Defense and Deals: Goshawks Hockey Romance #2 (Portland, Maine Goshawks Hockey)

The Portland, Maine Goshawks open the season with a target on their backs. A Cup win brings no mercy. Rival teams come hard, while deeper threats surface inside the organization. Star goalie Hunter Griffin faces contract limbo. Two hockey phenoms join the roster. One chases the spotlight. The other fights to fit in.

Fan favorite trades and sudden management shifts expose the truth players know too well. Hockey is a ruthless business. Loyalty rarely survives a balance sheet. Players become assets, cut loose without warning.

Margret VanAlen never expected to stand in the center of the storm. Last season’s Goshawks media manager now shoulders mounting responsibilities as deadlines tighten and pressure closes in. Her summer romance with a South Dakota cowboy threatens to derail her hard work when he arrives in Portland, blurring the line between personal risk and professional fallout.

On the ice, front line defenseman Ryan Mitchell carries his own South Dakota complications. A summer fling refuses to stay buried, pressing at the edges of his focus as the season intensifies. He tucks it away the moment he steps onto the sheet. Protecting his goalie with relentless precision, he absorbs punishment shift after shift. Rivals crash the crease. Bodies hammer the boards. Bruises bloom. He blames himself for every shot he fails to stop, even when his battered frame tells a truer story.

The Goshawks fight through wins and losses in a volatile race for a second Cup. On-ice plays raise the stakes. Off-ice deals raise them higher. Unexpected love slips into the quiet spaces between defeat and victory, catching players and management off guard as the season unfolds.

Defense keeps the Goshawks in the battle.

Deals threaten to pull them apart.

Love finds a way through the seams.