Chapter Nine
Mike McDonough named Matvei the opening-night starter in the same tone he used to tell the team which practice jerseys to wear.
The Convoy’s head coach stood at the front of the video room with both hands braced against the podium, reading through the schedule for the day while the players settled into their seats.
He was in his mid-fifties, with thick gray beginning to overtake the dark hair at his temples and the permanently displeased expression of a man who believed smiling too often encouraged laziness.
When McDonough first arrived in Halifax four years earlier, several players had privately wondered whether he ever raised his voice because his natural speaking volume already sounded like an argument.
His Boston accent sharpened certain words and swallowed others, growing heavier when he was angry and nearly impossible to understand when he yelled across the ice.
New players found him intimidating.
Most veterans knew better.
McDonough could reduce a defenseman to silence with one look, but he also remembered the names of every player’s children, called injured players during the offseason and once delayed a team flight because an equipment manager’s father had been taken to the hospital.
The softness was there. He simply preferred that nobody mention it.
“Morning skate’s thirty minutes,” McDonough said. “I don’t need anybody trying to win the MVP Trophy at ten o’clock in the morning. We get loose, we touch the special teams and we get outta here.”
He glanced down at the paper in front of him.
“Belly’s got the net tonight. Cole, you’re ready behind him.”
That was all.
No speech about redemption. No explanation of why Matvei had been chosen. McDonough moved directly into the power-play units before anyone had time to look toward the goaltenders seated in the back row.
Matvei kept his eyes on the screen.
He had expected the start. He had played well during camp, looked healthy and spent most of the last seven seasons as Halifax’s unquestioned number one. The job should have been his unless he gave the coaches a reason to take it away.
That did not mean hearing his name brought no relief.
Beside him, Cole shifted in his seat. When the meeting ended and players began filing toward the locker room, the younger goaltender waited until most of the room had cleared before speaking.
“Congrats.”
Matvei looked at him. “For what?”
Cole smiled. “You know what.”
“It is one game.”
“Still opening night.”
Matvei collected his tablet from beneath the chair.
Cole’s expression remained easy, but Matvei understood how little that proved.
A goaltender could support his teammate and still want the net for himself.
Matvei had spent most of January watching Cole play and hoping he would succeed, even as every save made it less likely that Matvei would get the next start.
Both feelings could exist at once.
“You played good,” Matvei said.
Cole nodded. “So did you.”
“You deserve games.”
“I plan on getting some.”
There was no challenge in the words. Only confidence.
Matvei preferred that to false humility.
He stood, but McDonough called his name before he reached the door.
“Belly. Hang back a second.”
Cole continued toward the locker room while Matvei waited near the front. McDonough gathered the papers from the podium and shoved them into a folder, taking his time until the final assistant coach disappeared into the hallway.
“You good?” McDonough asked.
“Yes.”
“That ain’t what I asked.”
Matvei crossed his arms. “Then ask better.”
McDonough looked up slowly.
For half a second, Matvei wondered whether the joke had been worth making. Then one corner of the coach’s mouth moved.
“Everybody’s a comedian on opening day.”
“You ask if I am good. I am good.”
“Physically?”
“Yes.”
“Up here?” McDonough tapped one finger against his own temple.
Matvei’s expression tightened.
There it was. The question everyone had been asking since camp began, presented in a slightly different form. Was he confident? Had he recovered? Could he handle another bad goal without allowing it to become three?
McDonough must have seen the reaction because his voice lost some of its edge.
“I’m not asking for the papers,” he said. “I’m asking because I need to know.”
Matvei looked toward the empty rows of chairs.
“I am ready.”
“I know you are.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because last year sucked.”
The bluntness caught him off guard.
McDonough rested one hip against the podium and folded his arms. “You weren’t healthy, then you weren’t playing well, then everybody in the city had an opinion about what was wrong with you. That’s a lousy way to spend six months.”
Matvei said nothing.
“I’m not putting you in tonight because of what you did five years ago,” the coach continued. “I’m putting you in because you earned it in camp. You were the better goalie.”
“Cole was good.”
“Cole was very good. That’s what I want. Two good goalies make my life easier.”
“Not his.”
“No. Probably not.”
McDonough pushed away from the podium and picked up the folder. For a moment, he appeared ready to leave. Instead, he placed one hand briefly against Matvei’s shoulder.
“You don’t owe anybody a perfect game tonight,” he said. “Just give us your best.”
McDonough stepped around him and opened the door.
“And if Ottawa runs my goalie, somebody better make ’em regret it.”
The edge had returned to his voice.
Matvei followed him into the hallway.
Morning skate felt lighter once the decision had been made.
Matvei had not realized how much of camp he had spent waiting for the coaches to compare him with Cole until there was nothing left to compare.
Every drill, every rebound and every goal had become part of an evaluation nobody admitted was taking place.
Now the lineup had been submitted. The question was over, at least for one night.
Ottawa had arrived the previous afternoon.
The rivalry needed no introduction in Halifax.
The cities were close enough for visiting fans to fly out in large numbers and familiar enough to genuinely dislike one another.
The teams had met in the playoffs four times in twelve years, each series adding another grievance that neither fan base intended to forget.
There had been overtime goals, suspensions, disputed hits and one handshake line that nearly became another fight.
Opening night against anyone would have been loud.
Opening night against Ottawa would be something else.
Matvei stepped into his crease and followed his usual routine. He scraped the loose snow away from the posts, tapped the left one, then the right and settled into his stance as Pat fired the first puck toward his glove.
The shot hit the pocket cleanly.
“Again,” Matvei said.
Pat shot lower. Matvei directed it toward the corner.
Across the ice, Cole worked with one of the assistant coaches. There was no visible disappointment in the younger goaltender’s movements. He stopped each puck, reset and asked for another exactly as he would have if the coaches had named him the starter.
Matvei respected him for it.
The team moved into rush drills, then special teams. Joona skated on the second power-play unit, positioned near the left circle where his shot could become a threat if the penalty killers gave him enough space.
He missed the net on his first attempt.
“Good start,” Matvei called.
Joona circled behind the net. “Save energy for tonight.”
“Maybe hit net.”
The next shot beat Matvei above the blocker and struck the underside of the crossbar before dropping behind him.
Joona lifted both arms.
“It is morning skate,” Matvei said.
“Still goal.”
“No scoreboard.”
“You see puck in net.”
Matvei sent it back toward center with his stick. “Lucky.”
Joona grinned as he returned to the line.
The exchange loosened something inside Matvei. For ten minutes, the game felt like any other day at the rink. He stopped shots, argued with teammates and listened to Pat correct details neither of them would remember by evening.
Near the end of the skate, Matvei glanced toward the seats above the benches.
The media occupied a small section near center ice. Most were talking among themselves while the final drills ended. Tessa sat two rows lower than the others with her notebook resting against one knee.
She looked different than she did in the locker room. Smaller, somehow.
Her dark hair was tied back, and the credential hung over a navy coat he had not seen before. She followed the puck through the neutral zone, then lowered her eyes to write something.
As though she sensed him looking, she lifted her head.
Their eyes met across the rink.
Tessa gave a small nod.
Matvei returned it before turning toward the next shot.
He did not know why the acknowledgment settled him.
He chose not to examine it.
The hours between morning skate and the game moved slowly.
Matvei returned home, ate the same meal he had eaten before home games for most of his career and lay in bed without sleeping. The curtains blocked the afternoon light, but the room never became dark enough to quiet his thoughts.
He pictured the first shot.
Then the first Ottawa rush.
Then the sound the building would make if the first shot went in.
He rolled onto his side and reached for his phone. Messages filled the team group chat, most of them jokes about Viktor’s choice of music for the warmup playlist. A separate thread from friends in Russia contained several reminders that they planned to watch despite the late hour.
Matvei did not answer either.
He opened the Tribune’s website without thinking.
Tessa’s story about the goaltending decision remained near the top of the sports page. He had read it the previous afternoon, though he had told himself he only wanted to see which quotes she used.
She had included exactly what he said.
He believed he had shown enough to start. He felt ready in every way.
She had not used the comment about Cole because the recorder had been off.
Matvei had expected to feel relieved.