Chapter Eleven #2
“Usually, national team is who is available. This is different. No excuse.”
“For the players or the country?”
“Both.”
The answer was sharper than she expected.
“Have you thought about what it would be like to play Finland in Helsinki?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They will be loud.”
“You like that?”
“Better than quiet.”
Tessa thought of the Montreal game and the sound of Atlantic Centre after his first bad goal.
Matvei must have followed the same thought because his expression hardened slightly.
She did not ask the obvious follow-up.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded.
As she turned away, he spoke again.
“You go?”
Tessa looked back. “To Helsinki?”
“Yes.”
“If enough of you make it.”
Matvei glanced toward Joona and Viktor. “You will go.”
It sounded less like a prediction than a conclusion.
Tessa tucked her recorder into her pocket. “You all still have to make the teams.”
“We make.”
The confidence should have sounded arrogant.
Instead, it made her smile.
“Good to know.”
Matvei looked toward her mouth, then returned his attention to the tape around his wrist.
The moment disappeared before it became anything she needed to examine.
The Convoy left for western Canada near the end of November.
Four games in eight days.
Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.
The travel itinerary appeared in Tessa’s inbox several weeks earlier, though nothing on the page adequately conveyed what it meant to move through four cities, three time zones and the beginning of a Canadian winter while continuing to file stories as if her body knew where it was.
The team traveled by charter, leaving immediately after games and arriving in each city before most reporters finished their final updates.
Tessa traveled commercially with Linda, Rick and two television crews, which meant early flights, airport food and several hours spent hoping weather delays did not turn a morning skate into an event they covered through secondhand quotes.
The cold found them in Winnipeg.
Tessa stepped outside the airport and felt the air seize inside her lungs. Wind cut through the wool coat she had considered excessive when she packed it in Halifax, finding the small openings near her wrists and collar as though it had been waiting for them.
Linda stopped beside her with one hand gripping the handle of her suitcase.
“This is hostile.”
Rick pulled a knit hat lower over his ears. “It’s November.”
“That does not make it better.”
Their rideshare arrived after seven minutes that felt closer to thirty. By the time Tessa reached the hotel, the skin across her cheeks hurt and her fingers had become clumsy inside her gloves.
The next morning, the temperature had fallen farther.
Tessa walked the short distance from the media hotel to the arena with her scarf pulled over her mouth and her laptop bag pressed against her side.
Snow moved horizontally across the street, collecting along the edges of buildings and covering the footprints of anyone who had passed only minutes earlier.
The Convoy’s bus stopped near the players’ entrance as she approached.
Matvei stepped down wearing a team coat unzipped over a sweatshirt.
No hat.
No gloves.
He paused when he saw Tessa struggling with the arena door.
“You lose fight?” he asked.
She pulled the scarf below her mouth. “With the door?”
“With weather.”
“It’s negative twenty.”
“It is good.”
“You’re insane.”
Matvei looked toward the snow blowing across the parking area. The cold seemed to make him visibly happier. His shoulders had loosened, and color had risen across his face.
“This feels like home,” he said.
“Your home is trying to kill me.”
“You need better coat.”
“This is a good coat.”
He studied it. “No.”
Then he reached past her and pulled the heavy door open.
The gesture was practical. She had been fighting the wind and trying to swipe her credential at the same time. He would have done the same for anyone standing there.
Tessa thanked him anyway.
Matvei followed her inside, bringing a rush of cold air with him before the door closed.
“You like Halifax winter?” she asked as they walked down the corridor.
“Not winter.”
“It snows.”
“Sometimes.”
“It gets cold.”
Matvei gave her a look. “No.”
Tessa laughed.
The sound seemed to catch him off guard. He looked at her, and for several steps neither of them spoke.
Then a team employee called Matvei from farther down the corridor, and he continued toward the locker room without another word.
The exchange lasted less than a minute.
Tessa thought about it through most of morning skate.
That bothered her more than the cold.
The road trip became a series of arenas, hotel rooms and unfinished meals.
Halifax lost in Winnipeg after allowing two third-period goals, then won in Edmonton behind Cole. Tessa wrote both game stories from visiting press boxes while the team moved toward the next city.
The goaltending rotation had settled into something more predictable.
Matvei remained the starter, but McDonough gave Cole enough games to prevent the younger goaltender from becoming an emergency option waiting for Matvei to fail.
Cole’s success no longer produced immediate questions about whether the crease had changed hands.
Matvei’s strong play had quieted most of them.
He remained less open with Tessa than he had before Montreal. The difference was subtle enough that no one else appeared to notice. He answered her technical questions, occasionally added a useful detail and never treated her with the obvious hostility of their first meeting.
But the small moments beyond the recorder had disappeared.
He no longer commented when she arrived late to a scrum. He did not ask whether she would cover a particular game or story. If she turned off the recorder, the conversation ended with it.
Tessa respected the boundary.
She disliked how much she missed what had barely existed.
In Calgary, Russia announced the first sixteen players on its tournament roster.
The list appeared during the Convoy’s morning skate.
Tessa’s phone vibrated inside her coat pocket while Matvei worked through a post-to-post drill at the far end. She glanced at the screen, saw his name beneath the goaltenders and immediately looked toward the crease.
Matvei did not know yet.
Or, if he did, nothing in his movements revealed it.
He pushed across, stopped a shot against his pad and recovered for the rebound. Pat sent another puck toward the opposite post. Matvei reached it with the edge of his glove.
Only when the drill ended did a communications staffer approach him near the bench.
Matvei listened.
The staffer smiled and held out a hand.
Matvei shook it once.
His expression barely changed.
Joona skated past and struck the back of Matvei’s leg with his stick. Viktor followed, wrapping an arm briefly around the goaltender’s shoulders before Matvei pushed him away.
The rest of the team noticed.
Sticks tapped against the ice and boards in acknowledgment.
Matvei lowered his head.
Tessa watched his mouth move beneath the edge of his mask.
A smile.
Small, private and quickly gone.
The locker room scrum afterward was larger than anything he had faced since opening night.
“How did you find out?”
“After practice.”
“Who told you?”
“Team.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means I go.”
“Have you spoken to anyone from Russia’s staff?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before.”
“Did you know you were making the team?”
Matvei looked at the reporter. “They call before announcement.”
Several people laughed.
The questions continued until the group began running out of ways to ask about the same emotion.
Tessa remained near the edge.
When space opened, Matvei looked toward her before she stepped forward.
She turned on the recorder.
“You said when the tournament was announced that the difference would be that everyone comes. What does it mean to know you’ll be part of that now?”
Matvei rested his forearms against his knees.
“It is honor.”
The answer sounded rehearsed.
Tessa waited.
Matvei looked toward the floor.
“When I am young, I watch Russian teams and think those players are different from normal people,” he said. “Then I play NHL and some are teammates, some I play against. But national team is still different.”
“Does it feel different from making an NHL roster?”
“Yes.”
“In what way?”
He searched for the answer.
“With club, you choose one team. They draft, trade, sign. National team is where you are from.”
Tessa wrote the sentence down, then stopped.
Matvei’s eyes remained on her.
“That’s a good answer,” she said before she could prevent herself.
His expression changed.
“You surprised?”
“A little.”
Matvei leaned back. “Then do not use.”
“I’m definitely using it.”
“I give too much.”
“You gave exactly enough.”
Something almost familiar returned to his face, the dry amusement she had begun recognizing before Montreal.
Then another reporter approached.
Matvei’s expression closed, but not before Tessa saw the difference.
She thanked him and stepped away.
Later that afternoon, she filed a story about his selection.
Elaine changed none of the headline.
Finland announced its roster two days later in Vancouver.
Joona had spent the entire morning pretending not to check his phone.
The effort became less convincing every time the screen lit up near his stall.
“Your mother?” Viktor asked.
“No.”
“Federation?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
Joona looked offended. “No.”
Matvei glanced over while adjusting the tape on one stick. “Nobody text him.”
Joona picked up the phone. “Many people text.”
“Show.”
“No.”
“Then nobody.”
Joona muttered something in Finnish.
Matvei smiled.
Tessa watched the exchange from outside the room before media availability began.
The roster announcement had been scheduled for noon Pacific time, less than an hour after practice ended.
Finland planned to reveal each player through a series of social media posts, stretching what could have been a single graphic into nearly half an hour of suspense.
By the time the locker room opened, nine forwards had been announced.
Joona’s name was not among them.