Even when Capitolium sees Caro write over a thousand words on air, and bring her total word count to over 11,000 words for the night, because he couldn’t write about games alone, he also comes to realize that he doesn’t have a clue as to what to write between the games he feels matter to the plot.

I know that a strong performance during the Memorial Cup, and playing relatively well at the World Juniors will get him picked in the first round. But as with Caro, I, too, must come to terms with having to change the teams’ names if I am to keep the cities, major junior or NHL. But at the same time, I can’t use the same team names as Caro, so no using Backcrackers or Constellations, Capitolium reflects on how he goes around writing, in a desperation move, the ending before writing any remaining games. Here’s the deal: I want the MMC to get nervous on draft day since he isn’t first overall pick material, and maybe I ought to write a short chapter on the NHL Lottery, with the whole family watching it, before I get to the ending itself!

For this purpose, while he looks for a Discord writing server to get the information he feels is missing to complete the rest of the book, he starts a video playing in the background about the current procedures of the NHL draft lottery.

“I’m sure Caroline knows about how NHL Draft lottery winners cannot move up more than ten spots in the draft, and then the ordering of the remaining non-playoff teams, and then non-division winners in the playoffs, but I think a lot of her viewers don’t know” he sighs while he makes his characters go on a trip to the draft.

Especially since he plans on making his MMC first-rounder material but, unlike so many books dealing in either major junior or college hockey players, he doesn’t want him to be lottery pick material. Or at least not first overall pick material. Damn: I completely forgot to talk about how the draft comes into play in literature with Caro when I talked about what made me bitter about hockey romance! I thought she already had enough on her plate dealing with life in the NHL without having to worry about the prospect side of things! But I do want the billet family, and also the family reunion with the MMC’s family of origin, because draft day is one of the most important days in the life of a draftee. This means I bought myself 2 chapters’ time before I hit the wall!

The penultimate chapter of Capitolium’s book begins the day before the NHL Entry Draft begins. Which he tentatively numbers Chapter F-1, and Chapter F being the draft proper. But before then, he DMs Caro:

Capitolium: I trust you know about how the draft is portrayed in romance

Caroline: No? None of the books I managed to read before the challenge began dealt with the draft, although my plan does make my couple agonize over possible draft-day trading

Capitolium: The draft is often portrayed wrong

Caroline: I’m not surprised, but you never brought it up in your laundry list of issues about hockey romance

Capitolium: Did you read any hockey romance set in either major junior or college?

Caroline: No

Capitolium: So there’s a book where you have a player who’s apparently drafted by like five different teams, and he then needs to pick one, and another one where he could enter the draft as a senior in college; otherwise, MMCs in major junior or college hockey romance are typically lottery pick material

Caroline: I guess, hockey romance books with pro players for MMCs are more common for a reason

Capitolium: You would think that prospects are both excited and nervous on draft day

Caroline: FOMO is one big driver for draft-day trading from a team’s perspective, and I plan on making the team I call C make a trade on day one of the draft

Capitolium: I can say in complete confidence that I never, ever read a book with draft-day trading as a plot point; there might exist one, but it’s probably by a very obscure author

Oh God, I hope that Caro realizes that draft-day trading causes more tension for prospects than for players already in the league, since most draft-day trades are picks-for-picks. I can think of some players moved on draft day, including the following: Zack Kassian, Petr Mrazek and Kirby Dach. I might have missed other players, though. The former two are examples of assets having negative value, but if Caro wants to make Gustavs afraid that he’d go the way of Dach… Capitolium starts thinking about the narrative implications of draft-day trading.

However, he quickly realizes that having unpacked what he had to say about the portrayal of the draft in hockey romance, it distracted him from writing the reunion scene on draft day, and how the family of origin meets with the billet family for the first time.

About how the need to have the city determined for the draft, and hence the pre-draft family reunion. For this purpose, he looks up locations of past NHL drafts, knowing that, as with the real draft, cities cannot host the draft in two consecutive years. And also, location is one of the things he must take liberties with. Ideally choose from cities that never hosted the NHL Entry Draft.

This means I must choose one between Utah, Seattle, San Jose, Winnipeg, Washington, Tampa or Colorado. Utah is the one I can cross off right off the bat since the Utah Hockey Club’s arena is inadequate for that purpose for now. Maybe Washington, I guess…, he sighs, knowing that the choice of a host city would determine the setting of the ending.

But while he starts writing the family reunion for the MMC, he dives deep into who could be at the draft for teams, knowing that front offices no longer go to a centralized location all at once.

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We planned our vacation around the draft, because it’s a dream come true for our son. He worked so hard for years for this day… he writes a line of dialogue about the player’s dad, and how it feels to him, having missed his son’s graduation from high school.

At the same time, the billet family knows that, even for first-rounders, let alone players picked in later rounds, just being picked doesn’t mean much for even making it to the NHL. The next step that carries that level of significance would then be the first game in the big league.

And yet Capitolium knew that prospects projected to be taken in the first round, even in the final third, would want to be there in person for the first day. More so than in football or basketball anyway.

Thank God Glitter isn’t nearly as active in the stream as she used to… I can tell she hates hockey interfering with the romance, Capitolium sighs, while both families tour the city. The Mall, the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and, of course, the Smithsonian. And eat in the Chinatown near the not-Capitals’ arena. Once that chapter ends, emotionally spent from writing the family reunion between the MMC and his original family, he goes to bed.

But the following day, comes the time to write the draft itself, where no one is under any illusion that the MMC will go first overall, especially when the prospects who can realistically go first overall outplayed him at the World Juniors.

“Welcome to the 2025 NHL Entry Draft, on behalf of the NHL, we would like to thank to congratulate Edmonton for their Stanley Cup win, as well as the city of Washington for hosting the draft. Anaheim, you’re on the clock!” Capitolium reads the line, as if he was the commissioner’s voice actor, announcing to the fans in attendance, and the handful of team reps in the arena.

The prospects grow more restless as teams make their selections, and players parade on the stage, wearing the jerseys of the teams that drafted them. I think I might want to throw a twist: maybe I could have a team trade up but give up a combination of picks and prospects for it. However, you don’t need to be a hockey fan like Caroline or me to know that prospects are the hardest class of assets to value in a trade. That said, I am practically forced to have that prospect play at either the World Juniors, the Q’s final or the Memorial Cup, or else it just wouldn’t feel right, he ruminates about what the draft-day trade would imply for earlier, yet-to-be-written passages.

“We have a trade to announce: Pittsburgh trades the tenth overall pick to Utah, in exchange for the fifteenth overall pick, all in this year’s draft, and Tyler September!” Capitolium reprises his voice acting for the initial version of the trade announcement.

No, no, no, that doesn’t sound right: however, September would project as a second or third-liner if I kept the trade as-is. However, who drafted September would not be brought up until then. Why is it that I’m mired on more hockey stuff when my writer’s block has to do more with non-hockey stuff? Capitolium is left wondering what would that imply for his player characters. He then thinks of how this trade could go differently, and their implications for their on-ice talent. And how would his MMC feel about this trade. Excitement that a team might have moved up to get him, and then the disappointment of having fallen outside the top 10 afterward.

He struggles to think of what “feels” best to him if the only constant was September being packaged with a team’s first-rounder, when he wasn’t established as a NHL draftee, and isn’t planned to until the World Juniors. Maybe if I show a team desperately wanting in on the top 10, and willing to trade away a prospect along with maybe a third-rounder to do so… he starts re-writing what happens before the trade announcement with Pittsburgh’s GM on the phone with both Utah and another team. One team went pick-for-picks, and the other threw in a prospect on top of picks. He starts to wonder how that would affect what he feels is the best final version.

But he writes about what happens eight picks later, when another trade announcement comes for the crowd, which, unlike the previous one, was a little underwhelming. Or relatively exciting, depending on who you ask:

“We have a trade to announce, and the local fans in this building are going to be interested: Winnipeg trades picks number eighteen and one hundred seventy-eight to Washington in exchange for picks number twenty-four and eighty-eight, all in this year’s draft! Washington, you’re on the clock!” Capitolium reads the second trade announcement as if to rehearse his voice acting.

For Washington, it was a clear-cut decision because they were worried about teams picking at #19-23 taking the MMC before pick #24 arrives. Then comes the pick announcement:

“Washington is proud to select, with the eighteenth overall pick, from…” the male writer is interrupted in his reading of the pick announcement, supposed to be the climax of the MMC’s arc, by a DM from Caro.

Caroline: Winnipeg got hosed in that deal; a team in the third quarter of the first round would need more than a late third-rounder to move up six spots, much less get a sixth

Damn it! Caro’s right: Montreal gave up much more than a third to get to Hage at #21, and they moved up one fewer position, as well as from a lower position, too… Caroline’s comment on the trade that led his MMC got to him. Which leads him to change the round of Washington’s second pick being traded away.

Capitolium: You’re right, but I have a question for you: which package do you think Pittsburgh would accept at #10, #15 + prospect A, or #17 + prospect B + #70

Caroline: Prospects are rarely traded away on draft day, but I would say that package B would make the team at #17 more desperate than the team at #15, and probably paint prospect B in a better light than prospect A

Capitolium: Here’s the revised announcement: Pittsburgh trades pick number ten to Dallas for Tyler September, pick number seventeen and pick number seventy, all in this year’s draft

This reminds me: I must get to the daily par, and maybe I should write my own draft-day chapter, where I must exploit my character’s insecurities. Where his strong play in the playoffs might lead team C to trade him away since he’s due for a raise they can’t afford, a Caroline struggling to reach the daily 1667 words ruminates as she hastily starts writing the antepenultimate chapter on a separate page. I spent far too long playing that game, because I deemed the first day of a battle pass week the most critical and hence tried to get as much done as possible, she wonders whether it’s even possible to maintain any sort of coherence while writing at what feels like an infernal pace to her.

And off the stream, too, since she cut the stream after her playing time was finished for the day, and she feels the need to keep some energy for writing until midnight.

As with Capitolium, she feels like jumping this close to the ending will force her to prematurely set up details that will come up earlier in the story, when she’ll come back to these bits eventually. Like the identity of team C, and also forces her to have a chapter with a Constellations game against team C before the trade deadline. I might also want trade rumors to poison Gustavs’ life in his relationship with Emma in the leadup to the trade deadline, and maybe even during that game against team C!