Everybody in college hockey knows Northern Michigan Wildcats captain Eli Mercer is going pro before he’s even finished walking the graduation stage. Scouts started circling him freshman year, by sophomore year he was breaking records, and now at twenty-two he’s heading straight into the NHL with a contract worth more money than he knows what to do with. The university treats him like a legend already. Little kids wait outside the rink for signatures. Guys on the team copy the tape job on his stick like it’s some kind of religion.