Chapter Eleven
The NHL announced the Six Nation Showdown on a Wednesday morning in early November, less than twelve hours after the Convoy returned from a road game in Boston.
Tessa learned about it from the league press release that appeared in her inbox that morning, though the existence of the tournament had been one of hockey’s least protected secrets for nearly a month.
Executives had discussed it anonymously.
Players had been asked whether they would participate in an event no one had officially confirmed.
Television partners had somehow begun promoting December programming without acknowledging exactly what would fill it.
The final announcement contained fewer surprises than marketing language.
Six countries. Eleven days. One host city.
The United States, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Russia and Czechia would send teams composed entirely of NHL players to Helsinki during the league’s Christmas break.
The countries would play a short round-robin schedule before the top four advanced to the semifinals.
The league described the format as a celebration of international hockey and a chance to give fans the kind of best-on-best competition that had become increasingly difficult to organize around the NHL calendar.
Rick called it a cash grab before finishing the first paragraph.
Linda called it an injury waiting to happen.
Tessa read the entire release twice.
The event had been named the Six Nation Showdown, a title that sounded as though it had been selected by a committee after rejecting anything with even a hint of personality.
The league had built an entire visual campaign around six intersecting lines, each carrying the colors of one participating country.
Promotional photographs showed players staring dramatically toward something beyond the frame while artificial snow fell around them.
It was gimmicky.
It was also going to be enormous.
The tournament would interrupt the NHL season for nearly two weeks and send many of the league’s biggest stars to Finland during what was usually one of the few stretches players could expect to spend at home.
National federations would select twenty-three-man rosters, with the final lists due in early December.
Every country had already submitted a larger group of candidates.
Three Convoy players appeared almost certain to receive serious consideration.
Joona Salonen had grown up in Helsinki and emerged as one of Finland’s most productive young forwards before leaving Europe.
Viktor Sundberg had captained Sweden at two world championships and, at thirty-four, understood that another opportunity to play in a best-on-best tournament might never come.
Matvei had represented Russia internationally several times as a teenager, then at one world championship early in his NHL career, but had never played in an event featuring every country’s best available players.
Tessa opened a document and began listing possible stories.
Joona going home.
Viktor’s potential final international tournament.
Matvei’s return to representing Russia.
The league’s decision to hold a tournament in the middle of the season.
The risks for Halifax if three important players spent the break playing meaningful games across the Atlantic instead of recovering.
Her phone rang before she finished the list.
Elaine Mercer’s name appeared on the screen.
“You saw it?” Elaine asked when Tessa answered.
“I’m reading it now.”
“How many Convoy players have a chance?”
“Three obvious ones. Maybe four if Canada wants another right-shot defenseman, but I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Salonen?”
“Probably. Finland doesn’t have a lot of wingers with his skill, and it’s in Helsinki.”
“Belov?”
“He should be one of Russia’s goalies.”
“And Sundberg?”
Tessa glanced through the glass toward the ice below. Practice would begin in forty minutes, and several equipment staff members were already arranging pucks along the boards.
“He’s been on their national teams forever. I’d be surprised if he isn’t there.”
“Good.”
Tessa waited.
She had worked with Elaine long enough to recognize when the editor had reached the part of a conversation she considered most important.
“If two of them make it, we’re sending you,” Elaine said.
“To Helsinki?”
“That’s generally where people go when they cover an event in Helsinki.”
Tessa sat straighter. “You’re serious?”
“We’ll need daily coverage if we have multiple players there. Games, notebooks, features, whatever happens around the event. Corporate thinks it’ll perform.”
The last sentence sounded more like Elaine than the first several.
Tessa looked again at the press release. Photographs of Helsinki’s waterfront filled the media guide, the city bright beneath winter lights while snow covered the rooftops.
She had never covered an event outside North America.
She had never been to Finland.
“When would I leave?”
“The tournament starts on the twenty-fourth. Probably the twenty-first or twenty-second, depending on flights and access.”
Christmas Eve.
The date registered only after the professional excitement.
“What about the paper over the holiday?”
“You’ll be the paper over the holiday.”
Tessa smiled despite herself.
“I’ll start working on the candidates.”
“Good. Don’t turn every question into whether they’re going to make it. They’ll be sick of that by tomorrow.”
“I know.”
The call ended.
Tessa remained at her desk with the tournament announcement open in front of her.
Around the workroom, the other reporters had begun receiving similar calls.
Television producers discussed travel budgets.
Rick complained that his station would send him only if Canada reached the championship game, which would make getting there in time nearly impossible.
Linda was already looking through Sweden’s projected roster.
The door opened, and one of the Convoy’s communications staff stepped inside.
“I assume you all saw,” he said. “Mike and the players will take tournament questions after practice. Just remember nobody’s officially made anything yet.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” Rick said.
“It’s a request.”
Joona attempted to pretend the tournament did not matter more because it was being held in Helsinki.
He maintained the effort for nearly forty seconds.
“Any international tournament is special,” he said after practice, seated beneath the Finnish flag someone had left taped below his nameplate during training camp. “If they pick me, I am happy. But many good Finnish players.”
“Would it mean something different to play it in your hometown?” Tessa asked.
Joona’s expression changed before he could control it.
“Yes.”
The single word contained more than the polished answer that came after it.
“My family is there. Friends. The rink is not far from where I grow up. I go to games there when I am kid.”
“Did you ever imagine playing in that arena for Finland?”
“All Finnish kids imagine.”
His English had improved over the first month of the season, though excitement occasionally pushed him back toward simpler constructions.
He no longer looked toward Matvei whenever a question became complicated, but Tessa still saw him take an extra second before answering anything that could be interpreted several ways.
“Have you talked to your family since the announcement?” she asked.
“My mother send six messages.”
“What did they say?”
Joona smiled. “First she send link. Then another link. Then she ask if I know.”
“Did you?”
“No. I sleep.”
That drew laughter from the reporters around him.
Across the room, Viktor received the same questions with the patience of someone who had spent most of his career discussing international rosters.
“Of course I want to go,” he said. “You don’t get many opportunities to play against the best players from every country. At my age, you understand that more.”
“Do you think this could be your final chance?” Linda asked.
Viktor’s smile remained, though some of the ease disappeared from it.
“Probably.”
The room quieted slightly.
He had not announced plans to retire, and nobody expected the season to be his last. But international opportunities were less predictable.
Sweden had younger centers emerging, and the tournament would ask players to cross the Atlantic, play several high-intensity games and return immediately to an NHL schedule already wearing them down.
“I’m not saying it will be,” Viktor added. “But you can’t assume there’s always another one.”
Tessa wrote the sentence carefully.
Matvei waited until most of the other interviews ended before making himself available. By then, the initial crowd had thinned. Tessa stood near Linda while a television reporter asked whether he would accept a backup role if Russia selected another goaltender as its starter.
“I accept being on team,” Matvei said.
“But you would want to start.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think your play this season has made a strong enough case?”
Matvei looked toward the reporter’s camera.
“They choose.”
The answer ended that line of questioning.
Tessa waited until the television crew moved away.
The distance between her and Matvei had eased since their argument after the Montreal story, but it had not disappeared.
He answered her questions again, usually with more than one word.
Sometimes he looked at her the way he had before the headline, direct and attentive, as though he believed she might understand the answer.
Other times, he seemed to remember that understanding had not protected him.
On those days, his expression closed before she reached his stall.
Tessa had stopped trying to predict which version she would find.
She turned on her recorder.
“What would representing Russia in this kind of tournament mean to you?”
Matvei looked at her for a moment before answering.
“It is best players.”
“What changes when it’s best-on-best instead of a World Championship during the NHL playoffs?”
“Everyone comes.”
His gaze shifted briefly toward the recorder.