The Flyers were tied 2–2 with the Penguins halfway through the second period, and the Wells Fargo Center was vibrating with the kind of feral energy only a Flyers-Pens game could summon. Somewhere below the raucous crowd, behind the bench, sat Carter Hart in full gear. Beside him stood Sam Ersson, chewing nervously on his mouthguard. And three rows above, dressed in a team tracksuit and allegedly "scratched due to illness," sat Aleksei Kolosov, watching the ice like a hawk surveilling a Cold War chessboard.
What the crowd didn’t know: tonight wasn’t just about beating Crosby. It was about unmasking a traitor.
Moments before puck drop, Gritty had passed Kolosov a secret message encoded in a children’s T-shirt cannon launch. The projectile struck Kolosov square in the chest during a sponsored intermission game, knocking a soda out of a child’s hands and earning Gritty a stern warning from arena security. Inside the rolled-up shirt? A burner flip phone and a single phrase:
"The mole is in the catwalk. Section 212. Tonight."
Kolosov knew what that meant. The arena’s steel-beamed ceiling was a perfect perch for surveillance, sabotage, and espionage. If someone were leaking playbooks and encrypted player GPS data, that’s where they’d be.
He excused himself with a fake coughing fit and slipped into the inner bowels of the Wells Fargo Center. Past the HVAC ductwork. Past an unused storage room filled with Dan Carcillo bobbleheads. Then up, through a maintenance ladder that hadn’t been touched since the last Metallica concert.
Once on the catwalk, the game below looked like a miniature battlefield. From this height, he could see everything—the bench rotations, the defensive breakdowns, the smug look on Evgeni Malkin’s face. And then, movement.
A figure.
Dressed in black, crouched low, aiming a directional mic toward the Flyers’ bench. In their hand, a tablet. The mole.
Kolosov crept forward, every step measured, soundless, predatory. He was 15 feet away when the figure turned.
It was Flyers assistant video coach Brent “Mouse” Montgomery—a quiet man with a Yale degree, an eye for power plays, and, apparently, a second job as a data broker for the Broad Street Syndicate.
Mouse locked eyes with Kolosov and bolted, sprinting across the beam like a gymnast with a grudge. Kolosov gave chase, leaping from truss to truss, his skates converted into magnetic climbing cleats thanks to a last-minute mod from Gritty’s workshop. Below them, the crowd erupted as Travis Konecny scored on a breakaway. Above, two men fought for the soul of the franchise.
Mouse stopped, panting, cornered at the edge of the rafters.
“You don’t get it,” he snarled. “The Flyers are a mess. They’ll never win again. I’m just accelerating the inevitable!”
Kolosov stared, then calmly removed a puck from his coat pocket. Regulation size. Frozen. He tossed it in his hand, casually.
Then, with sniper precision, he threw it.
The puck struck Mouse’s hand, knocking the tablet free. It tumbled down into section 108, where a fan wearing a Ron Hextall is My Life Coach hoodie caught it in a beer.
Mouse lunged, but Kolosov tackled him. The two crashed through a ceiling tile, landing in an empty VIP suite next to a startled former Flyer eating shrimp cocktail. Security stormed in. Mouse was detained. The leak was sealed.
Later that night, back in the players’ tunnel, GM Daniel Brière approached Kolosov.
“We heard what happened,” Brière said, sipping from a Wawa coffee. “Hell of a play.”
Kolosov nodded. “I save more than goals.”
Brière squinted. “You ever actually plan on suiting up?”
Kolosov shrugged. “If the mission calls for it.”
As Gritty walked past, he offered Kolosov a single thumbs-up, then body-slammed a trash can.
The game was won. The mole was outed. But Kolosov knew this was only the beginning.
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