously, for Heuradys. The sex in scene 35 (hint: it's set in Winnipeg) is for Estrella. The bacon is for Aukestrel. Lynn, wedding bells are ringing. This is your last chance to run.
This story required a great deal of research, and I drew information from a great many sources, which I have attempted to credit where appropriate. The most massively informative--albeit in ways that will not tend to be obvious in the story--was hockeyDB.com, a website which includes major and minor league team rosters and player statistics, draft information, and game by game playoff results. I cannot begin to explain what a delight this website was to me throughout the writing process.
The characters and situations of due South belong to Paul Haggis, Paul Gross, and Alliance Atlantis, at least one of whom doesn't seem to mind sharing. Nonetheless, none of them belong to me.
This story includes characters who bear the names and thumbnail biographies of real people. The characters in this story are entirely fictionalized. I have no particular knowledge of any of the real people portrayed, and no insult of any kind is intended.
I really hate it when people defend implausibilities in fiction by saying, "But it really happened!" I'm not going to say that. I'm just going to relate a couple of true hockey anecdotes, which you may or may not consider relevant to this story, and leave it at that. NB: You may regard the following anecdotes as spoilers for story events which follow a similar course. If you're spoiler-sensitive, you may want to read these after the story.
In the summer of 2003 Atlanta Thrashers player Dany Heatley crashed the Ferrari in which he and teammate Dan Snyder were riding. Heatley, who was driving the car at high speed though apparently not intoxicated, suffered a severe knee injury and concussion. Snyder never regained consciousness and died six days later. Heatley was brought up on multiple charges including first-degree vehicular homicide. He apologized publicly to Snyder's family--the two had been close friends--and was publicly forgiven and supported throughout his recovery from his injuries and the trial. He returned to hockey in 2004 and in 2005 reached a plea bargain which allowed him to avoid jail time and continue his hockey career.
Joey Kocur spent most of his NHL career as a bruiser. He started out with the Red Wings, then was traded to New York, and then to Vancouver, where he played only briefly before retiring and moving back to the Detroit area and settling down with his wife and daughter in 1996 at the age of thirty-one. His hands were badly scarred from years of barehanded fighting and, according to one rather lurid news account, would "bleed spontaneously." He played in an over-30 beer league just for the love of playing hockey. About a year after he'd last played hockey professionally, he was approached by the Detroit Red Wings, his hometown team, about coming to play for them. After a brief tryout stint with a minor league team, he joined the Wings and went on to win the Stanley Cup with them in 1997 and again in 1998 before finally retiring for good in 1999. He is now an Assistant Coach with the Red Wings. The Washington Post's account of Kocur's story.
Red Wings defenseman Nick Lidstrom hit St. Louis Blues defenseman Chris Pronger in the chest with a slapshot which caused a cardiac arrhythmia--Pronger collapsed on the ice, his heart stopped briefly, and it was the scariest minute or two of hockey-delay that I ever watched. Pronger, however, seems rather unfazed in this interview.